Global Capital Markets: Integration, Crisis, and Growth

This book presents an economic survey of international capital mobility since the late nineteenth century. Governments face a fundamental macroeconomic policy trilemma which forces them to trade off among their conflicting goals, with natural implications for capital mobility. The present era of globalization can be seen, in part, as the resumption of a liberal world order established in the years from 1880-1914. The Great Depression emerges as the key turning point in the recent history of international capital markets and offers important insights for contemporary policy debates. More than in the past, foreign investment flows largely from rich countries to other rich countries. Yet the burden of financial crises falls most harshly on developing countries, with costs for everyone. Book jacket.

Maurice Obstfeld is the Class of 1958 Professor of Economics at the University of California, Berkeley Alan M. Taylor is Professor of Economics at the University of California, Davis