A financial market is a market in which people trade financial securities and derivatives at low . Some of the securities include and bonds, raw materials and precious metals, which are known in the financial markets as commodity.
The term "market" is sometimes used for what are more strictly exchanges, that is, organizations that facilitate the trade in financial securities, e.g., a stock exchange or commodity exchange. This may be a physical location (such as the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE), London Stock Exchange (LSE), Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) or Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE Limited)) or an electronic system such as NASDAQ. Much trading of stocks takes place on an exchange; still, (mergers, spinoffs) are outside an exchange, while any two companies or people, for whatever reason, may agree to sell the stock from the one to the other without using an exchange.
Trading of currencies and Bond market is largely on a bilateral basis, although some bonds trade on a stock exchange, and people are building electronic systems for these as well.
Types of financial markets
Within the financial sector, the term "financial markets" is often used to refer just to the markets that are used to raise finances. For long term finance, they are usually called the
capital markets; for short term finance, they are usually called
money markets. The money market deals in short-term loans, generally for a period of a year or less. Another common use of the term is as a catchall for all the markets in the financial sector, as per examples in the breakdown below.
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, which consist of:
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, which provide financing through the issuance of shares or stock, and enable the subsequent trading thereof.
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, which provide financing through the issuance of bonds, and enable the subsequent trading thereof.
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, which facilitate trading in the primary economic sector rather than manufactured products. Soft commodities is a term generally referring to commodities that are grown rather than mined, such as crops (corn, wheat, soybean, fruit and vegetable), livestock, cocoa, coffee and sugar. Hard commodities is a term generally referring to commodities that are mined such as gold, gemstones and other metals and generally drilled such as oil and gas.
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, which provide short term debt financing and investment.
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Derivatives markets, which provide instruments for the management of Finance risk.
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Futures exchange, which provide standardized for trading products at some future date; see also forward market.
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Foreign exchange markets, which facilitate the trading of foreign exchange.
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Cryptocurrency markets, which facilitate the trading of digital assets and financial technologies.
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Spot market
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Interbank lending market
The
may also be divided into
and
. Newly formed (issued) securities are bought or sold in primary markets, such as during initial public offerings. Secondary markets allow investors to buy and sell existing securities. The transactions in primary markets exist between issuers and investors, while secondary market transactions exist among investors.
Market liquidity is a crucial aspect of securities that are traded in secondary markets. Liquidity refers to the ease with which a security can be sold without a loss of value. Securities with an active secondary market mean that there are many buyers and sellers at a given point in time. Investors benefit from liquid securities because they can sell their assets whenever they want; an illiquid security may force the seller to get rid of their asset at a large discount.
Raising capital
Financial markets attract funds from investors and channels them to corporations—they thus allow corporations to finance their operations and achieve growth. Money markets allow firms to borrow funds on a short-term basis, while capital markets allow corporations to gain long-term funding to support expansion (known as maturity transformation)
[ "Financial Markets - Overview, Types, and Functions"].
Without financial markets, borrowers would have difficulty finding lenders themselves. Intermediaries such as , Investment Banks, and Boutique Investment Banks can help in this process. Banks take deposits from those who have money to save on the form of savings a/c. They can then lend money from this pool of deposited money to those who seek to borrow. Banks popularly lend money in the form of and mortgage loan.
More complex transactions than a simple bank deposit require markets where lenders and their agents can meet borrowers and their agents, and where existing borrowing or lending commitments can be sold on to other parties. A good example of a financial market is a stock exchange. A company can raise money by selling shares to and its existing shares can be bought or sold.
The following table illustrates where financial markets fit in the relationship between lenders and borrowers:
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| Relationship between lenders and borrowers |
| Lenders | Financial Intermediaries | Financial Markets | Borrowers |
Individuals
Companies
Banks | Banks
Insurance Companies
Pension Funds
Mutual Funds
| Interbank
Stock Exchange
Money Market
Bond Market
Foreign Exchange | Individuals
Companies
Central Government
Municipalities
Public Corporations |
Lenders
The lender temporarily gives money to somebody else, on the condition of getting back the principal amount together with some interest or profit or charge.
Individuals and doubles
Many individuals are not aware that they are lenders, but almost everybody does lend money in many ways. A person lends money when he or she:
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Puts money in a savings account at a bank
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Contributes to a pension plan
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Pays premiums to an insurance company
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Invests in government bonds
Companies
Companies tend to be lenders of capital. When companies have surplus cash that is not needed for a short period of time, they may seek to make money from their cash surplus by lending it via short term markets called
. Alternatively, such companies may decide to return the cash surplus to their shareholders (e.g. via a
share repurchase or
dividend payment).
Banks
Bankers can be lenders themselves as they are able to
Money creation in the form of deposits.
Borrowers
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Individuals borrow money via bankers' for short term needs or longer term mortgages to help finance a house purchase.
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Companies borrow money to aid short term or long term . They also borrow to fund modernization or future business expansion. It is common for companies to use mixed packages of different types of funding for different purposes – especially where large complex projects such as company management buyouts are concerned.
[ The Business Finance Market: A Survey ISR/Google Books, 2013.]
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often find their spending requirements exceed their . To make up this difference, they need to borrow. Governments also borrow on behalf of nationalized industries, municipalities, local authorities and other public sector bodies. In the UK, the total borrowing requirement is often referred to as the Public sector net cash requirement (PSNCR).
Governments borrow by issuing Government bond. In the UK, the government also borrows from individuals by offering bank accounts and . Government debt seems to be permanent. Indeed, the debt seemingly expands rather than being paid off. One strategy used by governments to reduce the value of the debt is to influence inflation.
Municipality and Local government may borrow in their own name as well as receiving funding from national governments. In the UK, this would cover an authority like Hampshire County Council.
Public Corporations typically include Nationalization industries. These may include the postal services, railway companies and utility companies.
Many borrowers have difficulty raising money locally. They need to borrow internationally with the aid of Foreign exchange markets.
Borrowers having similar needs can form into a group of borrowers. They can also take an organizational form like Mutual Funds. They can provide mortgage on weight basis. The main advantage is that this lowers the cost of their borrowings.
Derivative products
During the 1980s and 1990s, a major growth sector in financial markets was the trade in so called
derivatives.
In the financial markets, stock prices, share prices, bond prices, currency rates, interest rates and dividends go up and down, creating risk. Derivative products are financial products that are used to control risk or paradoxically exploit risk.[Robert E. Wright and Vincenzo Quadrini. Money and Banking: "Chapter 2, Section 4: Financial Markets." pp. 3 [2] Accessed June 20, 2012] It is also called financial economics.
Derivative products or instruments help the issuers to gain an unusual profit from issuing the instruments. For using the help of these products a contract has to be made. Derivative contracts are mainly four types:
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Futures contract
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Forward contract
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Option
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Swap
Over the past few decades, the derivatives market has increased and become essential to the financial industry. As the market expands, establishing and improving the regulatory framework becomes particularly critical. In response to the systemic risks exposed by the global economic crisis in 2008, essential regulations such as the Dodd-Frank Act (US)
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The Dodd-Frank Act focuses on increasing transparency and regulating the derivatives market, particularly over-the-counter derivatives transactions, requiring clearing through central counterparties.
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MiFID II enhances the market's efficiency, transparency, and fairness, improving transaction transparency and strengthening investor protection.
These regulations have significantly changed the market structure and strengthened supervision and risk management of the derivatives market. Although regulatory measures have enhanced market stability, they have also had a broad impact on market participants' operating models and strategies.
Seemingly, the most obvious buyers and sellers of currency are importers and exporters of goods. While this may have been true in the distant past, when international trade created the demand for currency markets, importers and exporters now represent only 1/32 of foreign exchange dealing, according to the Bank for International Settlements.[Steven Valdez, An Introduction To Global Financial Markets]
The picture of foreign currency transactions today shows:
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Banks/Institutions
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Speculators
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Government spending (for example, military bases abroad)
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Importers/Exporters
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Tourists
Analysis of financial markets
- See Statistical analysis of financial markets, statistical finance
Much effort has gone into the study of financial markets and how prices vary with time. Charles Dow, one of the founders of Dow Jones & Company and The Wall Street Journal, enunciated a set of ideas on the subject which are now called Dow theory. This is the basis of the so-called technical analysis method of attempting to predict future changes. One of the tenets of "technical analysis" is that give an indication of the future, at least in the short term. The claims of the technical analysts are disputed by many academics, who claim that the evidence points rather to the random walk hypothesis, which states that the next change is not correlated to the last change. The role of human psychology in price variations also plays a significant factor. Large amounts of volatility often indicate the presence of strong emotional factors playing into the price. Fear can cause excessive drops in price and greed can create bubbles. In recent years the rise of algorithmic and high-frequency program trading has seen the adoption of momentum, ultra-short term moving average and other similar strategies which are based on technical as opposed to fundamental or theoretical concepts of market behaviour. For instance, according to a study published by the European Central Bank,
The scale of changes in price over some unit of time is called the volatility.
It was discovered by Benoit Mandelbrot that changes in prices do not follow a normal distribution, but are rather modeled better by Levy function. The scale of change, or volatility, depends on the length of the time unit to a power law a bit more than 1/2. Large changes up or down are more likely than what one would calculate using a normal distribution with an estimated standard deviation.
Financial market slang
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Poison pill, when a company issues more shares to prevent being bought out by another company, thereby increasing the number of outstanding shares to be bought by the hostile company making the bid to establish majority.
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Bips, meaning "bps" or . A basis point is a financial unit of measurement used to describe the magnitude of percent change in a variable. One basis point is the equivalent of one hundredth of a percent. For example, if a stock price were to rise 100bit/s, it means it would increase 1%.
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Quant, a quantitative analyst with advanced training in mathematics and statistics methods.
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Rocket scientist, a financial consultant at the zenith of mathematical and computer programming skill. They are able to invent derivatives of high complexity and construct sophisticated pricing models. They generally handle the most advanced computing techniques adopted by the financial markets since the early 1980s. Typically, they are physicists and engineers by training.
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IPO, stands for initial public offering, which is the process a new private company goes through to "go public" or become a publicly traded company on some index.
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White Knight, a friendly party in a takeover bid. Used to describe a party that buys the shares of one organization to help prevent against a hostile takeover of that organization by another party.
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Round-tripping
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Structuring, a deliberate structuring of payments or transactions to conceal it from regulators or other parties, a type of money laundering that is often illegal.
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Bid–ask spread, the difference between the highest bid and the lowest offer.
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Pip, smallest price move that a given exchange rate makes based on market convention.
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Pegging, when a country wants to obtain price stability, it can use pegging to fix their exchange rate relative to another currency.
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Bearish, this phrase is used to refer to the fact that the market has a downward trend.
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Bullish, this term is used to refer to the fact that the market has an upward trend.
Functions of financial markets
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Intermediary functions: The intermediary functions of financial markets include the following:
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Transfer of resources: Financial markets facilitate the transfer of real economic resources from lenders to ultimate borrowers.
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Enhancing income: Financial markets allow lenders to earn interest or dividend on their surplus invisible funds, thus contributing to the enhancement of the individual and the national income.
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Productive usage: Financial markets allow for the productive use of the funds borrowed. The enhancing the income and the gross national production.
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Capital formation: Financial markets provide a channel through which new savings flow to aid capital formation of a country.
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Price determination: Financial markets allow for the determination of price of the traded financial assets through the interaction of buyers and sellers. They provide a sign for the allocation of funds in the economy based on the demand and to the supply through the mechanism called price discovery process.
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Sale mechanism: Financial markets provide a mechanism for selling of a financial asset by an investor so as to offer the benefit of marketability and liquidity of such assets.
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Information: The activities of the participants in the financial market result in the generation and the consequent dissemination of information to the various segments of the market. So as to reduce the cost of transaction of financial assets.
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Financial Functions
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Providing the borrower with funds so as to enable them to carry out their investment plans.
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Providing the lenders with earning assets so as to enable them to earn wealth by deploying the assets in production debentures.
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Providing liquidity in the market so as to facilitate trading of funds.
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Providing liquidity to commercial bank
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Facilitating credit creation
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Promoting savings
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Promoting investment
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Facilitating balanced economic growth
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Improving trading floors
Components of financial market
Based on market levels
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Primary market: A primary market is a market for new issues or new financial claims. Therefore, it is also called new issue market. The primary market deals with those securities which are issued to the public for the first time.
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Secondary market: A market for secondary sale of securities. In other words, securities which have already passed through the new issue market are traded in this market. Generally, such securities are quoted in the stock exchange and it provides a continuous and regular market for buying and selling of securities.
Simply put, primary market is the market where the newly started company issued shares to the public for the first time through IPO (initial public offering). Secondary market is the market where the second hand securities are sold (security Commodity Markets).
Based on security types
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Money market: Money market is a market for dealing with the financial assets and securities which have a maturity period of up to one year. In other words, it is a market for purely short-term funds.
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Capital market: A capital market is a market for financial assets that have a long or indefinite maturity. Generally, it deals with long-term securities that have a maturity period of above one year. The capital market may be further divided into (a) industrial securities market (b) Govt. securities market and (c) long-term loans market.
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Equity markets: A market where ownership of securities are issued and subscribed is known as equity market. An example of a secondary equity market for shares is the New York (NYSE) stock exchange.
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Debt market: The market where funds are borrowed and lent is known as debt market. Arrangements are made in such a way that the borrowers agree to pay the lender the original amount of the loan plus some specified amount of interest.
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Derivative markets: A market where financial instruments are derived and traded based on an underlying asset such as commodities or stocks.
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Financial service market: A market that comprises participants such as commercial banks that provide various financial services like ATM. Credit cards. Credit rating, stock broking etc. is known as financial service market. Individuals and firms use financial services markets, to purchase services that enhance the workings of debt and equity markets.
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Depository markets: A depository market consists of depository institutions (such as banks) that accept deposits from individuals and firms and uses these funds to participate in the debt market, by giving loans or purchasing other debt instruments such as treasury bills.
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Non-depository market: Non-depository market carry out various functions in financial markets ranging from financial intermediary to selling, insurance etc. The various constituencies in non-depositary markets are mutual funds, insurance companies, pension funds, brokerage firms etc.
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Relation between Bonds and Commodity Prices: With the increase in commodity prices, the cost of goods for companies increases. This increase in commodity prices level causes a rise in inflation.
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Relation between Commodities and Equities: Due to the production cost remaining same, and revenues rising (due to high commodity prices), the operating profit (revenue minus cost) increases, which in turn drives up equity prices.
See also
Sources
Further reading
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Rich Dad Poor Dad: What the Rich Teach Their Kids About Money That the Poor and Middle Class Do Not!, by Robert Kiyosaki and Sharon Lechter. Warner Business Books, 2000.
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Mccarty, Nolan. "Trends in Financial Market Regulation." After the Crash: Financial Crises and Regulatory Responses, edited by Sharyn O’Halloran and Thomas Groll, Columbia University Press, 2019, pp. 121–24, .
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GROLL, THOMAS, et al. "TRENDS AND DELEGATION IN U. S. FINANCIAL MARKET REGULATION." After the Crash: Financial Crises and Regulatory Responses, edited by Thomas Groll and Sharyn O’Halloran, Columbia University Press, 2019, pp. 57–81, .
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Polillo, Simone. "COLLABORATIONS AND MARKET EFFICIENCY: The Network of Financial Economics." The Ascent of Market Efficiency: Finance That Cannot Be Proven, Cornell University Press, 2020, pp. 60–89, .
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Abolafia, Mitchel Y. "A Learning Moment?: January 2008." Stewards of the Market: How the Federal Reserve Made Sense of the Financial Crisis, Harvard University Press, 2020, pp. 49–70, .
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MacKenzie, Donald. "Dealers, Clients, and the Politics of Market Structure." Trading at the Speed of Light: How Ultrafast Algorithms Are Transforming Financial Markets, Princeton University Press, 2021, pp. 105–34, .
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Polillo, Simone. "HOW FINANCIAL ECONOMICS GOT ITS SCIENCE." The Ascent of Market Efficiency: Finance That Cannot Be Proven, Cornell University Press, 2020, pp. 119–42, .
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Williams, John C. "The Rediscovery of Financial Market Imperfections." Toward a Just Society: Joseph Stiglitz and Twenty-First Century Economics, edited by Martin Guzman, Columbia University Press, 2018, pp. 201–06, .
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QUIGGIN, JOHN. "Market Failure: Information, Uncertainty, and Financial Markets." Economics in Two Lessons: Why Markets Work So Well, and Why They Can Fail So Badly, Princeton University Press, 2019, pp. 214–36, .
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BAKLANOVA, VIKTORIA, and JOSEPH TANEGA. "MONEY MARKET FUNDS AFTER THE ONSET OF THE CRISIS." After the Crash: Financial Crises and Regulatory Responses, edited by Sharyn O’Halloran and Thomas Groll, Columbia University Press, 2019, pp. 341–59, .
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CEBALLOS, FRANCISCO, et al. "Financial Globalization in Emerging Countries: Diversification versus Offshoring." New Paradigms for Financial Regulation: Emerging Market Perspectives, edited by MASAHIRO KAWAI and ESWAR S. PRASAD, Brookings Institution Press, 2013, pp. 110–36, .
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LiPuma, Edward. "Social Theory and the Market for the Production of Financial Knowledge." The Social Life of Financial Derivatives: Markets, Risk, and Time, Duke University Press, 2017, pp. 81–115, .
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Scott, Hal S. "Liability Connectedness: Money Market Funds and Tri-Party Repo Market." Connectedness and Contagion: Protecting the Financial System from Panics, The MIT Press, 2016, pp. 53–58, .
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Sornette, Didier. "MODELING FINANCIAL BUBBLES AND MARKET CRASHES." Why Stock Markets Crash: Critical Events in Complex Financial Systems, REV-Revised, Princeton University Press, 2017, pp. 134–70, .
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Morse, Julia C. "A PRIMER ON INTERNATIONAL FINANCIAL STANDARDS ON ILLICIT FINANCING." The Bankers' Blacklist: Unofficial Market Enforcement and the Global Fight against Illicit Financing, Cornell University Press, 2021, pp. 19–29, .
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External links
