Title: Internationalizing U.S. Capital Markets in Global Context: Problems and Prospects
Abstract: I. Introduction The capital markets of the United States play a central role in global corporate finance, but perhaps not primarily as a source of equity capital via the stock markets. The main importance of U.S. capital markets results from their ability (1) to provide liquidity to foreign investors, thus enabling investors to be confident that they can quickly dispose of their investments without having to search for purchasers, and (2) to function as a disciplinary mechanism that allocates capital to more efficient users, penalizes managements that fail to pursue shareholder (and other stakeholder) interests, and reduces the need for legal intervention.(1) Although considerable controversy remains as to how well the U.S. markets fulfill this role (particularly with respect to the disciplinary function), there is little argument that the global financial market -- and the myriad players in it -- depend upon the U.S. capital markets to continue DATfunction as a leading venue for transacting financial business.(2) The financial markets of the United States are vast and complex. In the narrow ambit of this paper and in keeping with the comparative goals of this conference, I shall focus almost exclusively on the securities markets aspects of finance. However, even after their rapid growth and diversification over the past decade and a half, securities markets remain only a part of a far larger enterprise. Indeed, the new securities vehicles have ironically encouraged parallel diversification elsewhere, such as in commercial banking and finance, and have compelled banks, commodities markets and other institutions to grow and to adapt in response. A number of important changes are currently transforming the U.S. financial markets, creating an integrated, almost seamless, global financial services market. Among these factors are: 1) increased volatility in the stock market, at least in part resulting from new portfolio trading strategies (program trading) and new opportunities for arbitrage between the securities markets and the emergent, and increasingly important, futures markets; 2) global competitive pressures and the gradual movement toward twenty-four-hour trading on multiple exchanges around the world; 3) the European Union's efforts to develop a single European financial services market by the target date for European integration at the end of 1992 -- a possible model for future Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) integration; and 4) a movement on the part of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) toward greater deregulation. All these interconnected factors are briefly reviewed below. Following that review is a more intensive analysis of U.S. law and practice with regard to foreign entry to, and listing on, U.S. securities markets. II. Financial Overview A. The One Market Concept The Brady Commission, appointed by President Reagan in the aftermath of the October 1987 U.S. stock market crash,(3) stressed in its early 1988 report the need to recognize that a variety of historically separate markets were in fact functionally interrelated: From an economic viewpoint, what have been traditionally seen as separate markets -- the markets for stock, stock index futures, and stock options -- are in fact one market. Under ordinary circumstances, these marketplaces move sympathetically, linked by financial instruments, trading strategies, market participants and clearing and credit mechanisms. …
Publication Year: 1997
Publication Date: 1997-03-22
Language: en
Type: article
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