East Asian Finance: The Road to Robust Markets

Well-functioning financial markets are critical for supporting East Asia's ambitious growth and development agenda. Over the coming years, East Asia's financial sector will need to be highly diversified to meet the needs of increasingly complex and sophisticated economies. It will need to provide financial services efficiently, and it will need to be robust to withstand potential shocks in a fast-changing, globalizing world economy. Since the 1997 finanical crisis, East Asian economies have made significant progess in strengthening and diversifying their financial markets. But sizable challenges remain in the main segments of the financial sector: banking, equity, and bond markets. 'East Asian Finance' provides a comprehensive overview of the financial markets in the East Asia region. It undertakes a systematic analysis of each of the financial segments in terms of access, efficiency, and stability, and discusses the remaining challenges and policy priorities. It argues that the East Asian economies need to focus on further developing the securities markets. In particular, given the depth of the financial sector overall, economies in East Asia lag behind in the relative importance of the bond market. The text discusses the critical policy agenda to further develop these markets, both at the regional and domestic levels. The book will be useful for policy makers, market participants, and development practitioners, as well as for researchers and students. The book includes a CD ROM containing a volume of "Selected Issues" undertaken by partner institutions in the region and edited by I. Dalla, and new financial sector indicators developed by the World Bank.