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One of the highly debatable issues in the arena of international economics in recent years is whether a country should go for full capital account convertibility. In terms of the timing and process of capital account liberalization, India and China have been remarkably similar. Both started with a more or less closed capital account in the 1970s and the 1980s, in the context of a heavily state-influenced, planned economy. And in both countries, the first wave of liberalization came in the early 1990s and thus, the journey began. The objective of this chapter is to provide a critical analysis of both India and China's approach to the capital account liberalization program in the backdrop of the recent financial crises and to give an account of the theoretical issues that have arisen in international discussions on CAC and India's standpoint on this issue in particular. Second, how far is the capital account liberalization justified in the context of the recent episodes of financial crises that India and China have witnessed? Using a macroempiric model, this chapter tries to answer whether every member country in the IMF should hurriedly go for CAC or not. In addition, empirically through FMOLS, the authors pool in the “Rupee Convertibility” and “Renminbi Internationalization” along with exchange rate variation and its implications for India's and China's BoP situation (in terms of the export–import position and FDI flows) based on data from 1992 to 2017. ^{1 , 2}

The purpose of the paper is to review the issues involved in determining the appropriate speed of adjustment and the sequencing of economic reforms, and to develop a checklist of key guidelines for policymakers as a basis for their decision‐making process.

The paper develops a conceptual framework based on a survey of the theoretical and empirical literature, and the practical experience of the authors in this area.

The analysis in the paper shows that the optimal speed and sequence of reforms is country‐specific. But key policy considerations can help guide policymakers in the design of their reform strategy.

The arguments favoring a shock approach or a gradual approach are not absolute. Each country has to choose the proper speed of adjustment and sequencing of reforms by examining country‐specific factors. A thorough case‐by‐case analysis is needed before a decision on the appropriate timing and sequencing of reforms can be made.

The analysis in the paper leads to key reform guidelines for policymakers – covering areas such as prerequisites and resource constraints, political economy considerations, credibility and sustainability of reforms – that are instrumental in developing a well‐sequenced strategy.

Aim of the present monograph is the economic analysis of the role of MNEs regarding globalisation and digital economy and in parallel there is a reference and examination of some legal aspects concerning MNEs, cyberspace and e‐commerce as the means of expression of the digital economy. The whole effort of the author is focused on the examination of various aspects of MNEs and their impact upon globalisation and vice versa and how and if we are moving towards a global digital economy.

The purpose of this paper is to ascertain whether countries benefit from capital account liberalization in more democratic contexts.

The authors used the follow methodologies in this paper: Pooled OLS, panel data with fixed effects and generalized method of moments. The empirical exercises were conducted for both a large sample and a smaller group of developing countries. Given the characteristics of the variables used in the standard model, the main conclusions were obtained from an estimation that took into account the presence of fixed effects and endogeneity.

Considering a sample of 77 countries, the authors were able to ascertain that capital account openness has a positive effect on economic growth only in highly democratic countries. When the same estimates are carried out with a more restricted sample, composed of 50 developing countries, the results are more pessimistic. In this case, capital account openness has a negative and significant effect, although being more democratic is not sufficient in itself to reap the benefits of financial integration.

The results obtained in this paper are limited to the number of observations and the period analysed. Furthermore, the conclusions need to be confirmed by a test of robustness, which should be conducted in future works; such works could make use of other democracy indicators and other instruments.

The innovation of the work, in comparison to those the authors consulted, resides in its testing, through an interactive variable, whether the effect of capital openness on economic growth depends on level of democracy.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the impact of liberalisations policies on income inequality in African countries. Examining whether the liberalisations policies have affected the income distribution of everyone equally or they only assist those who are already relatively well off; leaving the poor behind. The authors also examine how they affect income distribution in the various countries within the continent, and their effect on short and long runs?

First, The authors used the before and after comparison, to examine the response of the level of income inequality and the volatility of income inequality from the time that financial or trade liberalisations took place in each country. Next, the authors used the panel data techniques model for a sample of 26 African countries spanning the period 1996-2010 to investigate the effect of liberalisation policies on income distribution.

The authors find that financial liberalisation has a levitated income-redistributive effect with the magnitude of the de jure measure (KAOPEN) higher than that of the de facto measure (FDI); that exports, trade and “freedom to trade” have an equality incidence on income distribution; and that institutional and/or political liberalisation has a negative impact and; economic freedom has a negative income-redistributive effect, possibly because of the weight of its legal component.

In general, this study provides a variegated picture, findings tend to suggest that overall the reforms have increased income inequality in African countries. It would be risky to prescribe a general policy because of the diversity of the country. However, African countries’ better performance can be attributed to a combination of policies. For example avoiding the Marco price mixture of real exchange rate appreciation and high domestic interest rates; having capital controls and prudential financial regulations which would enable them to contain the negative consequence of capital flows; putting a system in place to direct export between African countries and encouraging sub regional integration agreement. The government should put in place countervailing social policies in order to withstand social coherence and smooth the adverse transition of liberalisation policies.

Three main elements of originality clearly standout: first, the estimation approach used in the paper considers both short- and long-run effects of in empirical strategy; second, an exhaustive plethora of liberalisation policies (trade, financial, political and institutional are considered); and third, recent data are used to appraise second generation reforms for more updated policy implications.

Purpose – Examine the role of institutional investors in accelerating the development of capital markets and economies abroad, the determinants of their investment, both in the domestic and foreign markets, and their importance in promoting good corporate governance practices worldwide and facilitating increased financial integration.

Methodology/approach – Review and synthesize recent academic literature (1970–2011) on the process of international financial integration and the role of foreign institutional investors in the increasingly global financial markets.

Findings – Despite the concern that short-term flow of international capital can be destructive to the emerging and developing market economies, academic evidence on a destabilizing effect of foreign investment activity is limited. Institutional investors’ systematic preference for stocks of large, well-known, globally visible foreign firms can explain the presence of a home bias in international portfolio investment.

Research limitations – Given the breadth of the two literature streams, only representative studies (over 45 published works) are summarized.

Social implications – Regulators of emerging markets should first improve domestic institutions, governance, and macroeconomic fundamentals, and then deregulate domestic financial and capital markets to avoid economic and financial crises in the initial stages of liberalization reforms.

Originality/value of paper – A useful source of information for graduate students, academics, and practitioners on the importance of foreign institutional investors.

The objective of this paper is to provide a macroeconomic assessment of the impact of global financial integration over the economies that are undergoing financial integration.

The paper focuses on several issues. It begins with examining the evidence whether financial globalization elevates growth performance of the integrating economy and supports it macroeconomic stability. It takes a nuanced view and divides the impact of financial integration into direct and indirect benefits. Second, it scrutinizes whether there are some threshold conditions, that is, in their presence and with their support, financial globalization underpins growth and stability of the capital importing economy and in their absence it cannot. Third, it delves into the oft‐cited allegation of financial globalization being a source of macroeconomic volatility and eventually financial crises. Fourth, as the evidence that emerged regarding ability of financial globalization to underpin growth was unambiguous. Policy mandarins' options are examined.

The paper finds that from a theoretical perspective, it is easy to state that integration of financial markets an potentially faster growth. Whether it happens in reality is a different matter.

The paper explores a new theme. While there are many relevant themes in financial globalization, the author has not seen any article on this theme and this paper may well be the first.

This paper aims to test the effects of financial reforms on the structural stability of the parameter estimates in the determinants of capital structure.

A panel of 100 non‐financial companies listed on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange is constructed, and a panel least squares estimation technique is used to test for lagged, current and leading structural breaks in the firm specific determinants of leverage.

The results show that structural reforms have a significant role in influencing the empirical relationship between leverage and its determinants. Specifically, the lifting of international sanctions and stock market liberalisation have a significant impact on the stability of the profitability, growth and tax rate variables for the book and market values of the debt to equity ratio. Furthermore, when the total and short term debt ratios are considered, only stock market liberalisation appears to have a significant influence on the stability of the profitability parameter.

This paper adds to the existing body of literature on capital structure by documenting the extent of structural breaks in the parameter estimates of the relationship between leverage and firm specific determinants of capital structure for listed non‐financial firms in South Africa.

Financial liberalization is assumed to be the integration of a country's local financial system with international financial markets and institutions. This integration usually requires that governments liberalize the domestic financial sector and the capital account. Financial sectors were liberalized in most of the developing countries in Asia, Africa, and Latin America within the early 1990s. Among these countries, emerging economies are those who promise huge potential for growth but also pose significant political, monetary, and social risks. Brazil and India are often compared among the major emerging economies. Despite these general similarities between them, there are notable differences in various aspects of opening the balance of payments capital account in both countries. In this chapter, we have tried to analyze the long-run as well as short-run relationship between quarterly growth rate of GDP with the stock market, real market, and money market macroeconomic variables in India and Brazil during the period from the first quarter of 1996–1997 to the second quarter of 2018–2019. To estimate the cointegration relationship between growth rate of GDP and its determinants, we employ the bounds testing procedure (modified-ARDL) developed by Pesaran, Shin, and Smith (2001, Journal of Applied Econometrics, 16(3), 289–326). According to our results, stock market plays a positive role in long-term growth in India. Although during the beginning period of the neoliberal reforms, India faced strong domestic political opposition, our study shows that liberalizing the financial market has been fruitful for long-term growth. Our results in case of Brazil show that inflation has a negative and significant impact on long-run growth rate of GDP. The results further show that the share of gross fixed capital formation in GDP in Brazil has a positive and significant long-run relation with the growth rate of GDP. The empirical results further indicate that just like India, liberalization of the financial market and allowing foreign capital inflows have been beneficial for the economy of Brazil in the long run.