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International Finance

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Abstract

A particularly negative perceived side of globalization is associated with the idea of financial jugglers on Wall Street and elsewhere, who at the push of a button and in seconds move huge financial flows across the globe, thereby enriching themselves excessively, potentially destabilizing companies and countries and plunging people into misery everywhere. In fact, every day unimaginably large values of shares, bonds, credit contracts and -certificates as well as currencies are traded on the global financial markets, which far exceed all other global economic transfers in value. To this development have contributed the worldwide liberalization of capital flows, the growth of internationally operating banks and other financial institutions, the development of new, highly complex financial instruments and of course the worldwide networking of financial actors with always fast-working IT infrastructure.

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