The new age of financial markets and their globalisation
The globalisation of financial markets has been based on several factors that have enabled their integration. Two of them are financial deregulation and free movement of capital. Especially relevant to this change has been technological progress regarding the connection between markets. This has encouraged and standardised systems for settling and compensating transactions, speeded up trading with integrated services from different markets, and improved the risk-benefit ratio for investors.
As a result of such big change in the economic environment as well as the financial system and its communication patterns, new innovative financial products have been developed. Their aim is to provide protection from growing volatility and increased risk in all financial transactions.
The negative side of globalisation and the high interconnection between markets is the contagion effect of financial crises. The most recent example is the sub-prime crisis that sparked off in the United States in 2007. This caused a drop in liquidity on the global credit market, which in turn affected the economy of several countries, and showed the weakness of the global financial system and its regulatory framework.
ODS
Elisabet Ruiz DotrasProfessor Ruiz Dotras holds a doctoral degree in Economics and Business Sciences from the University of Barcelona, and a bachelor degree in Business Administration from the Pompeu Fabra University. She is an Associate Professor at the Economics and Business Sciences Department within Universitat Oberta de Catalunya (UOC), where she teaches courses in finance, and financial markets, and is the director of the Master’s Programme in Financial Tools and Markets. Over the last years, she has combined her teaching and research activities with the academic direction of several programmes, and the consulting in financial asset assessment.
Dr. Ruiz Dotras’s research interests are related to globalisation of financial markets, interest rates, and finance and e-learning. She has participated in a number of research national projects, has designed and created courses in financial markets, and is the author of several materials, and articles within the field of finance.
She is a member of the UOC’s Observatory of New Economy (ONE), and Management & E-Learning (MEL) research groups.
