The Rise of Emerging Markets’ Financial Market Architecture: Constituting New Roles in the Global Financial Governance

Abstract

This paper analyses the impact of the global financial crisis on Brazil, India and South Africa whose financial markets have shown strong resilience to the global financial turmoil. The paper shows, that in contrast to advanced countries in these emerging market economies there is contagion from the real sector through a slump in exports and a decline in industrial production. Although exposure to toxic assets has been very low, financial markets of the economies under consideration have come under pressure in the second half of 2008 resulting in steep stock market corrections, and a strong volatility of prices, in particular exchange rates. However, there was no bail-out of financial institutions and in 2009 financial markets of these countries strongly recovered. The paper identifies a combination of a reduction of foreign debt exposure, a macro-prudential approach in supervision and rule-based approach in regulation complemented by a variety of country-specific rules applied by these countries already before the crisis together with non-orthodox monetary and fiscal policy during the crisis as the main features of their success. The paper concludes that this achievement has already changed policy coordination between advanced countries and emerging markets and will continue to do so both in terms of voice and content.