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Financial Instability Essay

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Financial Instability

The soaring volume of international finance and increased interdependence in recent decades has increased concerns about volatility and threats of a financial crisis. This has led many to investigate and analyze the origins, transmission, effects and policies aimed to impede financial instability. This paper argues that financial liberalization and speculation are the most reflective explanations for instability in financial markets and that financial instability is likely to be transmitted globally with far reaching implications on real sector performance. I conclude the paper with the argument that a global transaction tax would be the most effective policy to curb financial instability and that …show more content…

As investors foresee this happening they will likely pull out before the perceived depreciation. “Efforts to get out would accelerate the loss of reserves, provoking an earlier collapse, speculators would therefore try to get out still earlier, and so on” (Krugman,
1991:93). This “herding” or “bandwagon” effect naturally cause wild swings in exchange rates and volatility in markets. Another argument for the evolution of financial market instability is closely related to hegemonic stability theory. This political explanation predicts a circumstance (i.e. a decline of a hegemon's status) in which a loss of confidence in a particular countries currency may lead to capital flight away from that currency. This flight in turn not only depreciates the currency of the former hegemon but more importantly undermines its role as the international financial anchor and is said to ultimately lead to instability. The trigger point phenomena may also be used as an instrument to explain financial instability. Similar to the speculative cycles described above, this refers to a situation where a group of investors commits to buy or sell a currency when that currency reaches a certain price level. If that particular currency were to rise or fall to that specified level, whether by real or speculative reasons, the precommited investors buy or sell that currency or
assets.

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