Financial Services, Globalization and Domestic Policy Change

Q4 Social Sciences
E. Miller
{"title":"Financial Services, Globalization and Domestic Policy Change","authors":"E. Miller","doi":"10.5860/choice.34-2268","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"Financial Services, Globalization and Domestic Policy Change William D. Coleman St. Martin's Press, New York, 1996. Financial markets are going global. Policy makers are struggling to adjust. This book, by a Canadian political scientist, exams the policy response in five countries, the U.S., Canada, the UK, France, and Germany. As one might expect from a political scientist the emphasis is on how countries reach their decision on how to respond as much as on how countries actually responded. The emphasis is on two industries, loan making and security trading, which at the start of the period discussed, the 1960's were generally viewed as separate industries, with separate firms in each (except in Germany). In many countries, the business of making loans was divided among different types of firms, with firms called banks specializing in loans to business firms, and other firms (saving and loans, building societies) specializing in residential lending, and a variety of other intermediaries meeting the needs of the lower income populations, the rural population, or small businesses. In most countries there was a breakdown in the barriers between these separate segments, and a move towards permitting banking firms to engage in any type of financing, including selling securities. This is referred to as universal banking. Much of this movement was driven by the concern that if domestic firms did not expand and internationalize, some of the business would be lost to more flexible foreign firms. In security markets, the pressure was to lower the prices to users of the services and make the services more efficient. While in the U.S., the pressure for this seems to have been directed towards benefiting the consumers of financial services (here especially the institutional investors), in other countries the move seems to have been driven by a fear that the business would go abroad unless the domestic markets were highly efficient and provided services at a low price. While the focus of the book is on the process by which change occurs, it may be most interesting for the readers of this journal to point out how large the changes are that various countries have undergone. For instance, France started the period in the sixties with a highly fragmented system with commercial banks, merchant banks, savings banks, and financial cooperative all operating under different rules, with special institutions handling lending to agriculture, to artisans, and to local governments. Only 15% of the financial needs of the economy came through security markets. The government owned the major banks and in addition had a highly intricate system of credit controls and allocation, with 70 different interest rate regimes covering 44% of lending. A traditional career path had top graduates from the Ecole Nationale de Administration move to the Grand Corps of the Inspection general des finances and from there to the Ministry of Finance. After a rapid rise through the ranks they were placed as senior executives in the nationalized banks. The whole system gave the government considerable power over how credit was allocated in the economy. It also permitted the control of the volume of credit by direct means, rather than through indirect means used elsewhere. There was a monopoly on negotiating securities transactions held by stock exchange brokers (agents de change) with fixed commissions and low capitalizations. The individuals recognized as security brokers had their status changed to companies. They were permitted to expand into managing portfolios and to raise capital by selling stock to other financial firms. By the end of 1990, 80% of the firms had been purchased by banks, while insurance companies took over others. Few remained independent. France moved much more in the direction of the universal banking model in which banks participated in all aspects of the financing process, including selling securities. …","PeriodicalId":52486,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Social, Political, and Economic Studies","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0000,"publicationDate":"1999-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"50","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Journal of Social, Political, and Economic Studies","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.5860/choice.34-2268","RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":null,"ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q4","JCRName":"Social Sciences","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 50

Abstract

Financial Services, Globalization and Domestic Policy Change William D. Coleman St. Martin's Press, New York, 1996. Financial markets are going global. Policy makers are struggling to adjust. This book, by a Canadian political scientist, exams the policy response in five countries, the U.S., Canada, the UK, France, and Germany. As one might expect from a political scientist the emphasis is on how countries reach their decision on how to respond as much as on how countries actually responded. The emphasis is on two industries, loan making and security trading, which at the start of the period discussed, the 1960's were generally viewed as separate industries, with separate firms in each (except in Germany). In many countries, the business of making loans was divided among different types of firms, with firms called banks specializing in loans to business firms, and other firms (saving and loans, building societies) specializing in residential lending, and a variety of other intermediaries meeting the needs of the lower income populations, the rural population, or small businesses. In most countries there was a breakdown in the barriers between these separate segments, and a move towards permitting banking firms to engage in any type of financing, including selling securities. This is referred to as universal banking. Much of this movement was driven by the concern that if domestic firms did not expand and internationalize, some of the business would be lost to more flexible foreign firms. In security markets, the pressure was to lower the prices to users of the services and make the services more efficient. While in the U.S., the pressure for this seems to have been directed towards benefiting the consumers of financial services (here especially the institutional investors), in other countries the move seems to have been driven by a fear that the business would go abroad unless the domestic markets were highly efficient and provided services at a low price. While the focus of the book is on the process by which change occurs, it may be most interesting for the readers of this journal to point out how large the changes are that various countries have undergone. For instance, France started the period in the sixties with a highly fragmented system with commercial banks, merchant banks, savings banks, and financial cooperative all operating under different rules, with special institutions handling lending to agriculture, to artisans, and to local governments. Only 15% of the financial needs of the economy came through security markets. The government owned the major banks and in addition had a highly intricate system of credit controls and allocation, with 70 different interest rate regimes covering 44% of lending. A traditional career path had top graduates from the Ecole Nationale de Administration move to the Grand Corps of the Inspection general des finances and from there to the Ministry of Finance. After a rapid rise through the ranks they were placed as senior executives in the nationalized banks. The whole system gave the government considerable power over how credit was allocated in the economy. It also permitted the control of the volume of credit by direct means, rather than through indirect means used elsewhere. There was a monopoly on negotiating securities transactions held by stock exchange brokers (agents de change) with fixed commissions and low capitalizations. The individuals recognized as security brokers had their status changed to companies. They were permitted to expand into managing portfolios and to raise capital by selling stock to other financial firms. By the end of 1990, 80% of the firms had been purchased by banks, while insurance companies took over others. Few remained independent. France moved much more in the direction of the universal banking model in which banks participated in all aspects of the financing process, including selling securities. …
金融服务、全球化和国内政策变化
金融服务、全球化和国内政策变化威廉·d·科尔曼圣马丁出版社,纽约,1996。金融市场正在走向全球。政策制定者正在努力调整。这本书由一位加拿大政治学家撰写,考察了美国、加拿大、英国、法国和德国这五个国家的政策反应。正如人们从政治学家那里所期望的那样,本书的重点是各国如何就如何应对做出决定,以及各国如何实际应对。重点是两个行业,贷款和证券交易,这两个行业在讨论的时期开始时,20世纪60年代通常被视为独立的行业,每个行业都有独立的公司(德国除外)。在许多国家,贷款业务分为不同类型的公司,其中称为银行的公司专门向商业公司提供贷款,其他公司(储蓄和贷款,建筑协会)专门向住宅贷款,以及满足低收入人群,农村人口或小企业需求的各种其他中介机构。在大多数国家,这些独立部门之间的障碍被打破,允许银行公司从事任何类型的融资,包括出售证券。这被称为全能银行。这种变动的主要原因是担心如果国内公司不扩大和国际化,一些业务就会被更灵活的外国公司抢走。在证券市场,面临的压力是降低服务用户的价格,提高服务效率。在美国,这方面的压力似乎是为了让金融服务的消费者(尤其是机构投资者)受益,而在其他国家,这一举措似乎是出于一种担忧,即除非国内市场效率很高,并以低廉的价格提供服务,否则业务将会流向国外。虽然这本书的重点是变化发生的过程,但对于这本杂志的读者来说,指出各国经历的变化有多大可能是最有趣的。例如,法国在60年代开始的时候是一个高度分散的体系,商业银行、商业银行、储蓄银行和金融合作社都在不同的规则下运作,有专门的机构负责向农业、工匠和地方政府提供贷款。只有15%的经济资金需求来自证券市场。政府拥有主要银行,此外还有一个高度复杂的信贷控制和分配系统,70种不同的利率制度覆盖了44%的贷款。传统的职业道路是,国家行政学院的顶尖毕业生进入财政监察总局,再从那里进入财政部。在迅速晋升之后,他们被任命为国有化银行的高级管理人员。整个体系赋予了政府在经济中如何分配信贷方面相当大的权力。它还允许通过直接手段控制信贷规模,而不是通过其他地方使用的间接手段。证券交易所经纪人(代理人)拥有固定佣金和低资本,垄断了证券交易的谈判。被认定为证券经纪人的个人的身份被改为公司。他们被允许扩展到管理投资组合,并通过向其他金融公司出售股票来筹集资金。到1990年底,80%的公司被银行收购,而保险公司则接管了其他公司。几乎没有人保持独立。法国更倾向于采用全能银行模式,在这种模式下,银行参与融资过程的所有方面,包括出售证券。…
本文章由计算机程序翻译,如有差异,请以英文原文为准。
求助全文
约1分钟内获得全文 求助全文
来源期刊
Journal of Social, Political, and Economic Studies
Journal of Social, Political, and Economic Studies Social Sciences-Political Science and International Relations
CiteScore
0.30
自引率
0.00%
发文量
0
期刊介绍: The quarterly Journal of Social, Political and Economic Studies (ISSN 0193-5941), which has been published regularly since 1976, is a peer-reviewed academic journal devoted to scholarly papers which present in depth information on contemporary issues of primarily international interest. The emphasis is on factual information rather than purely theoretical or historical papers, although it welcomes an historical approach to contemporary situations where this serves to clarify the causal background to present day problems.
×
引用
GB/T 7714-2015
复制
MLA
复制
APA
复制
导出至
BibTeX EndNote RefMan NoteFirst NoteExpress
×
提示
您的信息不完整,为了账户安全,请先补充。
现在去补充
×
提示
您因"违规操作"
具体请查看互助需知
我知道了
×
提示
确定
请完成安全验证×
copy
已复制链接
快去分享给好友吧!
我知道了
右上角分享
点击右上角分享
0
联系我们:info@booksci.cn Book学术提供免费学术资源搜索服务,方便国内外学者检索中英文文献。致力于提供最便捷和优质的服务体验。 Copyright © 2023 布克学术 All rights reserved.
京ICP备2023020795号-1
ghs 京公网安备 11010802042870号
Book学术文献互助
Book学术文献互助群
群 号:481959085
Book学术官方微信