ESRC Society Today

This Programme ended in January 2010

World events, such as the Asian financial crisis and 9/11, have vividly demonstrated the interrelationship and vulnerability of the world economy to financial markets and the role played by finance in transmitting shocks around the globe irrespective of where they originate. As a result, policy makers, businesses and individual citizens face new challenges that not only require coherent thinking on global issues but also new ways of understanding the institutions, cultures and behaviour across rich and poor countries. 

In that context, the aim of this £5 million programme was twofold. One was to advance our understanding of ways in which financial markets and financial policies influence major global issues such as poverty, development, growth and transition. The second was to analyse policy issues in an era of low inflation, increasingly integrated financial markets, changing demographics and trade patterns.

Further Information

contact: Prof John Driffill, Birkbeck College
tel: + 44 (0) 20 7631 6417
email: j.driffill@econ.bbk.ac.uk
web: www.worldeconomyandfinance.org  

ESRC contact: jennifer.edwards@esrc.ac.uk  tel: 01793 442544

Phase 1 research projects:

• Managing Macroeconomic Risks in Developing Countries: Policies and Institutions
• Reinstating Fiscal Policy as a Stabiliation Device  
• Investment: Constraints on Firms and Links Between Institutions and Growth  
• National and International Aspects of Financial Development
• Global Project Finance, Rights and Sustainable Development
• Exchange Rate Regimes: Choices and Consequences in a Global Economy
• The Political Economy of Pro-Poor Adjustment Policies
• Weak Property Rights: Financial Markets and Development
• Herding in Financial Markets  
• Risk Sharing and Contingent Debt  
• Stability of the Global Financial System: Regulation and Policy Response  
• Monetary Policy, Welfare and the Structure of International Financial Markets  
• Moral Hazard, Political Economy, Behavioural Approaches in International Finance  
• Regulatory Regime Change in World Financial Markets: The Case of Sarbanes-Oxley  
• Risk, Shocks, Growth and Poverty: Evidence from Long-Term Household Panel Data  
• Law, Finance and Development

Phase 2 research projects:

• The Experience of Exchange Rate Regime Change among Developing Countries 1968-1978 
• The Impact of China's Global Economic Expansion on Latin America  
• Legal and Economic Aspects of Sovereign Debt Default: The Argentina Case  
• Financial Contagion: An Experimental Analysis  
• The New International Division of Labour  
• Population Change,  Demographic Uncertainty and Financial Risk  
• Designing Monetary Policy for Developed and Developing Countries  
• Risk Cultures in China: An Economic Sociology  
• Open Economy Models: An Empirical Investigation  
• Copy of Home Ownership, Housing Collateral and Aggregate Fluctuations