Financialization at the international level: evidence from emerging market economies

Abstract The paper focuses on the manifestations of financialization in the international sphere, which it defines as the increasing magnitude of finance and its decoupling from earlier functions and logic as the speculative motive is strengthened. With financialization the motive of finance is no longer to finance trade and production but to accumulate wealth, which in emerging market economies (EMEs) takes place through innovative products and practices that have in common the focus on exchange rate returns, resulting in a strengthened speculative motive. The article reviews the financialization literature highlighting how the different closed-economy aspects impact the international sphere. It conducts empirical analyses based on the financial integration of a country and on the characteristics of its currencies’ FX markets to assess the presence of financialization and its characteristics among EMEs, indicating certain countries where this process is more intense.