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One reason governments have protected their banks from foreign ownership is that they feared foreign-owned banks would “cut and run”—i.e. abandon their host markets—in a financial crisis. An unexpected finding of this chapter, however, is that while foreign banks’ commitments to host markets have indeed been fleeting in crises, those commitments were weakest when the relationship between foreign banks and host markets was not characterized by ownership. Thus it was foreign ownership through a “second home market” model and bank subsidiaries during the acute phase of the US financial crisis (2008–9) that saved East Central Europe from economic catastrophe. In Western Europe, meanwhile, where foreign bank ownership levels were low but cross-border lending was significant, bank lending retreated behind national borders. This chapter also rejects the argument that the Vienna Initiative, a voluntary bank rollover agreement, compelled foreign-owned banks to maintain their exposures in East Central Europe.

The interactions between democratic transitions and financial markets are highlighted in this chapter, with a focus on whether bankers involved in corporate and sovereign lending operations prefer to lend to new emerging democracies. Additionally have private bankers been willing to increase their lending operations to newly emerging democracies? In other words, is there a democratic premium? Cross border lending from international bankers is explored as well as the questions of whether they react positively by increasing their lending when an emerging democracy appears, and whether bank lending increases after democratic transitions and consolidation.

This chapter assesses the spillover effects of the United States’ unconventional monetary policy on the Asian credit market. With a focus on cross-border bank lending, it employs firm-level loan data with regard to the syndicated loan market and measures the international bank lending channel through changes in United States dollar-denominated loans extended to Asian borrowers. It finds that the growth of dollar credit in Asia increased substantially in response to quantitative easing in the US financial market. The results of this study confirm the existence of the bank lending channel in Asia and emphasize the role of credit flows in transmitting financial conditions. The chapter also provides new evidence of cross-border liquidity spillover in the syndicated loan market. It finds that the overall spillover effect was large but differed significantly in Asia by types of borrowing firms, financing purposes, and loan terms at different stages of the quantitative easing programmes.

After recurrent crises with severe consequences in the 1990s and early 2000s EDEs have become even more closely integrated into what is now widely recognized as an inherently unstable international financial system. This chapter discusses the factors accelerating global financial integration of EDEs, including monetary policies in major advanced economies, notably the United States. It examines capital inflows and outflows, external balance sheets, the size and composition of gross external assets and liabilities, distinguishing between equity and debt, private and public sectors, local currency and foreign currency debt, bond issues and bank loans, and cross-border and local lending by international banks. It provides data and information on the currency composition of external debt, and non-resident participation in domestic financial markets of emerging economies. These are used to identify the changes in the depth and pattern of integration of emerging economies into the international financial system since the early 1990s.