Disintermediation and the Development of Bond Markets in Emerging Europe

The recent financial crises in Asia and Russia have shown that emerging European economies, due to their strong dependence on foreign capital, are highly vulnerable to the excessive volatility of international capital flows. Those economies that pursued sound macroeconomic policies, including setting up functioning financial market systems, have held up well and avoided major spillover effects. We argue that the appropriate approach to meet future refinancing needs is through the development of viable domestic and international bond markets. A key benefit of this strategy will be a reduction in systemic risk and the probability of future crisis.