Global Financial Markets: Historical Context and Relationship with Inequalities

Global financial markets can be defined as networks and structures that bring buyers and sellers of financial products together. These networks allow individual investors, corporations, governments, and other institutions to access and invest funds within and across national boundaries. Financial markets can be categorized into bond markets, stock markets, commodity markets, foreign exchange, and derivative markets. From a sustainable development perspective, integration into global financial markets is argued to bring development benefits, but it can also expose countries to rapid inflows and outflows of capital. Financial crises related to such flows have reignited debates around the vulnerabilities associated with integration, the broad impacts of crisis conditions within countries and societies, and the ways in which these can exacerbate existing inequalities.