Financial Markets

This volume analyzes in great detail the problem of information and risk management. Both topics are a central issue in current financial and monetary economic literature. Several recent theoretical and empirical contributions consider asymmetric information between investors and financiers as a major determinant of financial risk. In this framework, we may regard financial and banking innovation as, on one hand, policy and individual agents' response to the problem of asymmetric information and risk management and, on the other, as a self-generated innovation process posing new challenges to policymakers in terms of information efficiency and risk control. This volume concentrates on one of the most important directions for research on banking and finance for the next decade.