Global Financial Fragility and the Private Sector

We do not, in any real sense, have an integrated, truly global financial system. There are many financial institutions in the industrial countries, such as the majority of S&Ls in the United States, whose involvement with the global economy is minimal and indirect. There are countries, many in the developing world, for example, which have no indigenous international institutions of any global systemic significance, even though some of their local institutions are very large in terms of deposits or assets or some other measure. What is true, however, is that the dividing line between global and national (or regional) financial institutions has grown more vague and there are many more institutions that have some kind of international presence, or involvement, than in the past.