National financial structures,capital mobility,and international economic rules: The normative consequences of East Asian,European, and American distinctiveness

In addressing the relationship between the structures of national financial markets, capital mobility, and the rules governing international trade and investment, this article combines theory and policy. Focusing mainly on the United States, Germany, and Japan, it first draws together themes and suggestive evidence from diverse bodies of research on international capital mobility and national financial structures. On this basis, it argues that, notwithstanding the increasing mobility of capital, asymmetries in those structures persist and have important consequences for the rules of the international economic game as they are now evolving. The article then looks more deeply at East Asia, the region that appears to be presenting the clearest challenge to existing international rules. In its conclusion, and in light of that challenge, the article discusses the agenda that confronts researchers and policy-makers as they attempt to assess and re-calibrate rules to govern the more complex international economy of the 1990s and beyond.