World Market of Investment Funds - Developments and Trends

Institutional investors - including mutual funds, pension funds, hedge funds, and insurance companies - are a growing force in developed capital markets. We are in an environment in which investors, regulators and legislators have a dramatically reduced tolerance for risk. Rules and regulations can provide additional investor protections, but can also reduce market efficiency at a great cost to borrowers and investors alike. Finding the right balance is the challenge, and is one that necessitates a wide-ranging discussion of proposals on the table. Our role as economists and researchers is to engage in this discussion on behalf of funds and their investors.