Financial Globalisation and the Spatial Limitations of the Financial-monetary Integration in the Euro Area

Abstract

The present paper analyses the spatial features of financial markets embedded in financial globalisation and the development of the euro area’s financial market, and demonstrates the spatial anchoring of the financial sector. It highlights the home bias of investors for the national markets as one of the “spatial” limitations of financial globalisation, the persistence of information asymmetry in proportion to distance and incomplete capital mobility. It demonstrates that despite the integration of the international markets, the domestic markets continue to have predominance. It also points out that the protracted crisis of the euro area and its incomplete financial and monetary integration are caused by the internal structural problems of the euro area’s financial integration and territorial inequalities in addition to the spatial limitations of financial globalisation. Using several criteria it proves why the principle of European integration took the least effect on the financial markets and demonstrates that the uniform monetary policy – along with fiscal integration – also fails to facilitate real convergence; in order to achieve that, economic and financial market integration should be deepened further and territorial disparities should be decreased.