The global financial system

In The Global Financial System: A Functional Perspective, a volume produced as part of the multiyear research effort of the Global Financial System Project at the Harvard Business School, leading financial scholars offer a new framework with far-reaching potential to enhance the success of individual financial firms and the efficiency of the financial system as a whole.

While business methods differ substantially across borders and over time, the underlying functions performed by the financial system remain largely the same. Those who study the system can therefore best understand it by looking at its functions rather than its ever-changing institutions.

This outlook is fundamental to anticipating the financial system's future developments, as institutions seek increased efficiency and continually adapt their forms to best serve the functions for which they are designed: clearing and settling payments, pooling resources, transferring economic resources across time and space, managing risk, providing information, and dealing with incentive problems.