The Era of finance: Proposals for the future

Finance, the economic activity intermediating between savings and investments, is probably the first to reach the stage of globalization; as a consequence, the financial sector is taking a leading position in modern economic systems. While the world expects from financial efficiency an increasingly positive contribution to welfare, it appears that recent developments of financial leadership in an increasingly deregulated world system, are also acting negatively on world welfare. In many aspects, it can be established that finance is crisis prone, induces deflationary biases and stimulates speculative behaviour: crisis, deflation and speculation are often harmful to the real economy. A set of proposals are made in order to improve world financial stabilization, promote growth and encourage the spirit of enterprise, as a way of enhancing the future contribution of financial activities to world welfare.