The global financial crisis of 2008 changed the world’s financial, socioeconomic and political landscape. It also prompted significant change to the research agenda and policy debate around domestic and international financial flows and the financial sector.

Featuring new evidence from the DFID-ESRC Growth Research Programme, this synthesis report explores how international capital flows influence financial sector development in low-income countries (LICs). It addresses three key questions:

• How can policy-makers ensure quality as well as quantity of finance for inclusive economic development?
• What are the appropriate domestic regulatory and financial systems that can maximise and stabilise the contribution of international capital flows to inclusive economic development?
• How can policy-makers address the trade-off between deepening and stabilising the financial system, including the adoption and implementation of new international financial regulations in LICs and middle-income countries (MICs), specifically Basel III.

Judith Tyson, Thorsten Beck