What we don’t know for sure, but strongly suspect, is that the accelerating expansion of global finance may be indispensable to the continued rapid growth in world trade in goods and services. It is becoming increasingly evident that many layers of financial intermediation will be required if we are to capture the full benefits of our advances in finance.
Certainly, the emergence of a highly liquid foreign exchange market has facilitated basic forex transactions, and the availability of more complex hedging strategies enables producers and investors to achieve their desired risk positions.