Emira Kozarević

Financial system supports economic growth, while its regulatory framework provides stability for investors. Develo-ping countries with bank-oriented financial systems are not attractive to investors, so prolonged status quo leads to economic deterioration. This is particularly the case with some of the most underdeveloped areas in Europe: Western Balkans. It is essential the developing countries in this region consider steps towards financial liberalization, which will help open the borders for capital flows and attract new investments. The main goal of this paper is to review and present the available information related to the banking system development in Western Balkans in terms of ownership structure, capital adequacy, loan and asset performance, return on investment and liquidity. These indicators should provide a clearer picture of the current financial systems in Western Balkans economies and their development progress – useful for comparison with other developing regions and financial transformation and liberalization efforts.

The financial markets are found to be finite Hilbert space, inside which the stocks are displaying their wave-particle duality. The Reynolds number, an age old fluid mechanics theory, has been redefined in investment finance domain to identify possible explosive moments in the stock exchange. CNX Nifty Index, a known index on the National Stock Exchange of India Ltd., has been put to the test under this situation. The Reynolds number (its financial version) has been predicted, as well as connected with plausible behavioral rationale. While predicting, both econometric and machine-learning approaches have been put into use. The primary objective of this paper is to set up an efficient econophysics’ proxy for stock exchange explosion. The secondary objective of the paper is to predict the Reynolds number for the future. Last but not least, this paper aims to trace back the behavioral links as well.

Financial Reynolds number works as a proxy for volatility in stock markets. This piece of work helps to identify the predictability and herd behavior embedded in the financial Reynolds number (time series) series for both CNX Nifty Regular and CNX Nifty High Frequency Trading domains. Hurst exponent and fractal dimension have been used to carry out this work. Results confirm conclusive evidence of predictability and herd behavior for both the indices. However, it has been observed that CNX Nifty High Frequency Trading domain (represented by its corresponding financial Reynolds number) is more predictable and has traces of significant herd behavior. The pattern of the predictability has been found to follow a quadratic equation.

A stable, transparent financial system inspires confidence among investors and supports the overall economic growth. Inflexible regulation tends to slow down economic progress, making countries less attractive to investors.
Economies with bank-oriented financial systems tend to be less attractive to investors, so their long-term goal is to demonstrate flexibility through liberalization, attracting new investors and ensuring survival in highly competitive and unforgiving global conditions. Liberalization success is even more essential for developing countries and their efforts to open the borders for capital flows and attract new investments. While financial liberalization affects all sectors of the economy and directly influences growth, it does not guaranty it. The removal of financial restrictions could affect capital distribution, increase volatility, create challenges for banks, etc. To support the liberalization efforts, it is very important to understand the nature of banking business, criticality of transparent and effective regulatory framework, as well as the expectations of potential investors.
The main goal of this paper is to discuss the process of financial liberalization in developing countries and motivate the policy makers to consider available lessons when creating their balanced approach to financial (de)regulation processes towards financial development and integration in the global financial landscape.

Keywords: financial liberalization, financial regulation, economic development, developing countries.
JEL Classification: G18, G21, G28

This study delves into the herding and bubble detection in the volatility domain of a capital market underlying. Furthermore, it focuses on creating heuristics, so that common investors find it relatively easy to understand the state of the market volatility. Hence, it can be termed that this study is focused on the specific financial innovation regarding bubble and herding detection coupled with investor awareness. The traces of possible volatility bubble emerge when it is positioned against its own lags (both lag1 and lag2). The volatility trigger indicated clear traces of herding and an embedded parabola function. Continuous and repetitive parabola function hinted at a subtle presence of “fractals”. Firstly, the detrended fluctuation analysis has been used with its multifractal variant. Secondly, the regularized form of Hurst calculation and analysis have been used. Both tests reveal the traces of nascent bubble formation owing to prominent herding in CNX Nifty HFT environment. They also indicate a clear link with Hausdorff topological patterns. These patterns would help to create heuristics, enabling investors to be aware of possible bubble and herd situations.