56 International dimensions
3.1 A global nancial cycle?
Financial markets have become more integrated internationally over the past
decades, leading to a synchronization of capital ows and asset prices. Analysing
extreme movements in capital ows using data on both inows and outows in
a sample of 58 countries over the period from 1980 through 2009, Forbes and
Warnock (2012) nd that global factors, and especially global risk, are key to
understanding periods of extreme capital ows by domestic and foreign inves-
tors. Global risk is measured by the VIX, the Chicago Board Options Exchange
volatility index which reects the implied near- term volatility of S&P 500 index
options. The VIX is considered as a measure of uncertainty and risk aver ...