The International Capital Markets in the Post “Enron” Era

The focus of this article will be on developments in the in-ternational capital markets, combining mathematics, econom-ics and law, all of which, taken together, have revolutionized the capital markets over the past thirty years. Specifically, the refinement of the concept of an almost limitless divisibil-ity of economic interests, both as to present and future val-ues, resulting in infinitesimal economic interests, coupled with precise legal descriptions of such economic interests in order that the interest can be “securitized”, that is, carved into economic interests that can be represented by legal de-scriptions, attached to "risk-bearing paper" (securities) and sold to investors on the world's capital markets. One of the most salient factors in the failure of Enron, Global Crossing and WorldCom is that key executives in all three companies were rather inexperienced.