Information Technology and the Organization of Securities Markets

Abstract

What the future holds for securities markets is of course a remarkably broad question, and undoubtedly designed by the conference organizers to be so. In order to keep from lapsing into free association, therefore, I will take the issue of technology and its implications for the future of securities markets to include the following pair of questions: First, will technology tend to increase or decrease the importance of securities as a financing vehicle in comparison to such alternative financial transactions as bank loans, capital leases, franchising relationships, and so on? Second, what changes will technology produce in the structure of primary and secondary securities markets? I take up these questions in order.