STOCK EXCHANGE AN INTERNATIONAL MARKET 533
too may experience a decline and fall like Rome’s, but at
present this contingency seems still remote.
Needs for Constructive Foreign Investing.—Many sound
and constructive steps have already been taken to render for-
eign investment safe and beneficial, but many still remain to
be taken. The first need is adequate publicity concerning
foreign borrowers and companies; here the special listing re-
quirements recently established by the New York Stock Ex-
change have already proved valuable.®® Our financial press
is also rapidly acquainting itself with the details and past rec-
ord of foreign financing, and developing a more experienced
and critical attitude toward it. Rival American investment
banking firms are also learning that over-active competition for
foreign financing sometimes results in issues here which do
not sufficiently protect the lending investors.
International cooperation, especially between the leading
stock exchanges, has still to be mobilized as a protective factor
in foreign investment, yet it could obviously accomplish many
desirable results.®* There is a real need today of concerted
action between the leading stock exchanges to bar from their
lists loans unfairly defaulted, and company securities of a
questionable character. Statistics concerning the world’s stock
markets are also deplorably inadequate, despite the patent eco-
nomic importance of the subject; security price indices, for
example, although a daily necessity for measuring stock mar-
kets, are surprisingly inconclusive, unscientific, and even mis-
leading. No real quantitative understanding of stock exchange
functions is possible without comprehensive and accurate sta-
tistics. More complete understanding between the different
great stock markets of the world could do much to broaden
the market for the securities of practically all countries by
removing obstacles to free international security dealings.
America’s Economic Maturity.—The United States is
today entering into the period of its economic maturity. From
33 See Appendix XVITTk
8 See Appendix XVIIIL
