The relative liquidity of financial assets is significantly influenced by the Central Bank’s willingness to buy such assets, or to accept them as collateral, in the course of providing additional cash to banks. Those assets which the Central Bank will deal in for such purposes become more liquid, and more marketable, than those that the Central Bank will not.
When the banking system as a whole is short of cash, it has no other recourse than to go to the Central Bank for assistance. The Central Bank has to provide this, since other wise interest rates will rise very sharply, given the banks’ inelastic demand for cash reserves. A Central Bank’s choice, in practice, is the price (interest rate) at which it will supply the requisite cash, not the volume of high-powered cash reserves to supply. Normally a Central Bank will supply just enough cash to hold very short-term (e.g. overnight) rates close to the policy rate, chosen generally on broad macro-economic grounds, e.g. to maintain medium-term price stability.
Atherosclerosis is a disease of the large- and medium-sized arteries i.e. coronary artery, carotid artery, arteries of the lower extremities, and large elastic arteries including thoracic and abdominal aortae (Abdelhalim et al., 1994; Ross, 1993; Sato and Ohshima, 1992; Shankar and Bond, 1990; Stary, 1989). Atherosclerotic calcification may weaken the aorta wall and thereby lead to rupture of the vessel (Howard et al., 2002). Hypercholesterolemia is considered a major risk factor in the development of atherosclerotic disease (Fidan et al., 2006; Sandra, 2006).
Presently, increasing numbers of the adult and geriatric populations are developing this disease. The effects of cholesterol feeding periods on the mechanical properties of excised thoracic and abdominal aortae of rabbits fed a diet containing high levels of cholesterol and saturated fat have been investigated by means of a tensile testing machine (Abdelhalim et al., 1993, 1994; Cox, 1979; Hayashi et al., 1987; Hudetz et al., 1981; Richter and Mittermayer, 1984; Sato and Ohshima, 1992; Shankar and Bond, 1990; Miyazaki et al., 1983). These studies demonstrated significant changes in the mechanical properties of aortae during the development of atherosclerosis. High fat diet-induced prothrombotic state, endothelial dysfunction precedes both the morphologically detectable lesions and the enhancement of platelet reactivity (Rumiko et al., 2006).
During the last thirty years, many developments contributed to the process of international financial market integration. Removal of capital controls in the 1970s by the major developed countries provided the initial impetus for financial market integration by facilitating cross-border capital movement. Economic liberalization and financial deregulations of the 1980s opened up national markets making way for greater financial integration. As globalization and integration of international goods markets advance with lessening of tariffs and other constraints, there will be further impetus to the changes in the financial markets.
While the financial integration is generally thought to be advancing well among developed countries, evidences have emerged to suggest that markets of many developing countries in the Far East and Latin America are not lagging behind in getting themselves integrated with global financial markets. Massive inflows of capital into these countries following their economic liberalization and financial deregulation in the early 1990s played a key role in this respect and these inflows are not likely to diminish as these countries continue to deregulate and liberalize their financial markets.
