The answer varies by type of investor. Pension funds and insurance companies should be promoted for their own sake, but mutual funds are unlikely to thrive without well-regulated securities markets. Anglo-American experience suggests that institutional investors can provide a strong stimulus to market development. This takes time and requires both critical mass and conducive regulations.
Institutional investors comprise pension funds, insurance companies, and mutual funds.
The answer to this question, says Vittas, varies by type of investor. He argues that private pension funds and insurance companies are promoted for their own sake and for their potential economic, fiscal, and financial benefits, whether or not a country already has well-developed securities markets. Mutual funds, by contrast, are unlikely to thrive without strong and well-regulated securities markets. A limited supply of financial instruments should not be a major obstacle to the creation of pension funds and insurance companies. Such institutions build up their financial resources gradually but steadily, giving reforming governments ample time to develop securities markets.