This edited conference volume provides a rich survey of current scholarly and professional thinking about the state of financial innovations and innovators and their diffusion across national boundaries, as well as the welfare-enhancing implications for firms and nation-states. Like the engineering and practice of financial innovation itself, Financial Innovation and the Welfare of Nations is interdisciplinary and international in scope. Leading academics and professionals in economics, finance, strategic management, and law offer their latest thinking on: * Financial innovations and the dynamics of emerging capital markets; * First-mover advantages and disadvantages with financial innovations; * Modeling banking deregulation and systemic risk; * Identifying 'blue-chip' investments in 'frontier' equity markets; * Piercing the 'sovereign ceiling' with cross-border securitization; * Credit derivatives and economic restructuring; and * Insurance derivatives and the convergence of the banking and insurance industry.