Struggling credit markets, slumping stocks, and a sliding dollar have been generating anxiety among executives and policy makers in early 2008. Amid the turmoil, it’s easy to forget that long-term structural change in the world’s capital markets will probably prove more important than short-term fluctuations, as it did after the 1987 US stock market crash, the 1992 assault on the British pound, and the 1997 unraveling of Asia’s financial markets.

Recent McKinsey Global Institute (MGI) research highlights several trends that look set to continue during the years ahead, long after the present bout of market turbulence has ended:

• the continued growth and deepening of global capital markets as investors pour more money into equities, debt securities, bank deposits, and other assets around the world
• the soaring growth of financial markets in emerging economies and the growing ties between financial markets in developed and developing countries
• the shift of financial weight in Asia from Japan toward China and other fast-growing emerging markets
• the growing financial clout of the eurozone countries and the significance of the euro
• the burgeoning role of oil-rich Middle Eastern countries as suppliers of capital to the world, along with the rise of new financial hubs in the...