This thesis considers the link between financialisation and emerging market government policy autonomy. It analyses the government bond markets of three case study countries: Brazil, Lebanon and Turkey. Using extensive interview data in the three countries, and interviews with financial market actors in London and New York, the study explores the investment behaviour of a range of investors: commercial banks; individual investors; mutual funds; pension funds and hedge funds. The thesis uses the framework of financialisation – measured by the ability to trade risk – to analyse both international and domestic investors. The study shows that increased financialisation, of both financial market actors and the structure of government bond markets, generally serves to reduce loyalty and therefore reduces government policy autonomy. However, it is demonstrated that initial financialisation – the development of pension and mutual funds – serves to increase autonomy. This is captured by the construction of an ‘autonomy curve’. The conclusions suggest an updating the use of Hirschman’s concept of voice, exit and loyalty in the analysis of financial markets, to give a greater emphasis on loyalty and to include the use of ‘disloyalty’, the ability to short securities. It is also argued that financialisation is the appropriate framework to analyse processes of change in financial markets. The thesis also makes observations as to the true extent of government policy autonomy in emerging market countries, and policy recommendations regarding those governments’ attitude to financialisation.

Les marchés obligataires d’État occupent une place centrale dans les sphères monétaires et financières. L’attractivité des titres d’État s’accentue en période de crise financières vu leur statut de valeurs refuges. La présente thèse se propose d’étudier l’organisation des échanges et les dynamiques des prix sur les marchés obligataires européen et chinois. Le choix du marché chinois est motivé par sa croissance soutenue. Nous avons essayé de voir si la croissance de ce marché obligataire émergent se réalise en concordance avec deux principaux marchés obligataires. Pour cela, nous avons articulé cette thèse en deux parties. Les deux 1er chapitres constituent la première partie en proposant d’étudier les particularités des marchés obligataires en Europe et en Chine en termes de microstructure et de formation des prix. La deuxième partie de la thèse, composée des deux derniers chapitres est consacrée à l’interrelation des marchés étudiés. Le 3ème chapitre propose de tester la cointégration entre ces marchés. Le dernier chapitre s’intéresse à l’explication de cette tendance commune à travers l’exploitation de la piste des chocs monétaires non anticipés. Nos résultats prouvent l’intégration du marché chinois. Cette intégration a été accompagnée par une succession de réformes visant la standardisation des échanges sur le marché chinois.L’intégration de ce marché se caractérise par son ajustement aux principales tendances communes du système de cointégration dominés par les marchés obligataires américain et allemand. Les résultats empiriques montrent que les chocs monétaires non anticipés américains et européen influencent les anticipations sur les marchés obligataires étudiés. / Government bond markets play a central role in financial and monetary spheres. The government bonds become more attractive during financial crises, when capitals migrate to sovereign debt markets. The attractiveness of government bonds can be motivated by their safety status. In this thesis, we studied market microstructure and price discovery in Chinese and European sovereign bond markets. Our interest in the emergent Chinese bond market is motivated by his rapid and important growth. We tried to study the relationship between the evolutions of this market and developed ones. To reach our purpose, we organized this research in two sections. In the first two chapters we studied the specificities of the European and Chinese government bond market regarding to the market microstructure and price formation. The second part of this thesis was reserved to study the interdependencies between bond markets. In the third chapter we tested the cointegration between US, German, Chinese and Honk Kong government bond markets. In the last chapter we tried to explain the role of monetary policy surprises in the international bond markets integration. Our results indicate the existence of international integration of the Chinese bond market. This integration may be explained by the succession of reforms in the direction of the standardization of the rules of exchanges in this emergent market. Cointegration tests results chow that the Chinese bond market is adjusting to the principal common trends dominated by the US and the German markets. Our empirical results indicate that the US and the European monetary policy surprises tend to influence anticipations on the studied bond markets.