Today, securities offerings and trading have become, to a remarkable extent, global in the same vein as other economic and business activities. The globalization is taking place mainly through integration of national securities markets. The principal examples of such integrated markets are the European Union (EU) and the Multijurisdictional Disclosure System (MJDS) between Canada and the United States. Recently, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) initiated an attempt to integrate securities markets in Asia. This paper will go over the integration efforts of these three regions to see what theoretical approaches they have taken towards their goal.
Integration between different nations is not an easy task because they are politically, economically, and legally divided and diverse. A look into the theoretical perspective will describe how integration has been achieved despite these diversities. As integration has already successfully taken place in Europe and North America, their approaches will be examined first. After that, this paper will evaluate the ASEAN approach to determine if it is following the same line of theoretical construction to achieve its goal. . . .