Finance ministers of the Group of Eight leading economies have commissioned a study on the role of financial market speculation in recent oil price rises. In India, the regulator recently suspended trade in futures markets for several commodities, blaming speculators for price rises. The global credit crisis has made the financial sector vulnerable to populist attacks. The greatest casualty may be financial development.

In developed countries there is a sober search under way for appropriate regulatory and supervisory responses to the lessons learnt from the crisis. But in poorer countries politicians are unwilling to leave regulation to the regulators. The problems in the financial sector in the US allow populists in emerging markets not just to retread their critiques of financial markets but also to hold free enterprise and trade guilty by association.