The contributions appearing in this issue of Economia Internazionale/International Economics deal with some relevant current questions concerning the relations between economic policy and international portfolio choices.The following topics are studied either from a general perspective or with reference to specific problems emerging in international finance: i)methodologies of assessing portfolio market risk in the BRICS economies; ii) bank competition, concentration and risk taking in banking industry; iii) the adjustment process towards equilibrium in the purchasing power parity hypothesis with particular reference to the use of linear and nonlinear attractors; iv) the accuracy of direct and indirect forecasting of cross exchange rates; v) some empirical analysis of the expectations hypothesis of the term structure of interest rates in reference to Korea after the Asian financial crises.
