FINANCIAL INTEGRATIONDETERMINANTS IN EMERGING ECONOMIES

Financial integration is about creating a global financial market and financial institutions. In respect of this, this study seeks to identify economic, financial and institutional factors that significantly influence the level of financial integration in emerging economies using a time series data of twenty nine years from 1996 to2024 and employing the autoregressive distributive lag technique (ARDL). The model specified financial integration (dependent variable) as a function of trade balance, FDI, institutional quality and exchange rate (independent variables) The general findings from the study show that the independent variables specified have an effect (varying dimensions) on the dependent variable both in the long run and short run. One of the recommendations made was strengthened regulatory quality/framework that would ensure stability and transparency in financial markets and institutions.