Asset managers have often been considered as key drivers behind financial globalization. As they have been both praised as leaders of global financial integration and blamed as originators of financial crises, any understanding of the international financial markets and financial crises among them should be based on a thorough understanding of its core actors, i.e. asset managers. The contribution of this work is thus twofold: In its first part, it addresses evidence from early warning systems and the role of fundamentals in financial crises. With the help of macro-level data for 20 countries...