I Sovereign Wealth Funds: nuovo soggetto nella geografia della finanza globale.

In the complex geography of global finance are entered, especially in the last decade, new subjects that contribute to a further complexification of the context. We refer to Sovereign Wealth Funds (Swfs) – i.e. investment funds called «sovereign» as held by those states that have set them up. These states, mainly classified as emerging economies seem to open with their funds a new page of globalization. In fact, through this tool, they carry the investments and capitals of the South of the world in the circuit of the advanced economies, creating a new financial flow that only a few years ago was considered unthinkable. The accumulation of wealth needed to create the Swfs is mainly derived by the excess of official reserves (arising from high and constant trade surplus and/or surplus related to the exploitation of natural resources). The aim of the paper is to explore the nature and the characteristics of these new actors, as well as to investigate the geography of the areas of origin of the financial flows analyzing, in conclusion, the possible risks, including those of geopolitical nature, associated to Swf.