Sovereign Wealth Funds (SWFs) have steadily increased their importance in the global financial system in the last decade and especially during the financial crisis period. Although the objectives and investment strategies of SWFs are quite diverse, I propose to sort them into three main groups, depending on their sponsor countries’ endowment with resources and investment objectives. I present case studies and empirical analyses that reflect SWF investment activities and try to elaborate on the special role of each SWF group. Special emphasis is given to the recent financial crisis, where SWFs also acted as bailout investors by injecting substantial capital into global financial institutions, filling a financing gap that other institutional investors could not close.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.