Determinants of bond market development in Asia

One of the major reasons behind the Asian financial crisis in 1997 was the excessive dependence of the Asian economies on commercial banks for domestic financing. The region failed to diversify its sources of corporate financing as it relied mainly on banks since its other types of financing, namely bond markets, were still underdeveloped and their sizes were quite small. On the other hand, the 2008 global financial crisis and the ongoing European debt crisis have led to constraints in acquiring local currency and foreign currency liquidity in the corporate sector in Asia as foreign banks withdrew investments from Asia. Furthermore, Asia needs large long term capital (US$ 750 billion per year for 2010–2020) for developing infrastructure connectivity within and across its economies. Local and regional capital can be channeled for long-term infrastructure projects and other productive investment through bond markets. Having a well-developed local currency bond markets can enhance the resilience of domestic financial sector to external shocks and it can facilitate better intermediation of savings into productive investments in Asia. To enhance corporate bond financing, it is important to examine factors that affect the effective development of bond markets in Asia. The study attempts to identify the determinants of bond market development in Asian economies through examining the relationship of bond issuance with selected key financial and economic factors. It also intends to provide policy recommendations for the further development of the Asian bond market. Major determinants for bond market development in Asia include the size of an economy, the stage of economic development, the openness of an economy, the exchange rate variability, the size of the banking system, and interest rate variability.     

东亚金融一体化的动态及其收益

近年来，东亚一系列区域金融合作引起了学术界对地区金融一体化现状和收益的极大兴趣。文章基于价格和数量的测度考察了东亚地区金融一体化的程度：抛补利差和股权溢价的β收敛结果表明，危机之前东亚金融市场的全球和区域一体化并行，但在近几年，区域一体化趋势更强劲，超过了全球一体化；金融引力模型的结果表明，东亚主要的跨境金融投资者的区域内金融资产持有量比金融引力模型预测的水平更大。此外，面板回归确定了较高的金融一体化作为更广泛的金融发展的关键组成部分，会显著降低东亚国家对发达国家的经常账户失衡，因此，区域层面的金融一体化可以作为加强东亚国家的增长来源和提高经济弹性的重要政策路径。     

Cross-border portfolio investment in the APEC region

This paper aims to establish a firm understanding of the structure and determinants of bilateral portfolio investment among APEC economies. The paper demonstrates that APEC membership has a significantly positive relationship with financial transactions among members. That is, as compared with non-members, APEC member economies purchase more equities and long-term bonds from other APEC member economies. However, the APEC membership effect is not uniform: the positive effect of APEC membership is mainly due to the overshadowing role of East Asian countries. This finding is especially evident for equities, rather than for long-term bonds. This paper also shows that a large part of the regional financial market integration in the APEC region is due to strong linkages of intra-regional goods trade in the region.     

东亚经济一体化与合作：朝向共同体

长期以来,东亚地区的经济一体化主要靠市场力量推动,区域经济合作则落后于经济一体化进程。亚洲金融危机证明,仅靠市场推动的经济一体化是脆弱的,只有加强区域经济合作,东亚地区才能增强抵御外部风险的能力,保持经济的持续繁荣。亚洲金融危机后,东亚地区迅速建立起“10 3”的合作机制,在加强金融领域合作的同时,也不断拓展在经贸投资等领域的合作,并逐步确立了以建立东亚自由贸易区和东亚共同体的长远奋斗目标。特别是在中国提出与东盟建立自由贸易区后,东亚地区的合作步伐明显加快。尽管目前离建立东亚共同体的长远目标还很遥远,但东亚地区的合作进程已不可逆转,各种形式的合作努力将最终推动长远目标的实现。     

Output volatility of five crisis-affected East Asia economies

A decade has passed since the Asian financial crisis (AFC) in 1997, and attention is drawn to the output performance of the crisis-affected economies in East Asia. Using the Hodrick–Prescott (HP) filter, this paper examines the growth volatility of GDP, its components and the stock market of five East Asia economies of Japan, Singapore, South Korea, Chinese Taipei and Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (SAR). Empirical evidences based on quarterly data show that output volatility for both Singapore and South Korea has increased after the AFC. For the GDP components, trade is a major factor in lowering GDP volatility in Chinese Taipei. The Hong Kong SAR economy has experienced an increase/decrease in the volatility of investment/private consumption. Among the five East Asia economies, government intervention is obvious in Singapore. The stock markets in both Hong Kong SAR and Chinese Taipei showed stronger ability in absorbing shocks.     

Can East Asia rise again?

In recent times, the economies of East Asia have been confronted by two major economic recessions, the first caused by the East Asian financial crisis, and the second by the slump in the ‘new economy.’ The causes of these two recessions, their scope and their influences differ significantly and during these periods of economic downturn the economies affected have adopted various monetary policies aimed at reducing interest rates and tax rates, and pursuing the expansion of government expenditure. However, these policies have obviously not yet been as effective as expected.This paper sets out to determine those factors affecting the possibility of East Asia rising again from the recent economic slump, a slump which has stemmed from excessive investment in the electronics and information industries. The paper begins with an overview of the East Asian economy, with particular reference to the recent serious decline following the steady recovery from the East Asian financial crisis and a review of the measures taken to counter it. Proposals are then made with regard to a number of lessons to be learned from the recent slump.There are three major issues involved in the question of whether East Asia can rise again from the current economic slump. First of all, many of the economies of East Asia have tried their utmost to upgrade their industrial structures from labor- to technology-intensive, or towards a knowledge-based economy and, to some extent, have actually been quite successful in achieving their goals. Secondly, almost all of the East Asian economies have paid particular attention to educational development, with many families having sent their children to foreign countries to receive advanced education in the hope that when they return they can make a substantial contribution to the progress of their home economies—examples of this trend are provided by Taiwan and India. Thirdly, there are abundant natural resources in East Asia along with rich sources of manpower with a hard-working spirit; these two factors can create comparative advantages and strengthen the competitiveness of these economies.In view of the recent developments towards regionalism, it is imperative for the economies of East Asia to form an East Asian Community in the near future, and many of the economies in this region are currently endeavoring to realize this vision, despite many obstacles still facing East Asia which will ultimately need to be overcome.     

区域经济金融合作:东亚应对全球失衡的必然选择

从中长期来看，全球国际收支失衡不断向主要几个国家和地区集中是不可持续的，东亚国家面临极大的风险。这一背景下，加强东亚区域经济金融合作是必然的选择。东亚国家和地区应完善区域合作协调机制、加强区域货币和贸易投资合作，并进一步促进亚洲债券市场发展。     

Financing investment in East Asia: Regional or global savings?

This paper investigates the extent to which domestic investment in East Asian countries is financed by domestic, (East Asian) regional and global savings in order to infer the relative importance of regional vs. global capital markets in East Asia. Panel regression results show that regional saving in East Asia plays a much more important role than global saving in financing investment in the region. The results suggest that global capital flows, despite its huge volume in East Asia, does not contribute to proper investment financing. The results also show that Japanese saving has significant effects on regional investment but Chinese saving does not.     

Infrastructure Bond Markets Development in Asia: Challenges and Solutions

To sustain economic growth momentum, Asia needs to continue investing heavily in infrastructure such as roads, ports, and power plants. Financing the region’s huge demand for infrastructure investments is an essential issue for policy-makers across the region. Against the backdrop of expanding fiscal burdens of Asian governments and more stringent capital requirements on bank lending, local currency bonds can serve as an alternative for infrastructure financing in Asia. In this paper, we use empirical analysis to identify the major determinants of infrastructure bond market development. Evidence indicates that an economy’s size is positively related to infrastructure bond market development. Furthermore, we find that Project Bond Initiative, a European Union initiative, contributed significantly to infrastructure development in Europe. The implication for Asian policy-makers is that deepening regional integration of Asian bond markets would help Asian economies to reach an efficient economic scale to foster infrastructure bond market and policy measures in the forms of credit enhancement would facilitate issuance of infrastructure bonds.     

Interdependencies among Asian bond markets

There is an ongoing intraregional attempt to develop bond markets in Asia. This is to some extent a result of the Asian financial crisis, which showed the need for well-functioning fixed income markets in the region. This paper analyzes the relationships among four Asian bond markets. Cointegration tests show that the markets exhibit strong long-term interdependencies. In addition, all markets show signs of short-run cross-dependencies in the mean. The correlations between the markets are time-varying and high, except for in short turbulent periods. The results indicate that a regional bond portfolio would allow for some level of risk diversification for investors and that policymakers need to pay attention to movements in different markets.     

Toward A Financial Architecture in East Asia： A Proposed Roadmap and China＇s Perspective

This paper provides with a proposed roadmap for strengthening financial architecture in East Asia. We discuss the goals, driving forces and obstacles in the short and medium run and correspondingly suggest possible steps that would be taken at different stages. A longterm vision is also briefly presented. The main points we have made are as follows. (1) An East Asia monetary union can be an ultimate long-term objective for the region. (2) In order to achieve this, we shall start with amending the current CMI mechanism and fostering the need of regional local currencies in trade and financial transactions through establishing regional bond market in the short-term. (3) A regional bond market with local currencies involved and a more stable exchange rate arrangement in a broader scope to emerge are likely in the medium term.     

An East Asian paradigm?

The World Bank's 1993 East Asian Miracle report proposed two models of East Asian Development, one based on the Japanese economy, the other on the more recent miracle economies of Southeast Asia. The latter pursued open-market and investment policies compatible with Anglo-American economic norms, while Japan and its coterie (South Korea and Taiwan) forged industrial policy regimes with high levels of government intervention and protection. Japan takes a different view of Southeast Asian success—as a combination of conscious emulation of Japan and concentrated Japanese foreign direct investment, aid, and regional industrial strategy. This article explores the tension between the World Bank thesis and the Japanese view, embodied in a growth metaphor called flying geese. The author concludes that Japan has been far more reactive and opportunistic than the flying geese metaphor suggests, but that this paradigm has a profound influence on Japanese government and corporate strategy in Asia.     

实际汇率与居民消费风险分担的动态关系——基于预期的视角

通过考虑居民预期行为的作用，实际汇率与居民消费风险分担的动态关系是一个附带预期的渐进调整过程。在利用东亚9个主要经济体的数据对该关系进行研究后发现：（1）东亚各国居民之间的消费风险分担程度较低，但是从2000年之后，居民消费风险分担程度在逐渐提高；（2）实际汇率变动基本上没有平滑东亚各国（地区）居民的消费变动；（3）持有静态预期行为的居民朝向长期消费风险分担均衡的调整程度较小，并且该调整速度较慢，同时持有理性预期行为的居民、持有适应性预期行为的居民背离长期消费风险分担均衡的调整程度较大，并且该调整速度较快，这是造成非完全消费风险分担均衡的重要原因。     

East and South Asia: Managing Difficult Bilateral Relations and Regional Integration Globally

This paper analyzes the economic integration of the East and South Asian economies in the global economy. East Asian economies are shown to be achieving much more of their potential trade than South Asian economies, both in terms of intra‐regional trade and in trade with the rest of the world. Examination of the China–Japan, India–Pakistan and Taiwan–mainland China bilateral relationships shows that integration of these economies into the global economy has allowed economic relations to dominate and constrain difficult bilateral political relations in East Asia while in South Asia adverse political relations have hampered development of bilateral economic relationships.     

Lessons from the euro zone for the East Asian economies

This paper endeavors to contribute to the solution of the following critical issues: (1) what the East Asian nations can do in cooperation among themselves and with China, Japan, and South Korea in their foreign trade arrangements to improve the stability and growth of their economies; (2) what they must do individually to get their financial and real economies better integrated; (3) what they can do in cooperation with China, Japan and South Korea—bilaterally and regionally—to modernize their monetary systems and to render them more resilient to financial crises; and (4) what new focus of the IMF is most likely to enable the East Asian nations to maintain relatively free and open economies without the impact of catastrophic financial crises. Lessons from the development of the European Union, the dynamics of the euro zone, the experience of the Bank for International Settlements, and recent research on monetary and international macroeconomic theory are drawn upon to provide answers to these questions. It is argued that an area-wide approach, with a new IMF regional role and the formation of an East Asian Monetary Authority, would contribute to a sense of “community” within East Asia, leading to an enhanced role for both East Asia and ASEAN + 3 in the new world economic order.     

Cross‐border Mergers and Acquisitions and Financial Development: Evidence from Emerging Asia

This paper examines the relationship between cross‐border mergers and acquisitions (M&A) and financial development in emerging Asian economies. Bilateral cross‐border M&A data for nine emerging Asian economies covering 2000–2009 are analyzed with a sample selection model and a panel data model. The estimation results show that although the banking sector still plays a crucial role in facilitating cross‐border M&A, the role of equity markets has increased in importance because, in addition to cash, the issuance of common stock and the exchange of stocks have become popular forms of payment for M&A deals. Because of the relatively thin market, the primary corporate bond market plays a limited role in supporting cross‐border M&A, which is in contrast to the primary public bond market. However, for the secondary market, the corporate bond market is more effective in facilitating cross‐border M&A. The results also show that financial development in terms of stock and bond markets in their home countries tends to become more important when the target firms reside in more developed countries. In addition to financial development, the paper shows that most cross‐border M&A are invested in technology‐related and resource‐based industries while cheap labor industries are relatively less attractive.     

Exploring dimensions of regional economic integration in East Asia: More than the sum of its parts?

No single measure of real or financial integration sufficiently captures all of the salient characteristics of the extent of integration between individual economies and of economies within particular regional groups. This paper introduces the idea of utilising and combining the effects of a number of individual measures of integration and, in doing so, presents an assessment of the stylised facts around bilateral and regional real and financial integration for the ASEAN5 and the large industrial Asian countries for the period 2000–2009. By using many measures, one should be able to achieve two objectives. The first is to capture many of the main attributes of integration in order to further provide insight into the integration landscape in East Asia. The second is to investigate which individual (if any) measure drives the overall level of integration and, as such, address the question of what might be the possible sources of integration between countries in the region. This has significant policy implications about how to best target policies of liberalisation in both goods and financial markets as well as informing the ongoing debate about optimal currency areas (OCA) and a possible monetary union in Asia.     

东亚货币合作为何遭遇挫折?——兼论人民币国际化及其对未来东亚货币合作的影响

与1997年亚洲金融危机爆发后东亚各经济体迅速推进了区域货币合作进程不同,此次全球金融危机爆发后不仅既有的合作框架或机制(如CMI等)未能发挥作用,各主要经济体之间有关合作的分歧也在明显增大,东亚货币合作遭遇了重大挫折。文章指出东亚货币合作本身存在的固有矛盾或问题如对现行美元体制的依赖等,是影响其未来发展的长期性因素,决定了在今后相当长时期内东亚地区在整体上不具备推进货币合作深化发展的前提条件。未来东亚货币合作的开展应该在整体层面上巩固和扩大既有成果的同时,在具备条件的局部地区推进货币合作的深化发展。在这方面,人民币国际化战略的实施将发挥重要作用。人民币国际化应该采取周边化→区域化→国际化的路径。     

Influence of ADB Bond Issues and US Bonds on Asian Government Bonds*

This article examines whether there is a correlation between the government bond markets of Asian countries and those of the USA, and whether the efforts of international organizations to improve bond markets have had any effect in East Asia. Because the sizes of the government bond markets are larger than those of the corporate bond markets in East Asia, the present paper uses the daily data of government bonds to examine two questions: whether government bond yields in Hong Kong, Singapore and Thailand correlate with US government bond yields, and whether bonds in these Asian countries are influenced by ADB bond issues. The present study analyzes these issues by demonstrating the fluctuations in bond yields and carrying out an estimation using the exponential generalized autoregressive conditional heteroskedasticity model. The results substantiate that there is indeed a correlation between Asian and US bond markets, and that ADB bond issuance in local markets can contribute to the development of Asian bond markets.     

Has China Crowded out Foreign Direct Investment from Its Developing East Asian Neighbors？

This paper applies a gravity model to investigate the determinants of foreign direct investment (FDI) in East Asia. Economic fundamentals, such as market size, per capita income and country risk indicators, economic and cultural ties, exchange rate volatilities and information asymmetry are found to be important determinants for FDI. Globally, the inward FDI among high-income OECD economies declined significantly on average over the period of 1990-2003, whereas the inward FDI of the high-income OECD economies in emerging market economies gained substantially. In the East Asian region, the ASEAN-4 (Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines and Thailand) received above-average inward FDI from the high-income OECD economies after controlling for their economic fundamentals. By contrast, China's FDI from the high-income OECD economies is below average relative to its economic fundamentals. Therefore, it is difficult to establish that China has crowded out FDI from its developing ASEAN neighbors.