Does Financial Sector Development Augment Cross-Border Capital Flows?

ABSTRACT

The sharp increase in volatility of capital flows in recent years has resulted in many countries altering the regulations governing the flow of foreign capital only to find such changes having a limited impact. We postulate that one reason for the limited effectiveness of such changes in regulations is the level of financial sector development in the country. As a country enhances its level of financial sector development, it also develops more and more sophisticated financial instruments. The more advanced the domestic financial instruments are, and the deeper is the integration of the domestic financial markets with the world markets, the greater is the likelihood of developing strategies to bypass capital account management measures. In this paper, we use various empirical techniques to identify the impact of financial sector development on capital flows, after accounting for regulatory regime. The empirical results indicate that there is a threshold effect in the financial sector development capital flow relationship. In particular, financial sector development augments greater integration with global capital flows only above a threshold level. Below the threshold level we find financial development reduces the extent of integration with global capital markets.     

Financial development and governance relationships

In any country, financial development has a huge influence on country’s economic developments. Financial development strengthens financial stability of countries and enhances deep and broad access to capital and financial services by improving efficiency of financial markets and effectiveness of financial intermediation. The purpose of this study is to identify the relationships between various aspects (pillars) of financial development and dimensions of governance for countries listed in the Financial Development Index of the World Economic Forum. The Index provides a score for the breadth, depth and efficiency of 62 of the world’s leading financial markets. The study utilized the data from the World Economic Forum presented in the financial development report (2012) and attempted to model the relationships between various pillars of financial development and dimensions of governance by structural equation modelling (SEM) methodology. The study used the Worldwide Governance Indicators for year 2012 of the World Bank as the measure of governance. According to the SEM results, there seems to be a significant positive relationship between governance and financial development. Thus, as governance is enhanced, we may expect financial development to strengthen as well.     

Asymmetric Linkages between BRICS Stock Returns and Country Risk Ratings: Evidence from Dynamic Panel Threshold Models

This study investigates the asymmetric linkages between the five BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) countries’ stock markets and three country risk ratings (financial, economic and political risk) in the presence of major global economic and financial factors. Using the dynamic panel threshold models, we find evidence of asymmetry in most cases. However, the significance and the signs of the effects of these risk ratings on the BRICS market returns differ across the lower and upper regimes. Furthermore, improvements in the global stock, West Texas Intermediate (WTI) and gold markets enhance the BRICS stock market performance. Increases in implied volatility indices lead to drops in the BRICS markets.     

Financial markets, specialization, and learning by doing

This paper considers three questions: (1) what is the role of financial markets in development, (2) why do some economies have such poorly developed financial markets, and (3) can government policy be used to promote financial market development? With respect to the first question, we formalize the widely-held notion that financial markets promote entrepreneurship, specialization, and learning-by-doing. However, if economic incentives for specialization are absent, financial markets may fail to form. This occurs when real interest rates are too low. We also discuss policies that can be used to promote financial market development. When these policies are successful, they will be growth promoting. Finally, we examine policies intended to manipulate returns on savings, which are often important components of “financial liberalizations”. We describe conditions under which such policies will be conducive to growth.     

The asymmetric price adjustment between REIT and stock markets in Asia-Pacific markets

This paper applies the threshold error correction model to examine the relationship for real estate investment trusts (REITs) and stock, and their asymmetric adjustment behaviors in six Asian/Pacific financial markets: Australia, Japan, Singapore, Taiwan, Korea, and Hong Kong. Our results show that there has been long-term equilibrium in REIT and stock indices in most of these markets. To earn exceptional profits, it is recommended that investors can sell (buy) the REITs when the indices of REITs are lower (higher) than equilibrium in Australia, Singapore and Taiwan; on the other hand, they should sell (buy) when the REIT market goes up (down) in Hong Kong and Japan. A causality test revealed that previous information about stocks predicted changes in the REITs in all the Asian/Pacific markets. One can also find that the lead–lag relationships are significant. The threshold EC model predicts two-way causality under both the regimes for the financial markets in most countries during all the sample periods. In addition, the adjustment speeds for the stock indices are faster than that for the REIT indices as disequilibrium occurs. This paper also finds that the previous mentioned trading strategies generally remained the same during the period of sub-prime mortgage crisis. However, the threshold EC model predicts one-way causality for both the regimes for the financial markets in most countries during this crisis period. In addition, we also find that the severe shock in REIT markets led investors in Australia and Taiwan to be more conservative during this period. The REIT indices had more effect on stock indices after the sub-prime mortgage crisis. According to the empirical results, we can infer that the degree of market imbalance and the occurrence of the sub-prime mortgage crisis induce the changes in the investment behavior of market participants.     

Could the global financial crisis improve the performance of the G7 stocks markets?

Financial crises are normally associated with negative effects on financial markets. In this article, we investigate whether the most recent global financial crisis (GFC) had any positive impact on the G7 (Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom and the United States) indices. To conduct the analysis we employ the mean–variance (MV) analysis, CAPM statistics, Hurst exponent, runs test, multiple variation ratio test and stochastic dominance (SD) tests. Our MV and CAPM results conclude that most of the G7 stock indices are significantly less volatile. The results from Hurst exponent, run tests and multiple variation ratio confirm that efficiency improved in the post-GFC period. Finally, our SD results conclude that there is no arbitrage opportunity and the markets are efficient due to the GFC, and, in general, investors prefer investing in the indices after the GFC. Overall, we conclude that the GFC led to markets that are more efficient and mature, confirming that crises can also have positive impacts on stock markets. These findings provide important information for investors and market regulators.     

The integration of direct real estate and stock markets in Asia

Currently, there exists relatively little research investigating the long-term association between stock and direct real estate markets. Using appropriate transaction-based property indices, this study focuses on the relationship between stock and direct real estate markets in nine Asian countries from the period 1980 to 2012 through both linear and nonlinear cointegration techniques. We find empirical evidence of linear cointegration of stock and property markets in Taiwan, fractional cointegration in Singapore and Hong Kong and no evidence of cointegration in China, Japan, Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia and South Korea. It is concluded that segmentation of property markets from stock markets does not appear to be linked to the differences in the maturity of national financial markets and that the differing degrees of integration across Asia may instead be reflective of a range of factors impacting upon the underlying economic structures in each country.     

Political instability: Effects on financial development, roots in the severity of economic inequality

We here bring forward strong evidence that political instability impedes financial development, with its variation a primary determinant of differences in financial development around the world. As such, it needs to be added to the short list of major determinants of financial development. First, structural conditions first postulated by Engerman and Sokoloff (2002) as generating long-term inequality are shown here to have strong empirical support as exogenous determinants of political instability. Second, that exogenously-determined political instability in turn holds back financial development, even when we control for factors prominent in the last decade’s cross-country studies of financial development. The findings indicate that inequality-perpetuating conditions that result in political instability and weak democracy are fundamental roadblocks for international organizations like the World Bank that seek to promote financial development. The evidence here includes country fixed effect regressions and an instrumental model inspired by Engerman and Sokoloff’s (2002) work, which to our knowledge has not yet been used in finance and which is consistent with current tests as valid instruments. Four conventional measures of national political instability – Alesina and Perotti’s (1996) well-known index of instability, a subsequent index derived from Banks’ (2005) work, and two indices of managerial perceptions of nation-by-nation political instability – persistently predict a wide range of national financial development outcomes. Political instability’s significance is time consistent in cross-sectional regressions back to the 1960s, the period when the key data becomes available, robust in both country fixed effects and instrumental variable regressions, and consistent across multiple measures of instability and of financial development. Overall, the results indicate the existence of an important channel running from structural inequality to political instability, principally in nondemocratic settings, and then to financial backwardness. The robust significance of that channel extends existing work demonstrating the importance of political economy explanations for financial development and financial backwardness. It should help to better understand which policies will work for financial development, because political instability has causes, cures, and effects quite distinct from those of many of the key institutions most studied in the past decade as explaining financial backwardness.     

COMMON STOCHASTIC TRENDS AMONG THE CYPRUS STOCK EXCHANGE AND THE ASE,LSE AND NYSE

Common stochastic trends among major international stock price indices have been an intensively analysed issue mainly as a result of the 1987 stock market crash and the need for policy coordination in financial markets. This paper investigates the existence of common stochastic trends among an emerging equity market, the Cyprus Stock Exchange, and three mature equity markets, namely the Athens Stock Exchange (ASE), the London Stock Exchange (LSE) and the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE).     

Global Investment Environment of the Post‐Quantitative Easing World: The ‘new‐old’ and ‘new‐new’ Normal

Global markets since late 2007 are not ‘normal’, where normal means market conditions we would expect to observe going forward in the absence of any new economic shocks. Financial markets have been dominated by extraordinary central bank policies that were created to deal with challenging market conditions reflecting heightened risk aversion and illiquidity. Markets in the future will have some characteristics that look more like the market conditions observed in the pre‐crisis period, which I call the ‘new‐old normal’ and other conditions that differ from the past, which I call the ‘new‐new normal’. I first review what happened during the financial crisis in terms of developments in three asset classes, equities, fixed income and currencies, to place the forward‐looking view in proper context. Then the transition period from the quantitative easing (QE) era of exceptional monetary policy to post‐QE markets is discussed. Post‐transition, we will see some features of the post‐QE world that will resemble pre‐crisis market conditions, the ‘new‐old normal’ with higher policy interest rates, wider cross‐country interest differentials, lower cross‐asset return correlations and a resurgence of the importance of cross‐country differences in fundamentals in international investing. However, some features of the post‐QE investment environment will be unlike anything observed in the past: the ‘new‐new normal’ with reduced liquidity and more days of exceptionally large volatility and asset price moves due to regulatory effects resulting in a reduced ability of market‐makers to provide inventory buffers for counterparties and electronic trading venues that shut down trading in high volatility periods; low inflation; flatter yield curves; and emerging markets providing less opportunity for diversification gains as they converge to developed financial market characteristics.     

Explaining the effect of financial development on the quality of property rights

Empirical evidence suggests that financial development can catalyze property rights reforms. This paper offers a theory of financial markets to explain these facts defining the relationship. The explanation is based on a simple trade‐off between the costs and the benefits of securing property. Securing the right to property at a cost allows agents to post collateral against loans. However, the benefits of collateral vary according to the existing credit market conditions, which we take into account in the tradeoff between the costs and the benefits of securing property rights along the path of financial development to explain the conditions under which financial development can create incentives for better property rights institutions.     

Evidence for Financial Contagion in Endogenous Volatile Periods

The objective of this study is to analyze cross‐border contagious dynamics in both foreign exchange markets and stock exchange markets. Propagation is analyzed with respect to the transmission of excessive volatility that is endogenously determined. The contagion process is discussed in the context of financial systems, foreign direct investments and trade. Implementing a vector autoregressive‐multivariate generalized autoregressive conditional heteroskedasticity (VAR‐MGARCH) model, we show that country‐specific turbulence in financial markets is able to create unanticipated financial contagion across countries. Diversified trade and financial relations decrease the risk of exposure to contagion from external markets. The world's largest economies, however, play a price‐setter role, and diversification is of secondary importance. Asymmetric transmission of the empirically predicted contagion prevails in the latter case.     

Exploring the nexus between financial openness and informational efficiency – does the quality of institution matter?

This article examines the empirical link between financial openness and informational efficiency of stock markets in 27 emerging markets. Improving on earlier papers, this study has used World Bank’s Worldwide Governance Indicators (WGI) as the proxy of institutional development in dynamic panel data models estimated by generalized method of moments (GMM). Our results show, first, financial liberalization by itself has no impact on enhancing efficiency of stock market. Second, for countries with high level of institutional development, the interaction of trade openness and financial openness become significant. Third, for the same group of countries, interaction effect of financial liberalization and institutional development leads to more efficiency in stock market. Hence, our finding demonstrates the utmost importance of institutional development and its role on liberalization. Our results conclude that institutional development and trade openness are pre-requisites for a country to benefit from financial openness. Our study further provides empirical evidence to theoretical model proposed by Basu and Morey (2005) that governance is the missing link between stock market efficiency and financial liberalization. Our findings suggest that policy makers in developing economies should enhance the quality of their institution in order to optimize the benefits of financial liberalization.     

Financial liberalization and the selection of emigrants: a cross-national analysis

This paper explores the impact of financial liberalization on the migration of high skilled labor from 46 countries to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, taken at 5-year intervals over the period 1985–2000. Using an exploratory factor analysis, we are able to distinguish between two dimensions of financial liberalization, namely the robustness of the markets and their freedom from direct government control. We find that a standard deviation improvement in the robustness of the source country financial sector magnifies the extent of skilled emigration by a factor of about 3.9–5.1 % points on the average. However, a corresponding increase in the freedom of the source country financial sector from government control has a statistically insignificant impact. Further, the impact of improved financial sector robustness on selection is more pronounced for countries with a better quality of institutions in terms of the perceived credibility of the regime in terms of its ability to protect property rights.     

Fear connectedness among asset classes

This study investigates the interconnection between five implied volatility indices representative of different financial markets during the period 1 August 2008–29 December 2017. To this end, we first perform a static and dynamic analysis to measure the total volatility connectedness in the entire period (the system-wide approach) using a framework recently proposed by Diebold and Yilmaz. Second, we make use of a dynamic analysis to evaluate both the net directional connectedness for each market and all net pairwise directional connectedness. Our results suggest that a 38.99%, of the total variance of the forecast errors is explained by shocks across markets, indicating that the remainder 61.01% of the variation is due to idiosyncratic shocks. Furthermore, we find that volatility connectedness varies over time, with a surge during periods of increasing economic and financial instability. Finally, we also document frequently switch between a net volatility transmitter and a net volatility receiver role in the five markets under study.     

Determinants of cross-sectional stock return variations in emerging markets

We extend the studies of the country and industry components of stock returns by exploring fundamental sources of these components. Country and industry effects are generated using company data for 1984–2004 from 13 emerging markets and 11 industries and then regressed on country and firm characteristics to identify their determinants. Macroeconomic variables, financial sector development, and the legal environment all have a significant influence on country effects; industrial and geographical concentration help explain industry effects post-1997. We find that different legal origins matter for the country component of stock returns and suggest that further research on this is needed. The evidence also suggests that globalization alone does not drive stock markets and that country factors will continue to be an important determinant of stock returns.     

The static and dynamic connectedness of environmental,social, and governance investments: International evidence

We investigate the connectedness of the most significant global equity indices that comprise companies with the highest environmental, social, and governance (ESG) performance. Motivated by the rapid growth of socially responsible investing during the last two decades, we examine whether these investments are prone to similar exogenous economic and financial shocks as their conventional counterparts. Employing a variety of influential macroeconomic and financial variables over the period 10/1/2007–4/15/2020, we document statistically significant and consistent transmissions between the employed equity indices throughout the sample period. In particular, the connectedness exhibits dynamic patterns during three periods: the European sovereign debt crisis, the systemic Greek problems, and the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic. We also find that developed equity markets are the shock transmitters to Asian and other emerging markets. Our results highlight the risk of contagion and the diminishing portfolio diversification benefits of these equity indices during turbulent periods.     

中国保险市场与金融发展互动关系的实证研究

本文通过基于向量误差修正VEC模型的因果关系检验和Granger因果关系检验,分析我国各类保险市场发展水平和金融发展之间的长期与短期关系.虽然用M2/GDP和金融相关率FIR作为金融发展衡量指标所得的结果有所差异,但就总体而言,保险市场的发展与金融发展存在脱节现象,伴随金融发展而引起保险服务需求的增加对保险市场发展的促进作用仍相对微弱.随着金融体系的不断完善,金融发展对保险业的促进作用将会逐步加强.     

Financialization of food. Modelling the time-varying relation between agricultural prices and stock market dynamics

This article studies the correlation of agricultural prices with stock market dynamics. We discuss the possible role of financial and macroeconomic factors in driving this time-varying relation, with the aim of understanding what caused positive correlation between agricultural commodities and stocks in recent years. While previous works on commodity-equity correlation have focused on broad commodity indices, we study 16 agricultural prices, in order to assess patterns that are specific to agricultural commodities but also differences across markets. We show that an explanation based on a combination of financialization and financial crisis is consistent with the empirical evidence in most markets, while global demand factors don’t appear to play a significant role. The correlation between agricultural prices and stock market returns tends to increase during periods of financial turmoil. The impact of financial turmoil on the correlation gets stronger as the share of financial investors in agricultural derivatives markets rises. Our findings suggest that the influence of financial shocks on agricultural prices should decrease as global financial tensions settle down but also that, as long as agricultural markets are ‘financialized’, it might rise again when it is less needed, i.e. in the presence of new financial turmoil.