| Abstract: | In the early 1980s the Australian economy underwent a period of rapid financial deregulation and liberalisation, the key symbol of this process being the floating of the exchange rate in December 1983. It has been suggested that one effect of such regulatory change is to alter the risk characteristics of economic units most directly impacted by the changes. In this vein, Brooks and Faff (1995) examined banking industry risk and found that deregulation coincided with a stabilising of the beta risk of banks. However, financial deregulation was expected to have widespread effects across the economy. Accordingly, in this paper we further test for possible effects by examining the level and stability of the beta risk of individual stocks and portfolios in other industries in both prederegulation and post-deregulation periods. From a comparison of the two periods we find that the effects on beta levels vary across industries. However in general post-deregulation betas have become stable across a large range of key industry classifications. This provides interesting insights into the effects of financial deregulation on relative risk and why different industries may have different experiences. |
