A further look at linkages between NAFTA equity markets

Recent research finds evidence for convergence among the North American equity markets and argues that this is generated by the North Atlantic Free Trade Accord (NAFTA). In this paper, we re-examine these conclusions and show that the documented cointegration property among the NAFTA equity markets was in fact confined to a sub-period in the late 1990s. We argue that the comovement was caused by the global boom in information technology shares and the resulting change in the sector mix of the value-weighted benchmark indexes used in prior work. We present evidence supporting this alternative hypothesis using an updated data set that includes global industry indexes. Our results have implications for transmission of information across global equity markets and international portfolio diversification.     

Social Agents,the Provision of Buildings and Property Booms: The Case of Sã0 Paulo

This paper examines the systems of social relations underpinning the late 1980s’ office boom in São Paulo, Brazil. Using ‘institutionalist’ approaches to provide an empirical examination of these systems, it focuses on the nature of the dominant agents and their strategies, the linkages that allow them to perform their functions, and the relative position and power of the agents in the production and use of built structures. The paper tries to situate these systems in their economic and social environment and to point to the connections between socially constructed property markets, their environment, and the characteristics and outcomes of the property boom. In doing so, it aims to cast some light on the processes through which a mix of economic, social and cultural impulses, of global and ã local origins, are related to the structures of provision of offices in the context of So Paulo and lead to the production of specific forms of built environment. — Cet article examine les sytèmes de relations sociales qui a soutenu le boom des bureaux à S ão Paulo à la fin les années quatre-vingt. Utilisant des approches ‘institutionnalistes’ afin de fournir une examination empirique de ces systèmes, il se concentre sur la nature des agents principaux et sur leurs stratègies, sur les liens qui leur permettent d’assurer leurs fonctions, et sur la position de pouvoir relatif de ces agents dans la production et l’utilisation des structures bâties. Cet article essaie de situer ces sytèmes dans leur environnement social et économique, et de montrer les rapports entre les marchés immobiliers construits socialement, leur environnement et les caractéristiques et résultats de l’essor immobilier. Ce faisant, il entend éclaicir les processus par lesquels un mélange d’impulsions économiques, sociales et culturelles d’origine locale et globale est lié aux structures de construction des bureaux dans le contexte de S ão Paulo et conduit à la production de formes spécifiques d’environnement construit.     

我国债券市场现状、问题及对策浅析

债券市场在证券市场中处于一个举轻重的地位,证券市场是不是能够繁荣发展,标识着整个国家金融市场的兴衰成败。这些年,我国债券市场发展十分迅速,实际上,我国债券市场的发行规模还比较小,市场内部不统一,在管理上也不统一,法律制度、交易方式、市场监管等方面发展的也不够完善,这些都不能使我国资本市场健康地向前发展,甚至会阻碍我国经济的可持续发展。所以,不断推进债券市场的繁荣,不仅有利于金融市场体系的完善,而且能够更好的保持金融市场的可持续发展。     

The New Ruins of Ireland? Unfinished Estates in the Post‐Celtic Tiger Era

In the wake of the global financial crisis, and as Europe's financial and fiscal woes continue, Ireland's beleaguered economy has attracted a great deal of scrutiny, with much made of the country's status as one of the PIIGS and the fact that it was bailed out by the troika of the IMF, EU and ECB in November 2010. Whilst most attention has been directed at Ireland's banks and the strategy of the Irish government in managing the crisis, substantial interest (both nationally and internationally) has been focused on the property sector and in particular the phenomenon of so‐called ‘ghost estates’ (or, in official terms, unfinished estates). As of October 2011 there were 2,846 such estates in Ireland, and they have come to visibly symbolize the collapse of Ireland's ‘Celtic Tiger’ economy. In this essay, we examine the unfinished estates phenomenon, placing them within the context of Ireland's property boom during the Celtic Tiger years, and conceptualize them as ‘new ruins’ created through the search for a spatial fix by speculative capitalism in a time of neoliberalism. We detail the characteristics and geography of such estates, the various problems afflicting the estates and their residents, and the Irish government's response to those problems. In the final section we examine the estates as exemplars of new ruins, the remainder and reminder of Celtic Tiger excess.     

ECB tapering: beware of global consequences

• ? The ECB's scaling back of its QE programme in 2018 could be more disruptive to global financial markets than the Federal Reserve's ongoing balance sheet unwinding. ECB bond purchases led Eurozone private investors to inject a massive amount of funds into global debt markets over the last few years. As the ECB reduces its stimulus, Eurozone investors will gradually pare back the build‐up of their foreign debt exposures. The full unwinding of ECB QE will see investors rebalance toward domestic debt securities .
• ? We expect Eurozone investors to continue injecting funds into global debt markets as the ECB proceeds to wind down its QE, but they will do so at a much slower pace. Based on our projections, European purchases of foreign debt securities this year will total €200 billion – down by half from the average €400 billion over the last three years. Such a large reduction raises the risk of disruption in some markets.
• ? How did we get here? Spillovers from the ECB's QE were much more pronounced than during Fed's. European private investors that sold bonds to the ECB during its QE programme faced a commensurate shortage of domestic debt assets. In contrast to the US experience, ECB buying far exceeded new domestic issuance, inducing private investors to sharply increase purchases of overseas debt securities.
• ? Ultimately, we expect European investors to seek to restore the share of domestic debt securities in their portfolios to a level in line with the historical norm, after the proportion of their domestic debt holdings fell by 7pp since the programme began. The rebalancing is likely to start in earnest once the ECB stops buying (and eventually starts selling) securities. As a result, the global debt issuance boom is likely to lose steam, given the extent to which it has relied on the support of European investors.

     

POLICIES AND PERFORMANCES: The Real Estate Markets in Hong Kong, Singapore, and West Coast Cities

The flow of international funds in real estate investment between Asian and North American cities in the Pacific Rim is now a major financial force to be recognized. This paper reviews the differences in the characteristics and performances of the real estate markets in Hong Kong, Singapore, and several west coast cities. The residential and office price movements among selected Pacific Rim cities over the last 20 years are compared. The paper attributes the differences in the performances to the differences in economic and planning policies in these cities, the differing strategies adopted by the market players, the differences in East and West cultural values, and the differing opportunities and risks created by the various "rules of the game" in each city. If Asian countries continue to enjoy robust economic growth, and the differences in regional real estate markets persist, the flow of international funds within the region and across the Pacific will continue to dominate the 1990's.     

试论我国房地产金融市场的发展

房地产业是一个资金密集型产业,与金融业存在着很大的关联度,因此必须促进房地产金融市场的发展。文章将分析我国房地产金融市场的发展现状及存在的主要问题,并提出发展与繁荣我国房地产金融市场的有关对策建议。     

The impact of VIX on China’s financial market: A new perspective based on high-dimensional and time-varying methods

Based on the new perspective of high-dimensional and time-varying methods, this paper analyzes the contagion effects of US financial market volatility on China’s nine financial sub-markets. The results show evidence of non-linear Granger causality from the US financial volatility (VIX) to the China’s financial markets. Increased US financial volatility has a negative next-day impact on the stock, bond, fund, interest rate, foreign exchange, industrial product and agricultural product markets, and a positive next-day impact on the gold and real estate markets. US financial volatility has the greatest impact on industrial product market, following by stock, agricultural product, fund, real estate, bond, gold, foreign exchange, and interest rates. Major risk events such as the global financial crisis can cause an enhanced contagion effect of US financial volatility to China's financial markets. This paper supports the achievements of China's actions to prevent and resolve major financial risks in the period of the COVID-19 epidemic.     

Canada's Housing Bubble Story: Mortgage Securitization,the State,and the Global Financial Crisis

Canada's experience during and after the financial crisis appears to distinguish it from its international peers. Canadian real estate sales and values experienced record increases since the global financial crisis emerged in 2008, rather than declines, and Canada did not witness any bank failures. The dominant trope concerning Canada's financial and housing markets is that they are sound, prudent, appropriately regulated and ‘boring but effective’. It is widely assumed that Canadian banks did not need, nor receive, a ‘bailout’, that mortgage lending standards remained high, and that the securitization of mortgages was not widespread. The truth, however, does not accord with this mainstream view. In fact, the Canadian financial and housing markets reveal marked similarities with their international peers. Canada's banks needed, and received, a substantial ‘bailout’, while federal policies before and after the financial crisis resulted in the massive growth of mortgage securitization and record household indebtedness. This article documents the growth of Canada's housing bubble, the history of mortgage securitization, and of government policies implemented before and after the crisis. Instead of making the Canadian financial and housing sectors more resilient and sustainable, the outcomes of state responses are best understood as regressively redistributive.     

Global Financial Transmission of Monetary Policy Shocks*

The paper analyses the transmission of US monetary policy shocks to global equity markets and the macroeconomic determinants of the underlying transmission process. We show that there is a substantial cross‐country heterogeneity in reactions across 50 equity markets worldwide, with returns falling on average around 2.7% in response to a 100 basis point tightening of US monetary policy, but ranging from a zero response in some to a reaction of 5% or more in other markets. As to the determinants of the strength of transmission to individual countries, we test the relevance of their macroeconomic policies and the role of real and financial integration. We find that in particular the degree of global integration of countries – and not a country's bilateral integration with the United States – is a key determinant for the transmission process.     

Global Best Practice or Regulating Fiction? Street Vending,Zero Tolerance and Conflicts Over Public Space in New York, 1980–2000

In global urban studies, different cities often serve as stand‐ins for various policy approaches. New York is closely associated with zero tolerance/quality of life policing—specifically the ways this crime‐fighting technique was used to manage and regulate public space in support of broader urban redevelopment goals. Whether celebrated or criticized, the image of New York as a city that was successful in ‘cleaning up’ public space has been exported across the globe, and has been invoked by a number of cities as they embark on their own projects to clear street vendors and other unwanted actors from public space. This article will challenge this established narrative through an examination of struggles over street vending and public space in New York during the 1980s and 1990s. It will show how the revanchist project of public space management was challenged and ultimately limited by vendors using discourses of free market populism and entrepreneurship. It demonstrates the ways in which the image of New York as a city of settled and well‐regulated public space does not tell the complete story, and how New York, like many other ordinary cities across the globe, is a city of contested spaces and uncertain regulatory effectiveness.     

Three Dimensions of Capital Switching within the Real Estate Sector: A Canadian Case Study

This article analyzes capital switching practices in the real estate development sector. The leading practitioners in Canada, the Canadian‐based real estate companies, are the subject of this inquiry. The tradability and divisibility of real estate properties enhance the growing similarity between real estate properties and other financial assets. It is appropriate to talk about portable real estate portfolios because companies constantly rearrange their property composition. This article emphasizes the ‘three dimensions of capital switching’. These dimensions unpack significant corporate considerations in the deployment and redeployment of capital, namely, mode of operation, property type and location. With respect to office development, the trajectory of the major real estate companies over the last 20 years has accommodated two notable shifts. First, these companies have focused on larger and newer properties, disposing of their smaller and older assets. Second, they have funneled a growing share of their capital assets into the top‐tier cities of the Canadian urban system, reducing investment in other metropolitan areas and disinvesting in the small‐to‐medium sized cities.     

我国私募基金发展的基础、特点和优势

在当前全球性金融危机背景下,我国中小企业融资难,扩大融资渠道已经成为必须解决的重要问题,私募基金是我国当前金融市场中的新生力量,论文探讨了我国私募基金形成的基础,发展的优势和现状特征等方面的内容。     

International spillovers in global asset markets

The paper empirically estimates the financial transmission within and across bond and equity markets in the four largest global financial markets – the United States, the Euro area, Japan, and the United Kingdom. We argue that international bond and equity markets are highly interconnected both within and across asset classes in a globalized world, where the complex transmission process across various financial assets is not restricted to just the domestic market. This paper employs identification through generalized forecast error variance decompositions to estimate spillovers across four systemic markets in a Vector Autoregression (VAR) framework. We find that asset prices react most strongly to international shocks within the same asset class, but that there are also substantial international spillovers across asset classes. Rolling estimations analysis provides evidence that global asset markets have become more integrated and that the bilateral relationships change over time. Our results are robust to specifications that take into account the monetary policy stance and include foreign exchange markets.     

Florida in the Global South: How Eurocentrism Obscures Global Urban Challenges—and What We Can Do about It

According to Richard Florida, the world is in the grip of a ‘New Urban Crisis’. In his most recent book Florida recounts a visit to Medellín that provoked an epiphany in which he realized that the New Urban Crisis is global in scope. Unfortunately, Florida's discovery of the global South is informed by a deeply Eurocentric understanding of urbanization. This leads him to conclude that Southern cities should ‘unleash’ creativity, and he proposes that the United States should develop a global urban policy that would export a version of American urbanism. In this essay we deconstruct Florida's notion of the New Urban Crisis and show that its Eurocentric assumptions obscure the very real environmental, economic and political challenges facing cities in the global South and their residents.     

Do services hold the key to an improved UK trade performance?

The UK has established a central role in the global market for trade in services, ranking second to the US in terms of its share of global exports. Our modelling finds that the key factor behind the UK's success is that its exports are focused on the markets where demand has been growing quickest. This represents a notable contrast with research on UK goods exports, which has found that the geographical focus of goods exports has been the main reason for the UK's persistent underperformance. The global financial crisis caused significant damage to the UK's export performance, particularly to the key financial sector which accounts for a quarter of UK services exports and almost two‐fifths of the UK's surplus on services trade. However, the UK's export performance is on the mend and we expect it to retain its position as a key global player in the market for services over the coming five years.     

Global finance,sovereign risk and economic performance of Brazil

This paper examines the impact of globalized financial markets on domestic economic policymaking and, ultimately, on economic sovereignty. It argues that the development of dollar-denominated Brady bonds, eurobonds, and global bonds issued by Latin sovereigns opened a new venue for foreign capital to participate in economic affairs of these countries. A natural outcome of the globalization of Brazil’s financial markets has been the increased vulnerability of the Brazilian economy to contagion from financial crises in other troubled markets of the globe. This paper focuses on how the contagion channel compromised domestic economic policymaking and affected the real sector of the Brazilian economy. It offers the first analytical attempt at estimating the real cost of contagion by investigating the impact of the Russian and the Argentine crises on Brazil’s output and production.     

Making ‘Global Sydney’: Spatial Imaginaries,Worlding and Strategic Plans

This article critically examines the expression of global spatial imaginaries in urban policy and planning. Following recent calls to understand how the global is ‘made up' in and through cities, we argue for the usefulness of Roy and Ong's concept of ‘worlding’. By analysing how strategic spatial plans envisage ‘Global Sydney’, the article reveals a constitutive spatial imaginary informed by the articulation of three interrelated elements: global city standards, comparative techniques and extra‐local policy models. Unpacking how cities are selectively worlded through spatial imaginaries, the article advances an approach to urban globality as actively cultivated and differentially produced.     

How Subordinate Financialization Shapes Urban Development: The Rise and Fall of Warsaw's Służewiec Business District

This article studies the development of Warsaw's S?u?ewiec neighbourhood, Poland's largest business district, as a case of real estate financialization. We argue that the neighbourhood's chaotic ‘de‐contextualized’ growth was shaped by Poland's semi‐peripheral position in the global economy on the one hand—enabling a process of subordinate financialization—and legacies of state socialism on the other. In so doing, we mobilize research on peripheral financialization and global economic hierarchies, and studies of post‐socialism to enhance debates about real estate financialization. Commercial real estate—and office development in particular—is a crucial domain in which contemporary core–periphery structures are produced and negotiated. A key function of subordinate financialization is to absorb globally mobile capital—the product of financialization in the core. The case of S?u?ewiec shows that only by considering the interplay of global hierarchies (Poland's position as capital absorbent), local dynamics (fragmented urban development, which was characterized by competition among these unequal municipalities, with local growth coalitions in some municipalities, but not in others) and specific historical legacies (Warsaw's socialist‐time functional organization and its transformation, which weakened the city) can we fully understand the specific dynamics that shape real estate financialization in different places.     

What drives herding in oil-rich,developing stock markets? Relative roles of own volatility and global factors

The main goal of this paper is to formally establish the volatility-herding link in the developing stock markets of the oil-rich GCC countries by examining how market volatility affects herd behavior after controlling for global factors. Using a regime-switching, smooth transition regression model (STR), we find significant evidence of herding in all Gulf Arab stock markets, with the market volatility being the more paramount factor governing the switches between the extreme states of non-herding and herding. The global variables comprised of the U.S. stock market performance, the price of oil and the US interest rate as well as the risk indexes including the CBOE Volatility Index (VIX) and the St. Louis Fed's Financial Stress Index (FSI) are found to be significant factors governing the transition to herding states. The findings stress the effect of contagion in financial markets, despite the restrictions established by the GCC policymakers in order to protect their markets.