European financial market dependence: An industry analysis

This paper uses a copula model to investigate the degree and determinants of European market dependence across 10 industries in 12 Euro zone and 8 non-Euro zone stock markets during the period 1992–2011. Most of the industries in Euro countries show a dependence increase with the Euro-area after the introduction of the Euro. The effects are strongest in countries with larger market capitalization and in the Financials, Industrials, Consumer Goods, Utilities, Technology and Telecommunications industries. Overall, the export intensity, interest rate sensitivity and competitiveness of an industry and the financial development and economic openness of a country are the most important determinants of changes in equity market dependence. The period around the Lehman collapse also shows higher equity market dependence between European countries, while the lower dependence increase during the period of the recent European sovereign debt crisis suggests that country-specific factors may matter more than before.     

Volatility spillovers and dynamic correlation in European bond markets

This paper examines the dynamic linkages among the European bond markets. We model the price and volatility spillovers from the US bond market and the aggregate Euro area bond market to twelve individual European bond markets using an EGARCH model that allows for a dynamic correlation structure. Our results suggest that significant volatility spillovers exist from both the aggregate Euro area bond market and the US bond market to the individual European markets. Moreover, the introduction of the Euro has strengthened the volatility spillover effects and the cross-correlations for most European bond markets.     

Portfolio diversification benefits within Europe: Implications for a US investor

This paper investigates the possibility of cointegration between the United States and 11 European equity markets before and after the convergence period of 1995. The results indicate that during the preconvergence and postconvergence periods, some country groups, with and without the US equity market, exhibited cointegration while others did not. For the European Union markets, however, at least one cointegrating vector emerged in either period, but no cointegration among them surfaced during the Euro introduction period of 1999. These results suggest that a US investor can still benefit from country diversification within the European Union markets.     

Transition to the Euro and its impact on country portfolio diversification

By examining the impact of the introduction of the Euro on stock markets and on country diversification within the Eurozone, the evidence does not suggest a high risk to the stock market to justify a risk premium as a result of currency union. Although the Euro market integration has increased inter-country correlations, it does not preclude gains from international diversification, which partially rely on the non-Eurozone countries for an optimal portfolio in a mean-variance framework. Furthermore, the empirical evidence supports that there is a significant stationarity of average correlations over time between pre-Euro and post-Euro periods, and it has improved since the introduction of the Euro. Also, results show that the Euro produced a change in volatility with a different pace within the Eurozone vis-à-vis non-Eurozone countries, to support a direct and opposite relationship between volatility and correlation.     

Global financial crisis, extreme interdependences, and contagion effects: The role of economic structure?

The paper examines the extent of the current global crisis and the contagion effects it induces by conducting an empirical investigation of the extreme financial interdependences of some selected emerging markets with the US. Several copula functions that provide the necessary flexibility to capture the dynamic patterns of fat tail as well as linear and nonlinear interdependences are used to model the degree of cross-market linkages. Using daily return data from Brazil, Russia, India, China (BRIC) and the US, our empirical results show strong evidence of time-varying dependence between each of the BRIC markets and the US markets, but the dependency is stronger for commodity-price dependent markets than for finished-product export-oriented markets. We also observe high levels of dependence persistence for all market pairs during both bullish and bearish markets.     

Re-examination of international bond market dependence: Evidence from a pair copula approach

The finance literature provides substantial evidence on the dependence between international bond markets across developed and emerging countries. Early works in this area were based on linear models and multivariate GARCH models. However, based on the limitations of these models this paper re-examines the non-linearity, multivariate and tail dependence structure between government bond markets of the US, UK, Japan, Germany, Canada, France, Italy, Australia and the Eurozone, from January 1970 to February 2019 using ARMA-GARCH based pair- copula models. We find that the bond markets in our sample tend to have both upper tail dependence in terms of positive shocks and lower tail dependence in terms of negative shocks. The estimated C-vine shows Eurozone has the highest average dependency. The D-vine, with optimal chain dependency structure shows the best order of connectedness to be the UK, the USA, Italy, Japan, Eurozone, France, Canada, Germany and Australia. The R-vine copula results underline the complex dynamics of bond market relations existing between the selected economies. The estimated R-vine shows Eurozone, Germany and Australia are the most inter-connected nodes. The multivariate distribution structure (interdependency) of bond markets for all countries were modelled with the C-vine, D-vine and R-vine copulas. In this application, the R-vine copula allows for detailed modelling of all bond markets and hence provides a more accurate goodness of fit and mean square error for the interdependency between all markets. In light of the changing volatility in bond markets, we conduct additional tests using time-varying copulas and find that the dependence structure among the bond markets examined is time-varying with the dynamic dependence parameter plots revealing that the nature of the dependence structure is intense during crisis periods.     

Time varying integration of European stock markets and monetary drivers

This study analyzes time-varying integration of stock markets among fourteen European countries and its monetary drivers relevant to the two contrasting events — the introduction of Euro in 1999 and banking crisis of GIIPS in 2011. Our panel analysis reports evidence that monetary performance convergence, lower differentials in interest rates and inflation among EU countries, has been a key driver for the increase in integration of EU stock markets post EMU. Our qualitative analysis indicates that post EMU, the GDP differences among the EU countries have reverse relations with monetary performance convergence. This finding is in line with those of our quantitative study with a price-based indicator for integration.     

Black swan events and safe havens: The role of gold in globally integrated emerging markets

There is evidence to suggest that gold acts as both a hedge and a safe haven for equity markets over recent years, and particularly during crises periods. Our work extends the recent literature on hedging and diversification roles of gold by analyzing its interaction with the stock markets of the leading emerging economies, the BRICS. While they generally exhibit a high growth rate, these economies still experience a pronounced vulnerability to external shocks, particularly to commodity price fluctuations. Using a multi-scale wavelet approach and a GARCH-based copula methodology, we mainly show evidence of: (i) the time-scale co-evolvement patterns between BRICS stock markets and gold market, with some profound regions of concentrated extreme variations; and (ii) a strong time-varying asymmetric dependence structure between those markets. These findings are essential for risk diversification and portfolio hedging strategies among the investigated markets.     

Joint dynamics of foreign exchange and stock markets in emerging Europe

This paper proposes an ideal specification for studying joint dynamics of emerging stock and foreign exchange markets, and applies it on European emerging markets where this interaction is of particular significance due to large external deficits. Results show that global developed and emerging stock market returns account for a large proportion of the (permanent) comovement between the stock index and currency value. The residual interaction after controlling for global indexes is small. The sign of the currency-stock market relationship is driven by dependence on foreign capital (predominantly positive for countries which are net receivers of foreign portfolio capital) and depth of the local stock market. Bank of Russia's intensive involvement in the currency market delays Ruble's response to global information. Emerging European currencies predict reversals in global equity indexes several months ahead.     

Capital Market Regimes and Bank Structure in Europe

We hypothesize that fundamental features that distinguish European capital markets have predictably influenced emerging national differences in bank capitalization and loan growth. Using bank‐level data from 13 European countries, 1998 to 2004, we find evidence of positive effects of “equity‐friendly” market features on bank capitalization and positive effects of both “equity‐friendly” and “credit‐friendly” market features on loan growth. The findings are strongest in small banks and in banks with cooperative charters. Our results suggest that ongoing and prospective integration of European banking markets is mitigated by relatively static features of the equity and credit markets on which banks rely.     

Financial stress relationships among Euro area countries: an R-vine copula approach

One of the biggest challenges of keeping Euro area financial stability is the negative co-movement between the vulnerability of public finance, the financial sector, security markets stresses as well as economic growth, especially in peripheral economies. This paper utilizes a ARMA-GARCH based R-vine copula method to explore tail dependance between the Financial Stress Indices of 11 euro area countries with an aim of understanding how financial stress are interacting with each other. We find larger economies in the Euro area tend to have closer upper tail dependence in terms of positive shocks, while smaller economies tend to have closer lower tail dependence with respect to negative shocks. The R-vine copula results underline the complex dynamics of financial stress relations existing between Euro Area economies. The estimated R-vine shows Spain, Italy, France and Belgium are the most inter-connected nodes which underlying they might be more efficient targets to treat in order to achieve a quicker stabilizing. Our results relate to the fact that Eurozone is not a unified policy making area, therefore, it needs to follow divergent policies for taming the effects of financial instability to different regions or groups of economies that are more interconnected.     

A revisit to the dependence structure between the stock and foreign exchange markets: A dependence-switching copula approach

This paper develops a dependence-switching copula model to examine dependence and tail dependence for four different market statuses, namely, rising-stocks/appreciating-currency, falling-stocks/depreciating-currency, rising-stocks/depreciating-currency, and falling-stocks/appreciating-currency. The model is then applied to daily stock returns and exchange rate changes for six major industrial countries over the 1990–2010 period. The dependence and tail dependence among the above four market statuses are asymmetric for most countries in the negative correlation regime, but symmetric in the positive correlation regime. These results enrich the findings in the existing literature and suggest that analyzing cross-market linkages within a time-invariant copula framework may not be appropriate.     

Analysing financial contagion and asymmetric market dependence with volatility indices via copulas

This paper explores the cross-market dependence between five popular equity indices (S&P 500, NASDAQ 100, DAX 30, FTSE 100, and Nikkei 225), and their corresponding volatility indices (VIX, VXN, VDAX, VFTSE, and VXJ). In particular, we propose a dynamic mixed copula approach which is able to capture the time-varying tail dependence coefficient (TDC). The findings indicate the existence of financial contagion and significant asymmetric TDCs for major international equity markets. In some situations, although contagion cannot be clearly detected by stock index movements, it can be captured by dependence between volatility indices. The results imply that contagion is not only reflected in the first moment of index returns, but also the second moment, i.e. the volatility. Results also show that dependence between volatility indices is more easily influenced by financial shocks and reflects the instantaneous information faster than the stock market indices.     

Commodity and equity markets: Some stylized facts from a copula approach

In this paper, we propose to identify the dependence structure that exists between returns on equity and commodity futures and its development over the past 20 years. The key point is that we do not impose any dependence structure, but let the data select it. To do so, we model the dependence between commodity (metal, agriculture and energy) and stock markets using a flexible approach that allows us to investigate whether the co-movement is: (i) symmetrical and frequent, (ii) (a) symmetrical and mostly present during extreme events and (iii) asymmetrical and mostly present during extreme events. We also allow for this dependence to be time-varying from January 1990 to February 2012. Our analysis uncovers three major stylised facts. First, we find that the dependence between commodity and stock markets is time-varying, symmetrical and occurs most of the time (as opposed to mostly during extreme events). Second, not allowing for time-varying parameters in the dependence distribution generates a bias towards an evidence of tail dependence. Similarly, considering only tail dependence may lead to false evidence of asymmetry. Third, a growing co-movement between industrial metals and equity markets is identified as early as 2003; this co-movement spreads to all commodity classes and becomes unambiguously stronger with the global financial crisis after Fall 2008.     

Diversification evidence from international equity markets using extreme values and stochastic copulas

Tail dependence plays an important role in financial risk management and determination of whether two markets crash or boom together. However, the linear correlation is unable to capture the dependence structure among financial data. Moreover, given the reality of fat-tail or skewed distribution of financial data, normality assumption for risk measure may be misleading in portfolio development. This paper proposes the use of conditional extreme value theory and time-varying copula to capture the tail dependence between the Australian financial market and other selected international stock markets. Conditional extreme value theory enables the model adequacy and the tail behavior of individual financial variable, while the time-varying copula can fully disclose the changes of dependence structure over time. The combination of both proved to be useful in determining the tail dependence. The empirical results show an outperformance of the model in the analysis of tail dependence, which has an important implication in cross-market diversification and asset pricing allocation.     

Have the GIPSI settled down? Breaks and multivariate stochastic volatility models for,and not against,the European financial integration

We investigate the integration of the European peripheral financial markets with Germany, France, and the UK using a combination of tests for structural breaks and return correlations derived from several multivariate stochastic volatility models. Our findings suggest that financial integration intensified in anticipation of the Euro, further strengthened by the EMU inception, and amplified in response to the 2007/2008 financial crisis. Hence, no evidence is found of decoupling of the equity markets in more troubled European countries from the core. Interestingly, the UK, despite staying outside the EMU, is not worse integrated with the GIPSI than Germany or France.     

Time-varying integration,interdependence and contagion

Bekaert et al. (2005) define contagion as “correlation over and above what one would expect from economic fundamentals”. Based on a two-factor asset pricing specification to model fundamentally-driven linkages between markets, they define contagion as correlation among the model residuals, and develop a corresponding test procedure. In this paper, we investigate to what extent conclusions from this contagion test depend upon the specification of the time-varying factor exposures. We develop a two-factor model with global and regional market shocks as factors. We make the global and regional market exposures conditional upon both a latent regime variable and three structural instruments, and find that, for a set of 14 European countries, this model outperforms more restricted versions. The structurally-driven increase in global (regional) market exposures and correlations suggest that market integration has increased substantially over the last three decades. Using our optimal model, we do not find evidence that further integration has come at the cost of contagion. We do find evidence for contagion, however, when more restricted versions of the factor specifications are used. We conclude that the specification of the global and regional market exposures is an important issue in any test for contagion.     

Assessing stock market dependence and contagion

This paper assesses evidence of the linkages and contagion among important stock markets in Latin America (Brazil, Mexico and Argentina), Europe (UK and Germany), Asia (Japan and Singapore) and the USA from 6 September 1995 to 19 April 2013. To accomplish this task, this paper combines copula modelling with time-varying parameters and pair-copula composition of multiple dependence. The bivariate analyses show an asymmetric dependence between the stock markets as well as contagion. In addition, this work proposes a method to assess the linkages and contagion between two stock markets which takes into account the effects of a third stock market. In applying this method, conditioned on the USA market, most of the evidence of contagion between the Latin American or European markets disappears, but important dependence levels still remain.     

Modeling exchange rate dependence dynamics at different time horizons

Despite an extensive body of research, the best way to model the dependence of exchange rates remains an open question. In this paper we present a new approach which employs a flexible time-varying copula model. It allows the conditional correlation between exchange rates to be both time-varying and modeled independently from the marginal distributions. We introduce a dynamic specification for the correlation using the Fisher transformation. Applied to Euro/US dollar and Japanese Yen/US dollar, our results reveal a significantly time-varying correlation, dependent on the past return realizations. We find that a time-varying copula with the proposed correlation specification gives better results than alternative dynamic benchmark models. The dynamic copula model outperforms at six different time horizons, ranging from hourly to daily, confirming the model specification.     

Changing integration of EMU public property markets

This paper examines the impact of the European Monetary Union (EMU) on European public property market integration. Results indicate that the property markets are long-run independent and show little evidence of short-run relationships prior to the formation of the EMU. However, the degree of interdependence and the extent of convergence among the largest property markets have intensified substantially after the launch of the Euro as the common currency in January, 1999. Moreover, each of the property markets under consideration is endogenous in that none is found to “dominate” the others toward long-run equilibrium. Short-run results indicate substantial interrelationships among the markets after the adoption of the Euro. Finally, the study shows that stock markets, bond markets, and public property markets follow similar convergence patterns.