International Financial Reporting Standards in an Emerging Economy: Lessons from Romania

International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) are a reference point for the modernisation of accounting models in emerging economies. Previous literature documents a diverse IFRS experience, especially among emerging economies. The IFRS implementation strategy and local institutional characteristics shape the way in which the standards are used in practice. We use the Romanian case to illustrate the effect of various contextual factors, some historical, on the process and outcomes of IFRS implementation. We show that IFRS implementation can follow a different pattern in emerging economies.     

Decomposing financial (in)stability in emerging economies

The analysis of the build-up of risks in emerging economies have traditionally been scarce and focused mostly on external risks, despite the recent substantial development of their financial system. This paper builds an index of financial vulnerabilities tailored to emerging economies, grouping 32 indicators around four poles: valuation and risk appetite, imbalances in the non-financial sector, financial sector vulnerabilities, and global vulnerabilities. It adopts a model-free approach, purposely departing from early warning models or complex econometric constructs, and rely on data made already available by international organisations. Our index of financial vulnerabilities enables a granular mapping of where risk originates and how it spreads to other parts of the financial system. Using various data visualisation tools and benefitting from the flexibility of our index’s methodology, we are able build a narrative of the evolution of financial stability in emerging economies from 2005 to 2015. Finally, we also discuss the relation between our index and both the business cycle (proxied by GDP) and the credit cycle (proxied by the credit-to-GDP gap).     

Profitability in Banks Affiliated to a Business Group: Evidence from Mexico

In certain institutional contexts, where there are business groups, banks affiliated to these business networks are faced by incentives that might condition their profitability. The objective of this article is to test whether there is a difference between the performance of affiliated banks and that of banks not affiliated to groups, in the context of an emerging market. In particular, a study is made of the case of Mexico in the period 2007–11. Findings suggest that banks affiliated to business groups show less profitability than non-affiliated banks, which may be a consequence of the provision of loans in an internal capital market.     

Durable goods,financial frictions,and business cycles in emerging economies

Business cycles in emerging economies display very volatile consumption and strongly countercyclical trade balance. We show that aggregate consumption in these economies is not more volatile than output once durables are accounted for. Then, we present and estimate a real business cycles model for a small open economy that accounts for this empirical observation. Our results show that the role of permanent shocks to aggregate productivity in explaining cyclical fluctuations in emerging economies is considerably lower than previously documented. Moreover, we find that financial frictions are crucial to explain some key business cycle properties of these economies.     

Strategies that fit emerging markets

It's no easy task to identify strategies for entering new international markets or to decide which countries to do business with. Many firms simply go with what they know-and fall far short of their goals. Part of the problem is that emerging markets have "institutional voids": They lack specialized intermediaries, regulatory systems, and contract-enforcing methods. These gaps have made it difficult for multinationals to succeed in developing nations; thus, many companies have resisted investing there. That may be a mistake. If Western companies don't come up with good strategies for engaging with emerging markets, they are unlikely to remain competitive. Many firms choose their markets and strategies for the wrong reasons, relying on everything from senior managers' gut feelings to the behaviors of rivals. Corporations also depend on composite indexes for help making decisions. But these analyses can be misleading; they don't account for vital information about the soft infrastructures in developing nations. A better approach is to understand institutional variations between countries. The best way to do this, the authors have found, is by using the five contexts framework. The five contexts are a country's political and social systems, its degree of openness, its product markets, its labor markets, and its capital markets. By asking a series of questions that pertain to each ofthe five areas, executives can map the institutional contexts of any nation. When companies match their strategies to each country's contexts, they can take advantage of a location's unique strengths. But first firms should weigh the benefits against the costs. If they find that the risks of adaptation are too great, they should try to change the contexts in which they operate or simply stay away.     

Macroeconomic stability or financial stability: How are capital controls used? Insights from a new database

While the traditional objectives of capital controls were to address macroeconomic stability risks, a new “externalities view” has emerged prescribing their use to contain financial stability risks. In this context, our understanding of whether capital controls are used in practice to mitigate macroeconomic or financial stability remains limited. Using a novel database on high-frequency capital account regulations for 47 advanced and emerging economies from 2008 to 2020, this paper empirically assesses this question. Our main findings are that: (a) in emerging markets there is a strong association of capital controls on inflows to mitigate risks to macro stability but not financial stability risks; (b) in advanced economies there is a robust association between capital controls on inflows to lean against the buildup of financial stability but not macro stability risks; (c) banking sector flows, but not aggregate capital flows, are strongly associated with tightening capital controls on inflows in emerging markets; and (d) pooling advanced and emerging economies attenuates regression estimates and would lead to concluding that capital controls have weak association with both financial and macro stability motives. Our results can be rationalized by the greater capital flows, more volatile business cycles and stronger interaction between business and financial cycles in emerging markets, and the deeper asset markets found in advanced economies.     

The Impact of the Global Financial Crisis and the Role of External and Internal Factors in Emerging Economies

This article assesses the impact of trade, capital openness and institutions on emerging economies’ output loss during the “Great Recession.” The fixed-effect estimates of an unbalanced panel of 122 emerging countries observed from 2008 to 2010 yield three main results. First, trade openness has exacerbated output loss. Second, capital openness can help mitigate the negative impact of an external shock, but this is conditional on the level of financial development. Finally, the results also point out that the interrelations between financial and institutional development affect the crisis’s severity.     

我国零售业国际化战略的研究——基于钻石模型的分析

当前,国际化已成为世界零售业的一大发展趋势,其对于在全球范围内实现资源优化配置、扩大规模经济效益,提高国际竞争力有着极其重要的意义。在我国零售业全面对外开放的环境下,我国零售业面临着巨大的机遇与挑战。本文试图运用波特的"钻石模型"理论对我国零售业进行分析,进而提出我国零售业在国际化经营中应该采取的战略措施。     

Changes in social and environmental reporting practices in an emerging economy (2004–2007): Exploring the relevance of stakeholder and legitimacy theories

We examine social and environmental reporting (SER) practices of listed companies in the island economy of Mauritius. Based on a content analysis of annual reports, quantitative and qualitative changes in SER were analyzed in light of recent developments in corporate governance and with regard to the prevailing social and political contexts of this emerging economy. We find a significant but selective increase in the volume and quality of SER over the period under review (2004–2007). We rely on Suchman's (1995) conceptualizations of legitimacy to argue that the changes in SER are related to a need for companies to demonstrate an affiliation to pro-social objectives (moral legitimacy) and, to a lesser extent, are motivated by the need to manage specific stakeholders (pragmatic legitimacy). More specifically, the increase in ethical disclosures reflects an attempt at gaining procedural legitimacy in response to criticisms of corruption and unfair/unethical business practices. Furthermore, the increase in social disclosures can primarily be seen as a mechanism to gain consequential legitimacy in response to concerns that local companies are not sufficiently contributing to the country's social development. We suggest that future empirical research should devote more attention to the specific characteristics of emerging economies (such as levels of corruption and unethical business practices and the level of corporate governance) and examine whether these can explain patterns of corporate SER in a given national context or on a cross-country basis.     

Ethnic board diversity,earnings quality and institutional investors: evidence from Malaysian corporate boards

Motivated by calls to examine the issue of board diversity in emerging economies, this study explores the association between ethnic board diversity and earnings quality; and the moderating effect of institutional investors’ ownership. In a sample of Malaysian firms, we find that boards with higher ethnic diversity are associated with higher earnings quality. Consequently, our findings suggest that institutional investors prefer boards to be ethnically diverse. Consistent with geographical proximity theory, this effect is primarily driven by domestic institutional investors. Finally, we find that political connection attenuates the association between ethnic board diversity and higher earnings quality.     

Business Cycles Around the Globe: Some Key Facts

We document massive heterogeneity in basic cyclical patterns within groups of developed and emerging market economies. While we detect marked differences between developed and emerging countries as well, the distributions of key business cycle statistics tend to overlap across different country groups.     

Foreign institutional ownership and corporate cash holdings: Evidence from emerging economies

With the increased presence of foreign institutional investors in emerging stock markets, academic interest on the effects of foreign institutions on corporate managerial decisions has notably increased. This paper joins this debate by investigating the effects of foreign institutional ownership on cash holdings, a strategic corporate financing choice. Analysing a sample of firms from 23 emerging economies, the paper shows that, while foreign institutional ownership has a negative effect on cash holdings, it also increases the contribution of cash to firm valuation. These effects are potentially transmitted to cash through mitigation of agency conflicts and alleviation of financing constraints. In all, our findings suggest beneficial effects of foreign institutions on firms' financing structure, as foreign investors contribute to a more efficient and value-enhancing cash policy.     

Monetary policy spillovers and the trilemma in the new normal: Periphery country sensitivity to core country conditions

We investigate why and how the financial conditions of developing and emerging market countries (peripheral countries) can be affected by the movements in the center economies – the U.S., Japan, the Eurozone, and China. We apply a two-step approach. First, we estimate the sensitivity of countries' financial variables to the center economies [policy interest rate, stock market prices, and the real effective exchange rates (REER)] while controlling for global and domestic factors. Next, we examine the association of the estimated sensitivity coefficients with the macroeconomic conditions, policies, real and financial linkages with the center economies, and the level of institutional development. In the last two decades, for most financial variables, the strength of the links with the center economies have been the dominant factor while the movements of policy interest rate also appear sensitive to global financial shocks around the emerging market crises of the late 1990s and since the global financial crisis of 2008. While certain macroeconomic and institutional variables are important, the arrangement of open macropolicies such as the exchange rate regime and financial openness are also found to have direct influence on the sensitivity to the center economies. An economy that pursues greater exchange rate stability and financial openness faces a stronger link with the center economies through policy interest rates and real effective exchange rate (REER) movements. We also find that exchange market pressure (EMP) in peripheral economies is sensitive to the movements of the center economies' REER and EMP during and after the global financial crisis. Open macro policy arrangements, especially exchange rate regimes, also have indirect effects on the strength of financial linkages, interacting with other macroeconomic conditions. Thus, trilemma policy arrangements, including exchange rate flexibility, continue to affect the sensitivity of developing countries to policy changes and shocks in the center economies.     

Effect of Cross-Border E-Business Policy on the Export Trade of an Emerging Market: A Dynamic Study of Institutional Support to Cross-Border E-Business at Chinese Pilot Cities

Policies to offer institutional support to cross-border E-business are processed in the development of export at emerging markets. This research estimates the effect of institutional support to cross-border E-business on export trade in an emerging market by a difference-in-difference model. It is found that the institutional support to cross-border E-business at the pilot cities had a positive effect on export trade. Further, a decision tree of predictions to export is developed, based on the cross-border E-business policy and regional economic factors shown to have effect on export, and the complex network of interconnections across the cities in different conditions is revealed. The estimation of probability for export increase based on the effect of cross-border E-business policy is further performed by Bayesian model. This research can be helpful to policy makers and business administrators in understanding the effect of cross-border E-business policies on export at emerging markets.     

Housing Segmentation in Developing Countries in Transition: A Recent Case Study of Residential Development in Bangkok

This article utilizes case study research of the residential market in Bangkok to investigate residential development and market segmentation in developing countries with emerging market economies. The article first considers the process of economic reform and transformation before examining the entrepreneurial, legal, and institutional environments in Thailand and evaluating the pattern of urban growth in Bangkok. Segmentation studies are then presented by product type, price level, and spatial distribution before conclusions from the case study are generalized to developing countries in transition.     

亚洲新兴经济体国际资本流动驱动因素研究——基于GMM模型的实证分析

理解资本流入的驱动因素,对于设计一个有效的资本流动管理政策框架至关重要。本文研究了1998年至2018年间45个新兴经济体面临的各类资本流动的驱动因素,重点分析了资本流向亚洲地区的驱动因素与其他地区的共性和异质性。使用广义矩估计方法(GMM)对面板数据集的实证结果表明,对新兴经济体而言,制度质量和国内因素对吸引资本流入具有重要影响;对亚洲地区来说,人均收入增长和贸易开放是吸引资本流入的重要驱动因素,国内外利差水平和实际有效汇率变动对吸引组合投资和其他投资具有显著影响,VIX指数和影子利率对亚洲新兴经济体资本流动规模的影响也具有重要影响。这表明,在设计管理资本流入的政策框架时,全球经济金融合作和政策协调应被考虑在内。     

Institutional structures of financial sector supervision,their drivers and historical benchmarks

This paper studies institutional structures of prudential and business conduct supervision of financial services in 98 high and middle income countries over the past decade. It identifies possible drivers of changes in these supervisory structures using the panel ordered probit analysis. The results show that (i) more developed, small open economies with better public governance tend to integrate their supervision, especially the prudential one; (ii) more financially developed countries integrate more their supervision; however, greater development of the non-bank financial system leads to less integrated prudential supervision but not business conduct supervision; (iii) the lobbying power of concentrated and highly profitable banking sectors significant hinders business conduct integration; (vi) countries that experienced financial crises integrate their supervisory structure relatively more and (v) greater central bank independence could cause less integration of prudential supervision, but not necessarily of business conduct supervision.     

国际资本异常流动对经济增长的异质性影响——基于新兴经济体与发达经济体的比较

本文利用64个经济体1999-2017年季度数据,基于IV-GMM方法研究国际资本异常流动对经济增长的影响.总样本的回归结果表明,资本流动激增显著推动经济增长;资本流动中断和撤回抑制经济发展;资本流动外逃对经济增长没有显著影响.此外,国际资本异常流动对新兴经济体和发达经济体经济增长的影响呈现明显异质性.新兴经济体资本流...     

Does control‐ownership divergence impair market liquidity in an emerging market? Evidence from China

This paper examines how institutional characteristics of emerging economies influence the effect of control‐ownership divergence on market liquidity. We find that the divergence is negatively associated with liquidity and that this negative relationship is more pronounced in firms with more severe agency problems and information asymmetry. We argue that in an emerging market, the negative effect of the divergence on liquidity is worsened by state ownership and poorer shareholder protection, both of which result in more severe agency conflicts; we also find, however, that this effect is alleviated by the NTS reform, which aligns the interest of different shareholders.