Microstructure and asset pricing: An insight on African frontier stock markets

This article investigates the impact of microstructure factors on asset pricing in some African stock markets. We use data on stocks listed on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange, the “Bourse Régionale des Valeurs Mobilières,” and the Nigeria Stock Exchange, and we consider international portfolio management from 2000 to 2014. Generalized least square and fixed effect are estimation methods used to highlight the effect of microstructure variables on expected return. At the same time, panel smooth transition regression (PSTR) modeling is considered to identify the thresholds in this effect. The results show that liquidity and to a lesser extent the number of trading days are the most common significant microstructure variables for all the studied markets. However, other variables’ effects on the return are specific to the considered stock markets. Furthermore, the PSTR estimator reveals that the impact of indicated factors on asset pricing is not linear because it produces a double threshold between return and microstructure.     

Co-movement and spillovers: empirical evidence from BRIC equity markets

A higher degree of co-movement and spillover effects among different asset classes undermine portfolio diversification benefits. In this regard, the present study attempts to capture dynamic co-movement and return-volatility spillover effects among the most promising emerging equity markets, i.e. Brazil, Russia, India and China in a multivariate framework by employing VAR-ABEKK and VAR-DCC-AGARCH (1,1) models. To further comprehend the behaviour of the correlation coefficients during the global financial crisis period (2007–2009), heat map and Markov regime switching model (two regimes with a switch at ‘mean’ level only) have been used. The results report that the BRIC equity markets do not share a common stochastic trend in the long run. There is strong evidence of market shocks to volatility, volatility to volatility and negative shocks to volatility spillover effects among the BRIC markets. Overall, the BRIC markets are partially integrated with each other, thereby making them stronger investment candidates.     

Volatility spillovers and determinants of contagion: Exchange rate and equity markets during crises

We study the hourly volatility spillover between the equity markets of New York (DJI), London (FTSE 100) and Tokyo (N225) and their exchange rates (USD, EUR, GBP and JPY) for the period of 2001 through 2013 covering the non-crises period, the global financial crisis and the euro debt crisis. First, we find a general increase in spillover between the equity and exchange rate markets during the crisis periods. Second, pure contagion (attributable to irrational investors’ behavior) and fundamental contagion (measured by macroeconomic fundamentals) explains the increased spillover between the FTSE 100, N225 to the DJI during the global financial crisis and from the exchange rate markets to the DJI during the euro debt crisis.     

Dynamic correlation and equicorrelation analysis of global financial turmoil: evidence from emerging East Asian stock markets

This study investigates the dynamic conditional correlations (DCCs) between eight emerging East Asian stock markets and the US stock market and analyses the dynamic equicorrelation among these nine stock markets. We find a significant increase in the conditional correlations and equicorrelation in the first phase of the global financial crisis. We refer to this finding as contagion from the US stock market to the emerging East Asian markets. We also find an additional significant process of increasing correlations and equicorrelation (herding) in the second phase of the global financial crisis. Further, we employ two new models, namely DCCX-MGARCH (a DCC Multivariate GARCH model with exogenous variables) and DECOX-MGARCH (a dynamic equicorrelation multivariate GARCH model with exogenous variables), to identify the channels of contagion. We find that an increase in the VIX Index increases the conditional correlations and equicorrelation, while increases in TED spreads decrease the conditional correlations of six emerging East Asian countries with the USA. We compare the accuracy of the conditional correlation estimates of the DCC and DCCX models (or DECO and DECOX models) by constructing a loss function. We find that the DCCX (DECOX) model provides more accurate conditional correlation estimates than the DCC (DECO) model by extracting additional information from exogenous variables.     

Volatility spillovers across daytime and overnight information between China and world equity markets

This article explores the transmission of daytime and overnight information in terms of returns and volatility between Chinese and Asian, European and North American main stock markets. We propose a bivariate analysis with China as benchmark. By testing the constancy of the conditional correlations, we use an extended constant or dynamic conditional correlation GARCH model. The empirical findings show that across the daytime information transmissions, the relationships between China and Asian markets are closer than China and non-Asian markets, whereas through the overnight information transmissions these relationships are inverse. The analysis provides, before the crisis, that the overnight volatility spillover effects are from China to the United States and the United Kingdom. During the crisis, China affects the United Kingdom in terms of daytime volatility spillovers, whereas in terms of overnight volatility spillovers China affects the United States and is influenced by Japan. After the crisis, daytime volatility spillovers are from Taiwan to China, whereas the overnight volatility spillover effects are from China to the United States and the United Kingdom.     

Dynamic linkages between exchange rates and stock prices: Evidence from East Asian markets

This study examines dynamic linkages between exchange rates and stock prices for seven East Asian countries, including Hong Kong, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, Singapore, Taiwan, and Thailand, for the period January 1988 to October 1998. Our empirical results show a significant causal relation from exchange rates to stock prices for Hong Kong, Japan, Malaysia, and Thailand before the 1997 Asian financial crisis. We also find a causal relation from the equity market to the foreign exchange market for Hong Kong, Korea, and Singapore. Further, while no country shows a significant causality from stock prices to exchange rates during the Asian crisis, a causal relation from exchange rates to stock prices is found for all countries except Malaysia. Our findings are robust with respect to various testing methods used, including Granger causality tests, a variance decomposition analysis, and an impulse response analysis. Our findings also indicate that the linkages vary across economies with respect to exchange rate regimes, the trade size, the degree of capital control, and the size of equity market.     

Environmental disclosure and stock market liquidity: evidence from Arab MENA emerging markets

The objective of this study is to examine the impact of environmental disclosure levels on the stock market liquidity of Arab Middle Eastern and North African (MENA) companies. For that, a self-constructed disclosure index was applied to the annual reports for the years 2010, 2011 and 2012 and the bid-ask spread was used as a proxy for stock market liquidity. Results indicate that levels of environmental disclosure in MENA companies are quite low. In addition, using a sample of 276 firm-year observations, multivariate analysis shows that the higher the level of environmental disclosure provided in the annual reports, the lower the spread between the market bid and ask prices, thereby indicating an increase in stock market liquidity.     

Co-movement of ASEAN stock markets: New evidence from wavelet and VMD-based copula tests

This paper aims to study the co-movement and the volatility fluctuation between stock markets in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) countries from a new perspective. The analyses also delve more deeply into the effect of ASEAN trading link establishment on the short-term interdependency. By applying three-dimensional continuous wavelet transform (CWT) on daily returns of stock markets for the period 2009 to 2016, the interdependence level and lag-lead relationship among ASEAN trading link participants are estimated. The degree of interdependence in ASEAN stock markets is found to be stronger in the short term, especially following particular external shocks. A Variational Modes Decomposition (VMD)-based copula estimation shows that the effect of economic shock – in our case, ASEAN trading link establishment – on the stock markets’ level of comovement is only temporary and will progressively diminish within approximately two years. Only Indonesia and Malaysia display strong fundamental linkages between each other. Both the CWT and Copula methods consistently show that Vietnam (Indonesia) has the lowest (highest) interdependence with the rest of ASEAN trading link participants, as opposed to previous empirical evidence obtained from conventional methods. Investors who want to construct optimal portfolios and policymakers who aim to make effective macroeconomic policies should take these findings into account.     

Time-varying dependence in European equity markets: A contagion and investor sentiment driven analysis

In the light of the global financial crisis and sovereign debt crisis, this paper investigates the dependence patterns in 24 European equity markets from January 5, 2004 to July 1, 2016. We further examine whether these stressful events trigger contagion. Given that investors tend to behave irrationally in turmoil periods, we add to the literature by studying the effect of investor sentiment on markets correlations. Our results reveal heterogeneity in the time-varying dependence and across markets. Contagion is confirmed in turbulent times, a spillover effect from periphery euro area being detected. We find that similar sentiments increase correlations, especially in crises, suggesting that investors’ perceptions are an important channel of moving markets in the same direction. Furthermore, negative sentiments, such as fear or pessimism, amplify the linkages between markets. Our results offer useful insights to policy makers for reacting timely to financial shocks and for designing a more integrated market.     

Volatility transmission between Islamic and conventional equity markets: evidence from causality-in-variance test

This study examines whether a volatility/risk transmission exists between the Dow Jones Islamic stock and three conventional stock markets for the United States, Europe and Asia during the pre- and the in- and post-2008 crisis periods. It also explores the volatility spillover dynamics between those markets and US Monetary policy, oil prices, global financial risk and uncertainty factors. The recently developed Hafner and Herwartz (2006)’s causality-in-variance test provides evidence of risk transfers between these seemingly different equity markets, indicating a contagion between them during the full sample and the subperiods. The volatility structure of these markets is dominated by short-run volatility in the first period and by high long-run volatility in the second period. The volatility impulse response analysis indicates a similar volatility transmission pattern although it is characterized by a more volatile and short-lived structure in the second period. It also appears that the Islamic equity market responds to shocks from the risk factors and not from the oil price and the US economic policy uncertainty index during both periods.     

The state of research on technological uncertainties, social uncertainties and emerging markets: A multidisciplinary literature review

The objective of this research work is to study the progress of research on technological uncertainties, social uncertainties and emerging markets and outline and identify the key disciplines, journals, articles and authors. For this the author studied the existing literature from the various fields in which technological uncertainties, social uncertainties and emerging markets research work have been published using ISI Web of Knowledge database. The paper finds that there is increasing research work on technological uncertainties, social uncertainties and emerging markets and the bibliographical search resulted in ninety-one documents written by one-hundred-sixty-one authors in eighty-four journals in seventy-two disciplines. The five major disciplines and their underlying journals are business and economics, agriculture, psychology, public administration, and environmental sciences and ecology accounting for majority of publications. In journals the most prolific, measured by number of articles published are Harvard Business Review, Social Science and Medicine, World Development, and Higher Education; and most influential, measured by the global citation received, are Harvard Business Review, Social Science and Medicine and Sociological Review. The top 10% of the journals are responsible for 23% of all publications but 85% of all global citations received. This highlights that despite the high, diverse and increasing number of journals; only few are dominating and shaping the research arena of technological uncertainties, social uncertainties and emerging markets. Further, in the ten most cited articles, no author appears more than once.     

Oil price and automobile stock return co-movement: A wavelet coherence analysis

This paper explores possible co-movement between oil price and automobile stock return in a joint time-frequency domain. Daily price series from August 01, 1996 to June 20, 2017 is used in this analysis. The results indicate that the co-movement between oil price and automobile stock return is strong during November, 2000–December, 2002 and March, 2006–December, 2009. The co-movement is found to be more pronounced in the long-term and stock return is sensitive to the higher oil price emanating from the demand shock. This contravenes the conventional wisdom that crude oil is always counter-cyclical to the automobile stocks. For investor, this weakens the probable gain from including oil asset in a portfolio of automobile stocks as crude oil does not offer cushion against bearish automobile stock markets during the crisis period.     

Growth versus equity: A CGE analysis for effects of factor-biased technical progress on economic growth and employment

With factor-biased technical progress described as labor-saving and skill-biased technical changes, there are concerns that technological innovation can lead to unemployment and widen inequality in the economy. This study explores impacts of factor-biased technical changes on the economic system in terms of economic growth, employment, and distribution, using a computable general equilibrium (CGE) model. The results show that technological innovation contributes to higher level of economic growth with productivity improvements. However, our analysis suggests that economic growth accompanied by skill- and capital-biased technical progress disproportionately increases demand for capital and high-skilled labor over skilled and unskilled labor. This shift in the value-added composition is found to deepen income inequality, as more people in higher income groups benefit from skill premium and capital earnings. Our results suggest that policymakers should prepare a wide range of policy measures, such as reforms in educational programs and taxation systems, in order to ensure sustainable growth.     

US and East Asian Security under the Obama Presidency: A Japanese Perspective

The most important factor determining the structure of East Asia will continue to be the strategic relationship between the USA and China. It is the key component of the six party talks on the North Korean problem as well as nuclear nonproliferation. Japan is obviously a lesser strategic player, which is in a position to encourage middle-power security cooperation among the East Asian countries breathing between the USA and China. There is a conceptual, if not geopolitical, competition between Japan and China over an ideal future of East Asian regionalism, which the East Asian countries and the USA should join in a constructive manner.