Monetary policy surprises and international bond markets

We examine the impact and spillover effects of monetary policy surprises on international bond returns. Within the framework of Campbell and Ammer (1993), we decompose international bond returns into news regarding future returns, real interest rates and future inflation for Germany, the U.K. and the U.S. We examine how excess bond returns in these three countries are affected by surprise changes in monetary policy in each country. Our measure of the unanticipated element of monetary policy is based on futures markets rather than the more traditional vector autoregression. Our results indicate that excess bond returns primarily react to domestic as compared to foreign monetary policy surprises. We also find there is a strong divergence between the effects of domestic monetary policy on excess bond returns in Germany relative to the U.K. A surprise monetary tightening in Germany (U.K.) leads to a rise (fall) in the excess holding period return. We trace this effect to news about lower (higher) inflation expectations and could be potentially rationalized by differences in the credibility of the monetary policy authority in each country.     

Dependence structure and extreme comovements in international equity and bond markets

Common negative extreme variations in returns are prevalent in international equity markets. This has been widely documented with statistical tools such as exceedance correlation, extreme value theory, and Gaussian bivariate GARCH or regime-switching models. We point to limits of these tools to characterize extreme dependence and propose an alternative regime-switching copula model that includes one normal regime in which dependence is symmetric and a second regime characterized by asymmetric dependence. We apply this model to international equity and bond markets, to allow for inter-market movements. Empirically, we find that dependence between international assets of the same type is strong in both regimes, especially in the asymmetric one, but weak between equities and bonds, even in the same country.     

The comovement of US and German bond markets

We use a vector-autoregression, with parameter estimates corrected for small-sample bias, to decompose US and German unexpected bond returns into three ‘news’ components: news about future inflation, news about future real interest rates, and news about future excess bond returns (term premia). We then cross-country correlate these news components to see which component is responsible for the high degree of comovement of US and German bond markets. For the period 1975-2003 we find that inflation news is the main driving force behind this comovement. When news is coming to the US market that future US inflation will increase, there is a tendency that German inflation will also increase. This is regarded bad news for the bond market in both countries whereby bond prices are bid down leading to immediate negative return innovations and changing expectations of future excess bond returns. Thus, comovement in expected future inflation is the main reason for bond market comovement.     

Explaining international stock correlations with CPI fluctuations and market volatility

This paper investigates the dynamic correlations among six international stock market indices and their relationship to inflation fluctuation and market volatility. The current research uses a newly developed time series model, the Double Smooth Transition Conditional Correlation with Conditional Auto Regressive Range (DSTCC-CARR) model. Findings reveal that international stock correlations are significantly time-varying and the evolution among them is related to cyclical fluctuations of inflation rates and stock volatility. The higher/lower correlations emerge between countries when both countries experience a contractionary/expansionary phase or higher/lower volatilities.     

Information transmission in informationally linked markets: Evidence from US and Chinese commodity futures markets

This paper investigates information transmission and price discovery in informationally linked markets within the multivariate generalized autoregressive conditional heteroskedasticity and information share frameworks. Based on both synchronous and non-synchronous trading information from Chinese futures/spot markets, the New York Mercantile Exchange (NYMEX), Chicago Board of Trade (CBOT), and CME Globex futures markets for copper and soybeans, we show that there is a bidirectional relationship in terms of price and volatility spillovers between US and Chinese markets, with a stronger effect from US to Chinese markets than the other way around. Additionally, the NYMEX and CBOT play a more important role than the CME Globex in the flow of information from US to Chinese markets. Moreover, we find that Chinese copper market adjusts more quickly than the NYMEX copper market to correct the disparity between both markets. However, the converse is true in the case of soybeans. Finally, our results highlight the remarkable role of Chinese futures markets in the price formation process, though NYMEX and CBOT futures markets are the main driving force in price discovery.     

Level-ARCH short rate models with regime switching: Bivariate modeling of US and European short rates

This paper introduces regime switching into level-ARCH models for the short rates of the US, the UK, and Germany. Once regime switching and level effects are included there are no gains from including ARCH effects. It is of secondary importance how the regime switching is specified. The estimated level parameters differ across countries. The corresponding new bivariate models show that the states of the US and UK short rate volatilities are not independent nor identical. There is Granger causality from the US to the UK short rate volatility state but not vice versa. There is no contagion between the US and UK volatility states. Equivalent results apply to the relation between the US and German volatility states.     

Financial integration and emerging markets capital structure

This paper investigates the impact of country-level financial integration on corporate financing choices in emerging economies. Examining 4477 public firms from 24 countries, we find that corporate leverage is positively related to credit market integration and negatively related to equity market integration. As integration proceeds to higher levels, high-growth firms seem to obtain more debt than low-growth firms; large firms seem to obtain more debt - especially long-term debt - and issue more equity than small firms. Also, there is evidence that firms are able to borrow more funds in countries with more efficient legal systems during integration process.     

Equity market integration in emerging Balkan markets

This paper examines long-run relationships among five Balkan emerging stock markets (Turkey, Romania, Bulgaria, Croatia, Serbia), the United States and three developed European markets (UK, Germany, Greece), during the period 2000-2009. Conventional, regime-switching cointegration tests and Monte Carlo simulation provide evidence in favour of a long-run cointegrating relationship between the Balkan emerging markets within the region and globally. Moreover, we apply the Asymmetric Generalized Dynamic Conditional Correlation (AG-DCC) multivariate GARCH model of Cappiello et al. (2006), in order to capture the impact of the 2007-2009 financial crisis on the time-varying correlation dynamics among the developed and the Balkan stock markets. Results show that stock market dependence is heightened, supporting the herding behaviour during the 2008 stock market crash period. Our findings have important implications for international portfolio diversification and the effectiveness of domestic policies, as these emerging markets are exposed to external shocks.     

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.     

Common stochastic volatility trends in international stock returns

The aim of this work is to capture common stochastic trends in weekly volatilities of the Dow Jones, Nikkei, Hang Seng and Strait Times index using a multivariate stochastic volatility (SV) model. The results suggest a very high correlation among the volatility innovations, so that it is examined whether the four series share any common stochastic trends. A Principal Component Analysis and a Factor Analysis in the state space setting reveal that two common stochastic trends can be found to underlie the volatility series. The resulting linear combinations of the volatility series no more exhibit any stochastic trend but are stationary in the state space framework. Thus, it can be concluded that volatilities of the four stock indexes are in essence co-persistent.     

Macroeconomic announcements, volatility, and interrelationships: An examination of the UK interest rate and equity markets

This study investigates the intraday and daily pricing behavior of UK interest rate and equity index futures contracts. The paper initially examines the response of Short Sterling, Long Gilt, and FTSE100 to the release of scheduled macroeconomic announcements before employing dynamic time series techniques in order to reveal the nature of causal transmission patterns between these variables. In brief, short-term interest rates were found to be highly sensitive to indicators of prevailing economic conditions. However, the release of data important in the formation of inflationary expectations had a relatively subdued impact on long-term rates. Announcement effects appear somewhat ambiguous for the stock market. The analysis also reveals the bid-ask bounce and swift mean reversion in volatility to be important behavioral features of the return-generating process. Whilst the three variables appear to be bound by two cointegrating relationships, the tests for lead/lag relationships produce mixed results.     

Correlation dynamics in equity markets: evidence from India

This study is aimed at understanding the correlation dynamics of the equity markets from a developing country perspective using daily data from July 1997 to August 2006. A simple unconditional correlation estimate and dynamic time varying correlation estimate from a DCC-MVGARCH of Engle and Sheppard (2001) are derived for S&P CNX Nifty and other 10 world indices that includes four developed and six Asian country indices. The results show low correlation across S&P CNX Nifty with both Asian and developed nations. In addition a Logistic Smooth Transition Regression (LSTR) model is implemented and finds that the S&P CNX Nifty index is moving towards a better integration with other world markets but not at a very noteworthy phase. The low correlation provides space for the global funds to diversify risk in Indian markets.     

Measuring time-varying financial market integration: An unobserved components approach

We measure the time-varying degree of world stock market integration of five developed countries (Germany, France, UK, US, and Japan) over the period 1970:1–2011:10. Time-varying financial market integration of each country is measured through the conditional variances of the country-specific and common international risk premiums in equity excess returns. The country-specific and common risk premiums and their conditional variances are estimated from a latent factor decomposition through the use of state space methods that allow for GARCH errors. Our empirical results suggest that stock market integration has increased over the period 1970:1–2011:10 in all countries but Japan. And while there is a structural increase in stock market integration in four out of five countries, all countries also exhibit several shorter periods of disintegration (reversals), i.e. periods in which country-specific shocks play a more dominant role. Hence, stock market integration is measured as a dynamic process that is fluctuating in the short run while gradually increasing in the long run.     

Are options redundant? Further evidence from currency futures markets

This paper investigates the impact of the introduction of options on the underlying asset's price formation process, using Geweke feedback measures. We derive the feedback measures from the Deutsche Mark, British Pound, Swiss Franc, Japanese Yen and Canadian Dollar futures and spot prices, before and after the introduction of options for these currency futures. While each currency market maintains some distinct characteristics in the post-option period, a common theme is found: after the option introduction, the instantaneous feedback between spot and futures markets improves drastically. The feedback from the spot to the futures market tends to decrease and remains small. The feedback from the futures market to the spot market tends to decrease as well. These results confirm the dominance of options markets, probably due to their smaller transaction costs. When made available, options assume a leading role for information transmission in currency markets.     

EMU and European government bond market integration

In this study we adopt the CAPM-based model of Bekaert and Harvey (1995) to compare the differences in the relative importance of two sources of systemic risk (world and Eurozone) on Government bond returns, in two groups of countries in EU-15. Results show that euro markets are less vulnerable to the influence of world risk factors, and more vulnerable to EMU risk factors. However, they are only partially integrated. For their part, the markets of the countries that decided to stay out of the Monetary Union present a higher vulnerability to external risk factors.     

Transmission of government default risk in the eurozone

This paper analyzes the reasons behind the rising ten year government bond spreads in the eurozone during the recent euro debt crisis. We develop a structural vector autoregressive model that allows us to test whether the upsurges in the spreads reflect breaks in the instantaneous shock propagation mechanisms between the spreads (contagion), changing dynamical effects, or changing country specific risk factors. Especially, a new approach to test the stability of the instantaneous shock propagation mechanisms is introduced. Our results show that although contagion appears as the single most important reason for the increasing spreads, there are notable differences between the countries, for example and Ireland, Spain and Italy see statistically significant increases in their country specific risk factors.     

Volume and skewness in international equity markets

We examine the relation between trading volume and skewness in 11 international stock markets using daily and monthly data from January 1980 to August 2004. We construct single equation and VAR models of the relation between the first three moments of market returns and trading volumes. Our results show hitherto unrecognised channels of influence, and support the investor heterogeneity approach to explaining return asymmetries.     

Dynamic linkages between the center and periphery in international stock markets

This paper examines the dynamic linkages between the equity market of US representing the center and emerging markets using the Granger-causality test. The findings show that causality runs from the S&P500 to the stock prices of the 15 emerging markets but not vice versa.     

World markets for raising new capital

We examine the extent to which firms from different countries rely on alternative sources of capital, the locations in which they raise capital, and the factors that affect these choices. During the 1990–2001 period, firms raised about $25.3 trillion of new capital, including $4.9 trillion from abroad. International debt issuances are substantially more common than equity issuances, with debt (equity) issues accounting for 87% (9%) of all securities issued internationally, and about 20% (12%) of all public debt issuances. Market timing considerations appear to be important in security issuance decisions in most countries.