Financialization of food. Modelling the time-varying relation between agricultural prices and stock market dynamics

This article studies the correlation of agricultural prices with stock market dynamics. We discuss the possible role of financial and macroeconomic factors in driving this time-varying relation, with the aim of understanding what caused positive correlation between agricultural commodities and stocks in recent years. While previous works on commodity-equity correlation have focused on broad commodity indices, we study 16 agricultural prices, in order to assess patterns that are specific to agricultural commodities but also differences across markets. We show that an explanation based on a combination of financialization and financial crisis is consistent with the empirical evidence in most markets, while global demand factors don’t appear to play a significant role. The correlation between agricultural prices and stock market returns tends to increase during periods of financial turmoil. The impact of financial turmoil on the correlation gets stronger as the share of financial investors in agricultural derivatives markets rises. Our findings suggest that the influence of financial shocks on agricultural prices should decrease as global financial tensions settle down but also that, as long as agricultural markets are ‘financialized’, it might rise again when it is less needed, i.e. in the presence of new financial turmoil.     

The impact of subprime mortgage on correlation between stock and FX markets

Our researching period contains the American subprime mortgage crisis, an insignificant financial crisis and the Asian financial crisis periods. We analyse and compare the interrelations between the stock and Foreign Exchange (FX) markets in Taiwan by the daily data of stock prices and NTD/US exchange rates. The empirical results found that there is no effect on the long-term equilibrium between the stock and FX markets during the American subprime mortgage crisis. It also shows that, whether financial crisis occurs or not, there is no cointegration between the stock and FX markets. Furthermore, the results find that there exists bidirectional causality between the stock and FX markets among the American subprime mortgage crisis and the Asian financial crisis period. However, there is only unidirectional relationship from stock prices to exchange rates during insignificant financial crisis period. Such results imply that two financial crises do significantly affect the short-term interrelationships between the stock and FX markets and lead to more importance for the connection between two markets.     

Financial markets,the structure of long-term investments and labour income risks

The paper develops a model to analyse the feedback between financial markets, long-term capital investments and the risk of labour incomes. We study a situation where firms are owned by entrepreneurs, who are able to share and diversify their income risk by trading on financial markets. Workers, in contrast, cannot short-sell the flows from future labour endowments and thus do not have the same opportunities. We derive two central results. Firstly, even if financial markets offer perfect risk-sharing opportunities for entrepreneurs, the participation restriction for labour incomes leads to a constrained inefficient market allocation. The constrained inefficiency arises because the effect of long-term investments on the risk of wages is not internalized by state prices. Secondly, we show that in general it is not true that workers indirectly benefit when we go from a situation with no financial markets to a situation with perfect financial markets for entrepreneurs but restricted participation for workers. The results suggest that a policy solution might require either to close some financial markets or to create new ones. We argue why there is a strong case for the creation of new markets rather than for closing existing ones.     

美国金融危机成因分析及对中国的警示

美国金融危机引发全球金融市场动荡。这场金融危机从美国的房地产市场开始，以惊人的速度蔓延，波及至信贷市场、资本市场，封全球尤其是西方金融机构和金融市场造成重大冲击，短期内升级为全球金融风暴。中国目前正处于资产价格上涨、信贷投放过度的经济环境之中，美国的金融危机给中国敲响了警钟。本文通过描述此次危机的发展脉络，在分析美国金融危机背景的基础上，从强化房地产按揭贷款业务风险管理，审慎推进资产证券化等六个方面得出了对中国的警示。     

中国地方土地财政收入增长影响因素实证研究——基于1995-2008年中国省际面板数据的分析

文章运用面板数据模型考察了中国省际土地财政收入①增长的影响因素,分别利用动态效应模型和阈值效应模型进行了估计,探究各因素在空间和时间发生变化时的影响规律。研究表明,各因素在不同时间、不同阈值效应下对土地财政收入的影响不尽相同:土地财政收入增长具有明显的路径依赖特征,前期的增长会形成惯性而影响后期的增长;一个地区财政压力较大、事权和财权不平衡程度加深、房价上涨会导致该地区土地财政收入增长,但随着经济发展和产业结构变化,这些影响又会有所不同。因此,财税体制改革需要充分考虑地区经济发展和产业结构的差异性,在不同发展程度的地区采用不同的措施。     

The impact of news,oil prices,and global market developments on Russian financial markets1

This paper analyses the impact of news, oil prices, and international financial market developments on daily returns on Russian bond and stock markets. First, regarding returns, energy news affects returns, while news from the war in Chechnya is not significant. Market volatility does not appear to be sensitive to either type of news. Second, a significant effect of the growth in oil prices on Russian stock returns is detected. Third, the international influence on Russian financial markets depends upon the degree of financial liberalization. The higher the degree of financial liberalization, the stronger is the impact of US stock returns on Russian financial markets. In addition, banking reform and interest rate liberalization efforts seem to dictate the globalization of Russian stock markets, while it is the progress in liberalizing securities markets and non‐bank financial institutions that matters more for the globalization of Russian bond markets.     

Local martingales, arbitrage, and viability Free snacks and cheap thrills

Summary. We revisit a standard model of security prices as Ito processes, and provide some new economic insights about the role of arbitrage and credit limits within such a model. We show that the standard assumptions of a positive state prices and existence of an equivalent martingale measure exclude prices that are viable models of competitive equilibrium and that are potentially useful for modeling actual financial markets. These models have been dismissed in the past as allowing arbitrage, but in fact an agent who prefers more to less and who has limited access to credit may have an optimum. Received: June 9, 1999; revised version: October 4, 1999     

Does Financial Sector Development Augment Cross-Border Capital Flows?

ABSTRACT

The sharp increase in volatility of capital flows in recent years has resulted in many countries altering the regulations governing the flow of foreign capital only to find such changes having a limited impact. We postulate that one reason for the limited effectiveness of such changes in regulations is the level of financial sector development in the country. As a country enhances its level of financial sector development, it also develops more and more sophisticated financial instruments. The more advanced the domestic financial instruments are, and the deeper is the integration of the domestic financial markets with the world markets, the greater is the likelihood of developing strategies to bypass capital account management measures. In this paper, we use various empirical techniques to identify the impact of financial sector development on capital flows, after accounting for regulatory regime. The empirical results indicate that there is a threshold effect in the financial sector development capital flow relationship. In particular, financial sector development augments greater integration with global capital flows only above a threshold level. Below the threshold level we find financial development reduces the extent of integration with global capital markets.     

The relationship between stock prices and exchange rates in South Africa and Nigeria: structural breaks analysis

The relationship between stock prices and exchange rates has continued to generate interest from both the academia and financial industry players for many years. This study conducts an empirical investigation into the relationship between stock prices and exchange rates for the two largest economies in Sub-Saharan Africa – South Africa and Nigeria. Our methodology accounts for structural breaks in the data and the long-run relationship between stock and foreign exchange markets. The results of multivariate causality tests with structural breaks showed that causality runs from exchange rates to domestic stock prices in Nigeria (flow channel) while in South Africa, no causality exists between domestic stock prices and exchange rates. The results also reveal that there is causality from the London stock market to both countries’ stock markets, thus showing that international stock markets are driving both the Nigerian and South African stock markets.     

Price clustering in Australian water markets

The finding of clustering in financial prices on particular digits is common across a broad range of financial markets. This article explores whether price clustering is also present in the case of the weekly market for seasonal water in rural Victoria, Australia. We find a similar degree of clustering in the seasonal water market. This suggests that the trading activities of the market produce characteristics that are similar to more sophisticated and deeper financial markets.     

中国金融市场开放度——基于两类模型的比较研究

本文引入两类分析一国金融市场对外开放程度的模型:基于投资与储蓄关系的F-H条件模型和基于利率平价理论的利率平价条件模型,并结合中国的实际情况,选取美国、日本、巴西等具有代表性的国家,以这两个模型作为实证模型分别研究这四个国家的金融市场对外开放程度。从实证分析的结果看,与其他三个国家相比,中国金融市场对外开放程度仍然较低,其原因在于资本市场的管制程度较高,国内利率还无法与国际市场建立较强的关联性等。     

An Institutionalist Framework for a Consistent Financial Regulation

Abstract:

In the light of recurrent systemic crises that financialized market economies have been experiencing since the 1980s, this article seeks to determine the conditions required for a regulatory framework apt to ensure financial stability. Drawing upon an Institutionalist Minskyian endogenous financial instability approach, the article studies the fragilities of liberalized finance and points to some policy alternatives able to lead to an alternative financial regulatory model that is consistent with macroeconomic stability. It argues that in a weak regulatory environment financial markets naturally generate instabilities that could turn into systemic crises. The analysis maintains that in order to deal with such crises, a tight supervision should be framed under the aegis of public authorities and suggests some rules to develop a relevant regulatory system through an open and democratic decision process. Two points then deserve particular attention: a macro-prudential approach that regards instability as a systemic (non-individual) issue, and a preventive approach that aims at preventing systemic-risk generating activities from taking control over the markets.     

Financial Globalization,Financial Crises,and the External Portfolio Structure of Emerging Markets*

We study the transitional dynamics of financial integration in emerging economies using a two‐sector model with a collateral constraint on external debt and trading costs incurred by foreign investors. The probability of a financial crisis displays overshooting; it rises sharply initially and then falls sharply, but remains non‐zero in the long run. While equity holdings fall permanently, bond holdings initially fall, but rise after the probability of a crisis peaks. Conversely, asset returns and asset prices first rise and then fall. These results are in line with the post‐globalization dynamics observed in emerging markets, and the higher frequency of crises that they display.     

Does international integration matter for financial development in Africa?

This article analyses the links between international financial and trade integration and financial development in sub-Saharan African (SSA) countries. It is based on a panel data set using methods that tackle slope heterogeneity, cross-sectional dependence and nonstationarity. The results do not point to a general direct robust link between trade and financial integration and financial development in SSA, once we control for other factors such as GDP per capita and inflation. The findings may be due to a number of factors including distortions in domestic financial markets, relatively weak institutions and/or poor financial sector supervision. We find some indication that financial integration is more important for financial development in countries with better institutional quality. Stronger scores in some measures of the quality of banking regulation and supervision are also linked to a positive association between integration and financial development in some of our results. Thus, African policy-makers should be cautious about expectations regarding immediate gains for financial development from greater international integration. Such gains are more likely to occur slowly and through indirect channels.     

An investigation into the dynamic relationship between international and China’s crude oil prices

This article studies the dynamic relationship between international (WTI, Brent and Dubai) and domestic (Da Qing) crude oil prices in China using threshold cointegration method. We find evidence of a long-run equilibrium relationship between each pair of international and Da Qing oil prices, favouring the market integration hypothesis. We also estimate asymmetric adjustments under the momentum threshold autoregressive (M-TAR) specification in a TVECM, and the results show that adjustments to eliminate disequilibrium happen faster when oil price spread increases than when it decreases. The long-run and short-run Granger causality tests support the notion that China has influence on the international oil markets. The results imply that China should open up its domestic and imported oil markets, and also establish a well-functioning crude oil futures market, as they are essential for arbitrage and hedging strategies.     

Measuring the impact of monetary policy on asset prices in Turkey

Little is known about the impact of monetary policy on asset prices in emerging markets. This study applies the heteroscedasticity-based GMM for financial markets in Turkey. The results suggest that event study estimates are biased for some asset returns.     

Riding the Bubble: Financial Market Crises in Twenty-Two OECD Countries

In the past decade, financial markets have been hit twice by crisis, followed each time by recession (i.e., Enron and the subprime mortgage crisis). I present three theories to explain the dynamics of share prices: rational expectations, behavioral finance, and an institution-oriented theory. Institutional investors are the dominant actors on financial markets. They hold the majority of the share capital in big companies. They tend to drive financial markets to a higher level of risk (volatility). The greater the percentage of the share capital held by institutional investors in a company, the higher the volatility (variance) of the share price. The results of my multilevel analysis confirm this hypothesis (a sample of 1,369 firms in twenty-two OECD countries). There are also significant differences among the OECD countries. Whereas both financial market crises originated in the United States, the country did not have the highest level of volatility in the period from 2000 to 2013.     

金融风暴中的风险管理与防范

2007年7月以来,美国次贷危机持续笼罩全球金融市场,导致美国房价大跌,资金紧缩,对世界股票市场、期货市场造成极大的冲击.随着金融危机对全球实体经济影响的日益加深,我国银行业也出现投资资产价值下降、零售业务放缓等迹象.因而,我国银行业应针对信贷管理中存在的薄弱环节,采取积极的措施,防范金融风险,保障商业银行健康发展.     

The comovement between exchange rates and stock prices in the Asian emerging markets

This study investigates the comovement between exchange rates and stock prices in the Asian emerging markets. The sample covers major institutional changes, such as market liberalization and financial crises, so as to examine how the short-term and long-term relations change after such events. The autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) model proposed by Pesaran et al. (2001) is adopted, which allows us to deal with structural breaks easily, and to handle data that have integrals of different orders. Interest rates and foreign reserves are also included in the analysis to reduce potential omitted variable bias. My empirical results suggest that the comovement between exchange rates and stock prices becomes stronger during crisis periods, consistent with contagion or spillover between asset prices, when compared with tranquil periods. Furthermore, most of the spillovers during crisis periods can be attributed to the channel running from stock price shocks to the exchange rate, suggesting that governments should stimulate economic growth and stock markets to attract capital inflow, thereby preventing a currency crisis. However, the industry causality analysis shows the comovement is not stronger for export-oriented industries for all periods, such as industrials and technology industries, thus implying that comovement between exchange rates and stock prices in the Asian emerging markets is generally driven by capital account balance rather than that of trade.     

Policy uncertainty and international financial markets: the case of Brexit

ABSTRACT

This study assesses the impact of the Brexit probability on both the UK and on international financial markets, for the first and the second statistical moments. As financial markets are by nature highly interlinked, one might expect that the uncertainty engendered by Brexit also has an impact on financial markets in several other countries. We first estimate the time-varying interactions between UK policy uncertainty, which to a large extent is attributed to uncertainty about Brexit and UK financial market volatilities. Second, we use two other measures of the perceived probability of Brexit before the referendum, namely daily data released by Betfair and results of polls published by Bloomberg. Based on these data sets, and using both panel and single-country SUR estimation methods, we analyse the Brexit effect on levels of stock returns, sovereign CDS, 10-year interest rates in 19 predominantly European countries, and those of the British pound and the euro. We show that Brexit-induced policy uncertainty will continue to cause instability in key financial markets and has the potential to damage the real economy in both the UK and other European countries. The main losers outside the UK are the ‘GIIPS’ economies: Greece, Ireland, Italy, Portugal and Spain.