Elections and Capital Flows

This paper investigates the extent to which elections affect capital flows. I find little evidence of political capital flow cycles in advanced economies. In emerging and developing countries, however, presidential elections significantly lower preelection foreign direct investment (FDI) inflows but have no effect on other types of capital flows. Furthermore, I find evidence that these cycles are not caused by economic crises related to elections or preelection manipulation of policy variables. These results suggest that uncertainty about future government policies, which should have greater impact on more irreversible forms of capital flows like FDI, may be an important factor in generating this cycle.     

The real impact of ratings-based capital rules on the finance-growth nexus

We investigate whether ratings-based capital regulation has affected the finance-growth nexus via a foreign credit channel. Using quarterly data on short to medium term real GDP growth and cross-border bank lending flows from G-10 countries to 67 recipient countries, we find that since the implementation of Basel 2 capital rules, risk weight reductions mapped to sovereign credit rating upgrades have stimulated short-term economic growth in investment grade recipients but hampered growth in non-investment grade recipients. The impact of these rating upgrades is strongest in the first year and then reverses from the third year and onwards. On the other hand, there is a consistent and lasting negative impact of risk weight increases due to rating downgrades across all recipient countries. The adverse effects of ratings-based capital regulation on foreign bank credit supply and economic growth are compounded in countries with more corruption and less competitive banking sectors and are attenuated with greater political stability.     

The Determinants of International Commercial Real Estate Investment

We examine the determinants of international commercial real estate investment using a unique set of panel data series for 47 countries worldwide, covering the period from 2000 to 2009. We explore how different socio-economic, demographic and institutional characteristics affect commercial real estate investment activity by determining both cross-sectional and time-series estimators, running augmented random effect panel regressions. We provide evidence that economic growth, rapid urbanization and compelling demographics attract real estate investment, and also demonstrate that a lack of transparency in the legal framework, administrative burdens of doing real estate business, socio-cultural challenges and political instabilities reduce international real estate allocations.     

How attractive is central Eastern Europe for risk capital investors?

This paper addresses the attractiveness of Central Eastern European countries for risk capital investors by the construction of a tailored composite measure. Based on a survey among institutional investors, we define six key drivers that determine an emerging country's attractiveness for this type of investment. Using 42 socio-economic data series as proxies for these six key drivers, we benchmark the Central Eastern European countries with EU-15, Norway, and Switzerland and identify six tier groups of country attractiveness. We highlight socio-economic strengths and weaknesses of Central Eastern Europe and provide guidelines for policy improvements to attract more risk capital funding to spur innovation, entrepreneurship, employment, competitiveness and growth in the emerging region.     

金融结构如何影响了外资进入方式选择？

随着全球价值链进入深度重构的关键时期,金融结构对于一国外资进入方式选择的重要性日益凸显,本文采用65个国家2003—2017年跨国面板数据,从理论和实证两个层面系统探讨了金融结构与一国外资进入方式选择之间的关系。研究表明:(1)无论是发达国家还是发展中国家东道国,市场主导型金融结构均有助于外资以跨国并购方式进入东道国,但发达国家正向促进作用显著大于发展中国家,克服了内生性和经济波动的影响后,结论依旧稳健。(2)进一步机制检验结果发现,技术创新引致和国家风险管控是金融结构影响外资进入方式选择的重要渠道。其中,金融结构的国家风险渠道机制,主要通过降低经济金融风险来实现。(3)此外,引入国家营商环境指数发现,营商环境的改善不仅对外资以跨国并购方式进入具有直接促进作用,而且能间接调节金融市场对外资进入结构优化的提升作用。本文研究为我国深化金融供给侧结构性改革,改善营商环境,进而实现引资结构优化提供了政策启示。     

Analysis of foreign investment impact on the dynamics of national capitalization structure: A computational intelligence approach

Central and Eastern Europe countries are in the political and economic transitional process of merging with the European Union. How has foreign investment already transformed these countries’ economic sectors and how will it affect the national economies in terms of capitalization across economic sectors in the near future? Our prime consideration is portfolio investment impact on the dynamics of respective countries’ capitalization structure in terms of sectorial investment distribution. The proposed method rests on the artificial intelligence approach (neural network method), which is targeted to grasp non-linear dynamics of heterogeneous foreign investment impact on national capitalization structure.     

SECURITIZATION: A FINANCING STRATEGY FOR EMERGING MARKETS FIRMS

With emerging markets now in crisis, companies in developing countries are finding it difficult to obtain financing. Securitization, a transaction structure in which the securities sold to investors are backed by a company's receivables, is one of the few vehicles with at least the potential to provide financing at economic rates in the current environment of uncertainty.
Unlike U.S. securitization issues, emerging markets transactions often use a structure known as "future flows" securitization, in which the securities are backed by receivables that are not expected to be generated until after issuance. This article begins by describing how the process of future flows securitization carves out securities with levels of political risk acceptable to foreign capital market investors. Then it traces the history of emerging markets securitization from its origins in Latin America to its more recent uses during the Asian crisis. Securitization helped bring foreign investors back to Latin America after its debt crisis of the early 1980s. And while the Asian crisis has sharply reduced new issuance for all kinds of emerging market financings, the volume of securitization issues appears to have declined less precipitously than other types of transactions geared to foreign investors. Moreover, investment bankers are now hard at work planning new securitization issues for companies in both Latin America and Asia.
In exploring the longer-term effects of securitization on both domestic issuers and their economies, the author suggests that securitization could play a pivotal role in restoring emerging markets companies' access to global financial markets. Indeed, with a few exceptions such as Malaysia, most emerging markets are now responding to the crisis by taking measures to protect investors, such as requiring greater financial transparency and dispelling legal uncertainties that have discouraged securitization in particular and overseas investment more generally.     

THE IMPACT OF EC-92 ON TRADE IN DEVELOPING COUNTRIES

How is the attempt of the European Community (EC) to createa single market going to affect the developing countries? Thisarticle argues that the net direct effects of EC-92 may be rathersmall: the trade creation and trade diversion effects broughtabout by the program may cancel each other out, with few repercussionsfor the developing countries as a group. The expected changesin trade flows arising from relatively small changes in nominalprices and aggregate incomes, the changes in market structure,the removal of internal barriers, and a predicted 5 percentincrease in EC output may be important to European policymakers,but they are rather remote from the developing countries. The threat of EC-92 to the developing countries lies elsewhere:from diversion of investment from those countries to the ECand from the resurrection of protectionism by the EC, especiallyin the form of nontariff barriers, toward the outside world.      

Why do firms disclose and not disclose structural intangibles?

This study conducts 22 interviews with the directors of 11 firms chosen from the top 30 listed firms by market capital on the Colombo Stock Exchange, with each firm representing an industry. The interviews explore senior executives' views about disclosing the structural intangibles in annual reports to attract financial investments. The study identifies 20 intangible resources in 10 intangible classes. It analyzes the interview data using latent thematic analysis and explores them as responses to social, political, and economic interest groups. Corroborating interview data with annual report data, this study identifies five broad reasons for disclosure and non-disclosure. Build empathy, show they are good corporate citizens, win government support, and build confidence are about disclosure, and divert attention from issues at hand is about non-disclosure. This study finds that disclosure results in managing legitimacy of the social and political interest groups, and also in managing impressions of the economic interest group. Non-disclosure results in managing impressions of the social and political interest groups. The findings contribute to building an evidence-led theoretical connection to understand the structural intangibles disclosed and not disclosed to attract financial investment to firms.     

关于SDR计价证券市场现状的分析

文章回顾了SDR作为官方清算工具的使用情况及其在私人部门中的应用历史，分析了SDR计价证券的优缺点，指出要扩大SDR的国际储备货币职能，除了要加强各国政治经济利益协调之外，还应充分借鉴欧洲货币单位（ECU）的发展经验，扩大SDR计价证券在私人部门中的应用，提高此类证券二级市场的流动性，从而促进SDR在国际贸易和国际投资方面的使用，并发挥分散美元风险的作用。     

Determinants of Sovereign Wealth Fund Cross‐Border Investments

Using a sample of 1,590 purchases of stock by sovereign wealth funds (SWFs) in listed firms in 78 target countries between 1985 and 2011, we study the country‐level determinants of SWF cross‐border investment. We find that SWFs from countries with high levels of openness and economic development, but with less developed local capital markets, will make more cross‐country transactions, while target countries with higher levels of investor protection and more developed capital markets will attract more SWF investment. Our findings support the investment facilitation hypothesis, suggesting that SWFs act purely or principally as commercial investors facilitating cross‐border corporate investment.     

Investment,leverage and political risk: Evidence from project-level FDI

Does capital structure influence firms' FDI capital expenditure decisions into countries with varying degrees of political risk? We explore this question using a novel dataset that matches 10,000 unique outward foreign direct investment (OFDI) projects with 1135 distinct U.S. firms over the period 2003–2014. We find that capital expenditures allocated to FDI projects are significantly lower for highly leveraged firms, in particular for firms with low growth opportunities. Firms also commit lower capital amounts to investments located in countries characterized by higher political risk. Furthermore, leverage and political risk interact with one another in determining the financial commitment of the FDI, with leverage exerting a significantly stronger negative effect on capital expenditures in countries where political risk is elevated. Our findings are consistent with the monitoring role of debt in curbing exposure to political risk in multinational firms' foreign operations, and corroborate the disciplinary role of leverage on firms' investment decisions.     

Accounting for Sovereign Risk When Investing in Emerging Markets

In theory, political risk is project‐specific and should be accounted for in the estimation of the expected investment cash flows. But in practice, the political risk associated with this type of investment is typically accounted for implicitly by adjusting the investment's required rate of return or the discount rate. As the authors discuss in the article, this approach disguises the specific assumptions being made about the risk of expropriation and so makes it difficult to assess this risk properly. While defending some aspects of current practice, the authors argue that corporate executives should consider some changes. For example, although a project analysis that is shared with the host government could incorporate a risk adjustment to the discount rate, the authors suggest that more explicit analysis of the anticipated risk of expropriation should be incorporated into the analysis of expected project cash flows. This analysis could involve making specific assumptions about the “term structure” of expropriation risk over the life of the investment. Finally, the authors note that the political risk of making investments in emerging economies can be managed to some extent. Investments can be structured in ways that reduce political risk by structuring project cash flows in ways that better align the incentives of the project sponsor and the government of the host country.     

European equity markets volatility spillover: Destabilizing energy risk is the new normal

While energy risk is increasingly recognized as a systemic risk, there is limited comprehensive analysis of the risk propagation in regional contexts. In this study, we examine oil and natural gas price changes and shocks in relation to equity market returns and volatility for 24 European Economic Area (EEA) countries. In addition to traditional panel regressions, we also deploy the Diebold-Yilmaz (2014) spillover index for a closed network analysis. We differentiate in the cross-section across the core EU block, PIIGS countries, EU enlargement countries joining after 2004, and other non-EU countries, to provide insights into the ongoing debates on the European energy market stability. While we find evidence of the manifestation of energy risk throughout the sample period, we find that until 2019 the primary sources of volatility spillover in the EEA economic network arose from economic or political uncertainty. Energy risks, measured by large crude oil and natural gas price shocks also significantly contributed to equity market volatility, with increasing volatility risk arising from natural gas, a green labelled energy source after 2019. Last, we show that CEEC equity markets are more sensitive to oil and natural gas price shocks when domestic currencies depreciate against the Euro.     

资金流动、国际金融整合与经济增长——基于新兴市场国家面板数据

本文尝试检验东欧、东亚和拉丁美洲三大主要新兴市场国家或地区的资金流动方向及其对经济增长的影响,以及近来众所关切的全球经常账户失衡问题。实证结果显示:东欧国家收入水平与金融深化程度仍然偏低,但随着发展程度提高,未来将由资金流入转为流出。东亚国家或地区的超额外汇储备、贸易顺差与资金流出,被指控为造成美国巨额经常账户赤字与全球经常账户失衡的主要原因之一,但若能够持续金融深化的努力,资金可能回流并使全球经常账户失衡现象得以缓解。至于拉丁美洲国家的宏观经济、金融和政策变量,对于资金流动方向并无决定性影响,但宏观经济政策仍是决定资金流入能否有助于经济增长的关键因素。     

Weather Risk Hedging in the European Markets and International Investment Diversification

This article analyses weather risk hedging efficiency in three European countries using weather derivatives traded at Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) and explores the potential of weather derivatives as a new investment asset to further diversify investors’ portfolios. The results document that the CME European weather contracts are generally effective in hedging the temperature risk in the three European countries. However, for a specific country, weather risk hedging using other countries’ weather indexes is generally not effective. Zero or little correlation among international weather indexes and stock market indexes indicates that weather derivatives should be an efficient investment diversifier. This research provides important insights to both weather risk hedgers and investors.     

Closing and cloning in open-end mutual funds

Using a unique dataset, we document that only those closed funds for which no new fund is subsequently launched continuously deliver positive abnormal returns. This suggests the existence of an optimal fund scale. In spite of the potential diseconomies of scale, a non-trivial proportion of closed funds have new funds cloned—the scale motive would not be a complete explanation for the closure. When managers of closed funds clone new funds, they receive greater public attention and thus can attract more fund flows and charge higher fees. Furthermore, better-performing closed fund managers attract more fund flows to their new siblings, making the closure an effective mechanism to extract economic rents. Overall, we find that closing and cloning is an attractive strategy for funds seeking to increase their management fees and funds with more managers in place. Aspects of the closed fund family also affect the launch decision of new siblings.     

Bilateral political relations and sovereign wealth fund investment

We examine the role of bilateral political relations in sovereign wealth fund (SWF) investment decisions. Our empirical results suggest that political relations play a role in SWF decision making. Contrary to predictions based on the FDI and political relations literature, we find that relative to nations in which they do not invest, SWFs prefer to invest in nations with which they have weaker political relations. Using a two-stage Cragg model, we find that political relations are an important factor in where SWFs invest but matter less in determining how much to invest. Inconsistent with the FDI and political relations literature, these results suggest that SWFs behave differently than rational investors who maximize return while minimizing risk. Consistent with the trade and political relations literature, we find that SWF investment has a positive (negative) impact for relatively closed (open) countries. Our results suggest that SWFs use—at least partially—non-financial motives in investment decisions.     

The European flying geese: New FDI patterns for the old continent?

This article attempts to apply the flying geese metaphor to emerging foreign direct investment (FDI) patterns in Europe and the Mediterranean. Such a division of labour is at best at a nascent stage, given the overwhelming share of Western Europe in both inward and outward foreign direct investment flows. Because of these imbalances, special attention is to be paid to Central and Eastern Europe’s (CEE) potential, both in the group joining the European Union (EU) in 2004 and the rest of the subregion. For the former, middle-income countries, risks in investment promotion are related to uncertainty brought about by the transition to European Union’s acquis and an eventually too fast increase in production costs. Policy response to that requires a modernisation of both general and specific investment promotion policies, adjusted to the rules of the Union. For the rest of Central and Eastern Europe, the challenge is to adjust to the enlarged European Union and to improve the business and investment environment, in order to capture the foreign direct investment outflows of other European countries searching for optimum labour costs.     

Investments,Credit, and Corporate Financial Distress: Evidence from Central and Eastern Europe

Although they are instrumental for economic development, productivity-enhancing corporate investments may increase the financial vulnerability of companies, especially in an economic and financial crisis. We employ an instrumental probit model with the aim of finding evidence for the investment and credit patterns that led companies into financial distress during the global financial crisis 2009–2010. The company-level micro-data for our study on three Central and East European countries—Hungary, Bulgaria, Romania and two Baltic countries, Latvia and Lithuania—originates from two independent surveys, the Business Environment and Enterprise Performance Survey conducted in 2008 and the Financial Crisis Survey conducted in 2009/2010. Both were carried out jointly by the EBRD and the World Bank. Our results emphasize a substantial adverse impact from investment intensity and debt financing on company financial soundness during a crisis. On top of that, we discover a strong non-linear pattern in the sensitivity of company distress to its investment-financing nexus.