Characteristics and performance of institutional and foreign investors in Japanese and Korean stock markets

This study examines the characteristics of the stock ownership by institutional and foreign investors, as well as their effects on stock price performance in Japan and Korea. The main results of this study are summarized as follows. First, foreign investors have a clearer preference for stocks with large capitalization and low book-to-market ratios than do institutional investors in both Japanese and Korean stock markets. Second, foreign investors prefer stocks with a high return on equity, especially in Korea. Third, average returns have more apparent differentiation among institutional (foreign) ownership portfolios than among foreign (institutional) ownership portfolios in Japan (Korea). Fourth, the stocks that are preferred simultaneously by both institutional and foreign investors show statistically significant positive abnormal returns in both Korea and Japan, whereas those preferred by either institutional or foreign investors show statistically significant positive abnormal returns only in Korea. The institutional investors' incentive for stock holding, the extent of stock market efficiency, and stock price polarization could be the possible explanations for the different empirical results observed for Japan and Korea. J. Japanese Int. Economies 21 (2) (2007) 195–213.     

Turnover tax and trading volume: Panel analysis of stocks traded in the Japanese and US markets

Japan eliminated turnover tax on stock trading through the end of the 1990’s to revitalize its ailing stock market by reducing the overall transaction cost for stock trading. This paper empirically examines the effect of this exogenous, institutional change in tax policy on stock trading volume in the Japanese market. To do so, we use panel data of stocks traded in both the Japanese and United States markets and compare changes in their trading volumes at the times of the tax changes. We use a well-established V-shape relationship between turnover and price change, with three different assumptions as regards how the price change relates to turnover across stocks and markets. Although a model allowing for both slope and intercept shifts does not offer any indications one way or the other, a more restricted model allowing only for an intercept shift clearly suggests a statistically significant increase in trading volume in the Japanese market but not in the United States markets for April 1999. However, such a result was not obtained for April 1996. These results indicate that the abolition of turnover tax in 1999, but not the rate reduction in 1996, contributed to the trading volume increase.     

Structure of Firm Location Choices: An Examination of Japanese Greenfield Investment in China*

This paper presents an empirical investigation of the location decision structure of Japanese investors in China. In this study, a nested logit model and rich Japanese firm‐level greenfield manufacturing foreign direct investment data are calibrated together. This examination is not only driven by the unsatisfactory model specification of the conditional logit model in previous location choice analyses, specifically the violation of the independence from irrelevant alternatives assumption; but is also driven by the urgent need to better understand foreign investors’ in general and Japanese investors’ in particular location decision structure in China. Two potential hierarchical and sequential location decision‐making structures of Japanese investors are then tested, which are respectively in line with the spatial divide of China's FDI preferential policies and with China's six traditional census areas.     

Tick size change and liquidity provision on the Tokyo Stock Exchange

The Tokyo Stock Exchange (TSE) introduced a change in its minimum tick sizes on April 13, 1998, for stocks traded at certain price ranges. We investigate the liquidity and market quality of the stocks affected by the tick size change, using a unique and comprehensive tick-by-tick data. We find that the quoted spread (effective spread) declined significantly by 20 to 50 percent (by 24 to 60 percent) after the tick size change. Reductions in spread are greater for firms with greater tick size reductions, greater trading activity, and higher transitory component in the bid–ask spread. Although investors are more aggressive in posting quotes, there is no definite evidence of an increase in trading volume. Overall, our evidence is consistent with the hypothesis that the minimum tick size creates economic rents for liquidity providers, which is lowered upon tick size reduction. J. Japanese Int. Economies 21 (2) (2007) 173–194.     

Heterogeneity and the FDI versus export decision of Japanese manufacturers

We investigate whether productivity differences explain why some manufacturers sell only to the domestic market while others serve foreign markets through exports and/or FDI. When overseas production offers no cost advantages, our model predicts that investors should be more productive than exporters. An extension allowing for low-cost foreign production can reverse this prediction. Data for 1070 large Japanese firms reveal that firms that invest abroad and export are more productive than firms that just export. Among overseas investors, more productive firms span a wider range of host-country income levels. J. Japanese Int. Economies 17 (4) (2003) 448–467.     

The impact of foreign investors on the risk-taking of Japanese firms

Consistent with a bank-centered governance system, Japanese firms exhibit an exceptionally low level of performance variability. The increased involvement of foreign investors motivated by shareholder value is thus likely to have triggered a major shift in their risk-taking behavior. My results confirm this assumption as all standard measures of performance volatility appear to have significantly increased with the level of foreign ownership. Controlling for endogeneity provides higher point estimates supporting anecdotal evidence that foreign investors have targeted firms taking unusually low risk. Overall, the evidence highlights the considerable impact that this category of investors can have on a firm’s decisions and, by consequence, on its performance.     

机构投资者持股特征对IPOs长期绩效影响的实证研究

文章从机构投资者持股规模、持股集中度、持股稳定性三个方面归纳不同类型机构投资者持股特征,采用Log-it回归检验机构投资者持股特征对上市后股票购买并持有异常回报率(BHAR),即IPOs长期绩效的影响。实证结果验证了机构投资者持股比例越高、持股稳定性越强,股票上市后的长期绩效越好;而持股比例低、持股集中度高、持股稳定性差的机构投资者也导致了股票长期表现较差。积极型机构投资者对股票长期绩效具有正面的影响。因此,引入积极型机构投资者符合当前我国股票市场深化改革的目标。     

Regional Characteristics,Industry Agglomeration and Location Choice: Evidence from Japanese Manufacturing Investments in Korea*

Using extensive firm‐level data for the years 1998–2006, we analyze the regional location decision of Japanese manufacturing foreign direct investors in Korea by focusing on the role of agglomeration economies. Our logit estimates indicate that horizontal agglomeration matters in the location decision, but vertical agglomeration does not. Strong evidence of country‐of‐origin effects is found. Japanese foreign direct investments in high‐technology industries show a typical ‘follow‐the‐leader’ pattern, while those in the in low‐technology industries are influenced by regional endowments. In addition, Japan's high‐technology firms are likely to prefer urban locations so that they can enjoy the externalities of business services.     

Domestic interest rate,foreign direct investment,and corruption

It has been argued that foreign direct investment can exert upward or downward pressure on the domestic interest rate depending on foreign investors’ relative weights on internal and external finance with respect to the domestic economy. Additionally, a country’s level of corruption can influence firms’ ability to obtain external finance. We find that across countries a 1 percent increase in FDI inflows (outflows) is more likely to reduce the domestic interest rate by as much as 0.7 (1) percent. This empirical association between domestic interest rates and FDI flows is non-monotonically contingent on a country’s level of corruption.

     

Portfolio Implications of Cointegration Between Labor Income and Dividends

This paper analyzes the implications of cointegration between labor income and dividends for the optimal portfolio weight for stocks. In a recent paper, Benzoni et al. (J Finance 62:2123–2167, 2007) claim that, as a result of cointegration, the optimal weight in stocks may be smaller for young investors than for older investors. This contradicts the traditional life-cycle models which typically imply portfolio weights that decrease with age. This paper shows that when stock returns are affected by other factors than dividend growth, for example due to time-varying discount rates, the portfolio implications of cointegration are much less severe. In a realistically calibrated model, the life-cycle pattern for the portfolio weight of stocks is flat, except for very young investors.     

The impact of Chinese government promoted homestead transfer on labor migration and household's well-being: A study in three rural areas

The rural homestead transfers (RHT) promoted by the Chinese government in the recent years have resulted in major economic and landscape changes in the countryside and profound impacts on the households’ well-beings. Our paper aims to explain the complex relation between RHT, labor migration and households’ well-beings, based on a survey about three pilot rural areas (Changyuan, Yiwu and Wujin, in the Henan, Zhejiang and Jiangsu Provinces). The results found that the transfer has directly influenced the farmers’ income status, and indirectly through labors’ migration. RHT had a positive impact on their residential environment, and poorly improved their social security. It has improved the living standard of the households, positively influenced the farmers’ psychological state, and had very limited influence on their political participation and freedom.     

Institutional Investors' Trading in Speculation: Evidence from China

The trading behaviour of institutional investors has attracted much attention. However, many issues related to their trading behaviour cannot be addressed without high‐frequency changes in institutional ownership. Based on a measure of the trading behaviour of institutional investors by using an institutional account dataset from China, we find that (i) active institutions trade speculatively by taking advantage of individual investors; (ii) individuals buying high and selling low offer liquidity only on average; (iii) foreign investors do not show significant patterns in speculation; and (iv) trading of active institutions significantly affects price. This study casts doubt on the conventional wisdom that institutional or sophisticated investors improve market efficiency by correcting mispricing, and provides direct evidence for institutional investors' speculation behaviour and their destabilising effect on the stock market. Results suggest that regulators in emerging markets should monitor institutions' speculation to bring fairness and justice to the stock market.     

The impacts of dual carbon goals on asset prices in China

In this paper, we study the impacts of dual carbon goals on asset prices in China. Using the speech of President Jinping Xi on 22 September 2020 as an event in which the dual carbon goals are formally announced, we find that stocks with green concept have superior performance in the post-event window relative to non-green stocks. In particular, a portfolio that longs green stocks and shorts non-green stocks can generate an average monthly return above 3%. The official announcement of dual carbon goals not only attracts attention of investors, resulting in higher institutional ownership and trading volume for green stocks, but also improves fundamentals for green stocks in the post-event window.     

A Vector Error Correction Model for Japanese Real Exports

Atlantic Economic Journal - Japanese exports did not immediately react to the depreciations of the yen after a change in the economic policy framework in 2012, with the launching of Abenomics. This...     

投资风格、意见分歧与股票流动性——来自股票网络社区数据挖掘的证据

文章挖掘网络平台上投资者发帖的文本数据并使用Python语言编写情感分析程序，在区分价值型投资和技术型投资风格的基础上，建立了投资者的群体内意见分歧、跨群体意见分歧指标，并分析意见分歧程度对股票流动性的影响效应。实证表明：不同投资风格的投资者群体内意见分歧的程度有显著差异，价值型投资者群内意见分歧程度要高于技术型投资者；投资者的群体内意见分歧和跨群体意见分歧都与个股流动性水平呈现显著的负相关关系，也即投资者对个股看法的对立程度越高则个股的流动性水平越低，而且两者对流动性的影响具有较强的独立性；进一步的，意见分歧对流动性的影响效应会受到卖空限制的影响，随着卖空限制的减轻，这种影响效应显著增强。这些结论表明，单纯增加信息量并提高信息传播效率，并不一定能完全改善股票流动性水平，投资者的意见分歧既是现实情境，又可能会导致股票流动性的异动，进而影响股票市场的稳定。     

Knowledge spillovers from foreign direct investment in R&D: Evidence from Japanese firm-level data

This study uses firm-level panel data from the Japanese manufacturing industries and examines whether foreign direct investment generates intra-industry knowledge spillovers to domestic firms. The analysis found positive effects of R&D stocks of foreign firms on the productivity of domestic firms, while effects of capital stocks of foreign firms were absent, suggesting that knowledge of foreign firms spills over through their R&D activities, but not through their production activities. In addition, we found that the extent of spillovers from R&D stock of foreign firms is substantially larger than spillovers from R&D stock of domestic firms.     

Who comprised the nation of shareholders? Gender and investment in Great Britain,c. 1870–1935

This article explores the widening ownership of stocks and shares in Great Britain between 1870 and 1935. It demonstrates the extent of that growth and the increasing number of small investors. Women became more important in terms of the number of shareholders and value of holdings. Factors that encouraged this trend included the issue of less risky types of investments, and legal changes relating to married women's property. We examine the ‘deepening’ importance of stocks and shares for wealth holders, arguing that the growing significance of these kinds of financial assets was as important as the growth in the investor population.     

Detecting currency manipulation: An application of a state-space model with Markov switching

Following an idea of Milton Friedman's “plucking model,” we propose to use a state-space model with Markov switching as an auxiliary tool for detecting currency manipulation. Without imposing any a priori restrictions, our model tests if fluctuations of a country's exchange rate are symmetric or if there exists a time-varying support level or resistance level of exchange rate. Using weekly and monthly data of countries on the “monitoring list” of the US Treasury as of April 2017, we find that exchange rates of China, South Korea, Switzerland, and Taiwan rarely fall below their time-varying trends, but are plucked upward from time to time by transitory shocks, suggesting that the FX (foreign exchange) authorities of these countries may have been intervening more actively against appreciation shocks. Our sub-sample analysis reveals that our model accurately captures the period of Switzerland's minimum exchange rate policy with probability of one and Japan's exchange rate rarely falls below its trend after implementing Abenomics. We discuss the difficulties of detecting FX intervention along with the relative advantage of our approach.     

Foreign devaluation as a coordinating device of heterogeneous investors: A game‐theoretic analysis of financial contagion

This paper investigates financial contagion by extending the Morris–Shin (1998) model of financial crises. It is assumed that before a devaluation in a foreign country, home investors have only private information on the state of the home country. It is demonstrated that the occurrence of a currency crisis in the foreign country may trigger a similar crisis in the home country by coordinating heterogeneous beliefs of home investors. The model is designed to describe the Asian currency crisis of 1997.     

The growth strategy of Abenomics and fiscal consolidation

Using a general equilibrium model with an overlapping generation structure, this study examines the impacts of a new Abenomics growth strategy on fiscal consolidation in Japan. Our simulation yielded the following results. (i) It is difficult to achieve the government target of fiscal consolidation by the year 2020 even when assuming that the growth strategy has the desired effects. (ii) Moreover, further economic and fiscal reforms are required from 2030 to 2070 because of accelerated population aging. (iii) However, population policy and an extended retirement age contribute to significant improvements in Japan’s fiscal condition after 2070. (iv) In contrast, the promotion of productivity and the labor force participation rate have a lesser impact on fiscal reconstruction.