World market integration through the lens of foreign direct investors

This paper is motivated by the unparalleled increase in foreign direct investment to emerging market economies of the last 25 years. Using a large cross-country time-series data set, we evaluate the dependence of foreign direct investment on global factors, or worldwide sources of risk (i.e., factors that drive foreign direct investment across several countries). We construct a globalization measure that equals the share of explained variation in direct investment attributable to global factors. We show that our globalization measure has increased steadily for developing and developed countries. For the full sample of countries, the globalization measure rose by over 10-fold from 1985 to 1999. Furthermore, in recent years, developing countries' exposure to global factors has approached that of developed countries. Finally, our globalization measure correlates strongly with measures of capital market liberalization, supporting our hypothesis that increased market integration leads to a greater role for worldwide sources of risk. We discuss the implications of our results for public policies regarding capital market liberalization and policies directed at attracting foreign investment.     

The anatomy of financial crises: Evidence from the emerging ADR market

We study the anatomy of recent financial crises in Mexico, East Asia, Russia, Brazil, Turkey, and Argentina by investigating the efficiency and pricing of the emerging American depositary receipt (ADR) market. We use a non-parametric technique to test for persistent regime shifts in two basic structural relationships for ADR returns in 20 emerging countries — identified via arbitrage and capital mobility considerations — that should always hold in efficient and integrated capital markets. We find that those “normal” market conditions were instead often violated in proximity of financial crises: The law of one price often weakened (by 54% on average) and domestic sources of risk became more important (often by more than 100%) for many emerging ADRs. We also find the likelihood of these regime shifts to be related to proxies for uncertainty among investors, exchange rate volatility, trade linkages, and liquidity (but not stock market trends, currency devaluations, capital flight, or capital controls).     

When in peril, retrench: Testing the portfolio channel of contagion

The impact of past gains and losses on international investors' risk aversion is an important factor in the propagation of financial shocks across countries. We first present a stylized model illustrating how changes in investors' risk aversion affect portfolio decisions and stock prices. We then examine empirically the behavior of international mutual funds. When funds' returns are below average, they reduce their exposure to countries in which they were overweight and vice versa. An index of “financial interdependence” that reflects the extent to which countries share overexposed funds helps explain the pattern of stock market comovement across countries and the pattern of contagion during crises.     

Regional financial integration in the GCC

We investigate the extent of regional financial integration in the member countries of the Gulf Cooperation Council. Interest rate data show that convergence exists and that interest rate differentials are relatively short-lived—especially relative to other unified currency area and comparable to those of the Euro Area post 1999. Equity data using cross-listed stocks confirm that stock markets are fairly integrated compared to other emerging market regions, although price equalization is hampered by market illiquidity. The limited volume data available suggests that intra-GCC capital flows are sizeable.     

Financial market liberalization and the pricing of idiosyncratic risk

We test the impact of idiosyncratic risk on stock returns for emerging markets that experience financial market liberalizations. Idiosyncratic risk is positively associated with returns prior to financial market liberalization, but liberalization diminishes this effect. Moreover, prior to liberalization, the number (concentration) of stocks available in the market is negatively (positively) correlated with the pricing of idiosyncratic risk. The decrease in the pricing of idiosyncratic risk can explain the reduction in the cost of capital around liberalizations. Additionally, the change in the pricing of idiosyncratic risk may be a useful measure of the success of financial market liberalization.     

How does stock market liberalization influence corporate innovation? Evidence from Stock Connect scheme in China

Using China's Stock Connect program as a quasi-natural experiment, we assess the impact of stock market liberalization on corporate innovation. The baseline result based on a difference-in-differences (DID) estimation suggests that allowing foreign investors to buy domestic stocks has a beneficial effect on Chinese firms' innovative outputs. Specifically, eligible firms affected by the Stock Connect scheme generate more and higher quality patents than other unaffected firms subsequently. Furthermore, we explore potential channels that may explain this beneficial effect in terms of improving corporate governance, reducing information asymmetry, and mitigating financial constraints. In addition, the effect is more pronounced for firms in high-tech industries. However, we find that the influence of stock market liberalization is insignificant in state-owned firms. Besides, the findings are generally robust to different measures of innovation and different methods of estimation. Overall, this paper provides new insights into understanding the positive effect of stock market liberalization in emerging market economies.     

Financial deregulation and integration: an Australian perspective

Many countries in recent years have progressively removed economic and financial barriers and this process has provided easier access to their capital markets. Further, such liberalization measures can impact upon the risk-return relationship between assets. This paper investigates whether the Australian stock market is segmented from or integrated into the world equity market. The aim is to ascertain if the liberalization undertaken in the Australian economy, in the form of financial deregulation in the early 1980s, has resulted in its integration with the world equity market. Consistent with expectations, we find evidence that the stock market was segmented in the pre-deregulation period but integrated following financial deregulation. The hypothesis that industry factors may impact upon integration could not be supported.Keywords: Australia; Deregulation; IntegrationJEL classification: F36; G12; G15     

Does corporate governance risk at home affect investment choices abroad?

Disparity between control and ownership rights gives rise to the risk of tunneling by the controlling shareholder, and is prevalent in many emerging market economies and present in some developed countries. At the same time, international investors come from different countries whose home markets are characterized by varying degrees of control–ownership disparity. This paper studies whether this difference in investors' home countries affects their portfolio choice in an emerging market. It combines two unique data sets on ownership and control in business groups, and investor-stock level foreign investment in Korea. A key finding is that investors from low-disparity countries disfavor high-disparity stocks in Korea, but investors from high-disparity countries are indifferent. Moreover, investors from low-disparity countries became averse to disparity only after the Asian financial crisis. These results suggest that the nature of corporate governance in international investors' home countries affects their portfolio choice abroad, and therefore these investors should not be lumped together in the analyses of their portfolio choice.     

Foreign investors in Taiwan: Their roles and government perspectives

This article describes the financial liberalization process in Taiwan and evaluates the effects of foreign institutional investors on Taiwan's stock market. Gradual liberalization allowed Taiwan to reap the benefits while reducing the harmful impacts of foreign participation during the Asian financial crisis. Overall, the liberalization policies proved to be effective as the stock market has become more stable and efficient. Foreign institutional investors contribute significant growth to the Taiwan stock market, and will continue to play a sizeable role in its future development.     

What drives financial crises in emerging markets?

The study examines the causes of financial crises in 31 emerging market countries during 1980–2001. It estimates a probit model using 23 macroeconomic and financial sector variables. Traditional variables such as unemployment and inflation, as well as several indicators of indebtedness such as private sector liabilities and the foreign liabilities of banks explain currency crises rather well, and it appears currency crises occur in tandem with banking crises. Indeed, in emerging market countries the vulnerability to crisis is exacerbated by situations involving large liabilities that permit sudden capital outflows. Increases in indebtedness followed the liberalization of capital flows and domestic financial sectors.     

Capital flows and capital goods

Studying the relation between equity market liberalization and imports of capital goods, we examine one channel through which international financial integration can promote growth. For the period 1980-1997, we find that after controlling for other policies and fundamentals, stock market liberalizations are associated with a significant increase in the share of imports of machinery and equipment. We hypothesize this can be attributed to the consequences of financial integration, which allows access to foreign capital, and provide evidence consistent with this channel. Our results suggest that increased access to international capital allows countries to enjoy the benefits embodied in capital goods.     

Global financial conditions,country spreads and macroeconomic fluctuations in emerging countries

This paper uses a panel structural vector autoregressive (VAR) model to investigate the extent to which global financial conditions, i.e., a global risk-free interest rate and global financial risk, and country spreads contribute to macroeconomic fluctuations in emerging countries. The main findings are: (1) global financial risk shocks explain about 20% of movements both in the country spread and in the aggregate activity in emerging economies. (2) The contribution of global risk-free interest rate shocks to macroeconomic fluctuations in emerging economies is negligible. Its role, which was emphasized in the literature, is taken up by global financial risk shocks. (3) Country spread shocks explain about 15 percent of the business cycles in emerging economies. (4) Interdependence between economic activity and the country spread is a key mechanism through which global financial shocks are transmitted to emerging economies.     

What factors explain stock market retardation in Islamic Countries

Stock markets have been recognized in literature as a source of financial development and economic growth. Notwithstanding the recent trend of the stock market development in emerging countries, some argue that Islamic countries' stock exchanges are still infantile. The central aim of this research, therefore, is to investigate factors impeding stock market development (SMD) in Islamic countries. We explore a panel annual data of 11 main Islamic countries vis-à-vis the developed countries for the period of 1996–2011. The findings show that all of our concerned macroeconomic determinants play a major role in the developed countries. On the other hand, financial openness has substantially less contribution in Islamic countries, while the financial intermediary development plays a major role. The results are also indicative of the need for the Islamic countries to improve their legal environment and economic freedom. Lastly, we also attempt to measure the integration level, where the findings tend to indicate a relatively lower and unstable pattern of integration for the Islamic countries, suggesting the impact of volatile inflows.     

Market integration and contagion: Evidence from Asian emerging stock and foreign exchange markets

This paper examines whether Asian emerging stock markets (India, Korea, Malaysia, Philippines, Taiwan, and Thailand) have become integrated into world capital markets since their official liberalization dates by estimating and testing a dynamic integrated international capital asset pricing model (ICAPM) in the absence of purchasing power parity (PPP) using an asymmetric multivariate GARCH(1,1)-in-Mean approach. Also examined in this paper is whether there are pure contagion effects between stock and foreign exchange markets for each Asian country during the 1997 Asian crisis. The empirical results show that first, both currency and world market risks are priced and time-varying, suggesting that an international asset pricing model under PPP and constant price of risk might give rise to model misspecification. Second, the stock markets for India, Korea, Malaysia, Philippines, and Thailand were segmented from the world capital markets before their liberalization dates, but all six markets have become fully integrated since then. Third, the market liberalization has reduced the cost of capital and price volatility for most of the countries. Finally, as for the contagion effects, strong positive impact of return shocks originating from the domestic stock market to its foreign exchange market during the crisis is found. This dynamic relationship between stock market and foreign exchange market is consistent with stock-oriented exchange rate models.     

Does financial development reduce income inequality and poverty? Evidence from emerging countries

The objective of this paper is to examine whether bank and stock market development contributes to reducing income inequality and poverty in emerging countries. Using dynamic panel data methods with an updated dataset for the period 1987–2011, we assess the finance–inequality–poverty nexus by taking the separate and simultaneous impacts of banks and stock markets into account. Mixed explanatory findings on panel studies suggest that although financial development promotes economic growth, this does not necessarily benefit those on low-incomes in emerging countries. For the finance–poverty link, we find that neither banks nor stock markets play a significant role in poverty reduction.     

Transmission of central bank communication to emerging economies: Evidence from the Korean stock market

This study analyzes the impact of US central bank communication on financial markets in emerging economies. We find that informal communication from the Fed positively influences the Korean stock market at a greater magnitude than the US stock market. The results show that the Korean stock market experienced higher excess return when Korea's monetary policy decisions are uncertain, suggesting that central bank communication in central countries could transmit to emerging economics through their monetary policy decisions and uncertainty. In addition, various portfolios and individual equities have a positive market risk-return tradeoff in the presence of Fed communication only.     

Financial liberalization and stock markets efficiency: New evidence from emerging economies

This paper aims to assess the impact of financial liberalization on the degree of informational efficiency in emerging stock markets while considering three types of financial crises, i.e. banking, currency and twin crises. To this end, a treatment effects model with time-varying parameters is estimated for 13 emerging economies from January 1986 to December 2008. Empirical results show that there is a greater efficiency in recent years and that financial liberalization not only improves the degree of efficiency but also reduces the probability of financial crises. They also suggest that improving efficiency depends upon several internal characteristics.     

Impact of the Financial Crisis on Cross‐Border Mergers and Acquisitions and Concentration in the Global Banking Industry

The global banking industry has seen dramatic changes in the past 40 years. Most recently, the financial liberalization of emerging markets and the global financial crisis have significantly impacted the market share of banks worldwide. This article investigates the impact of the 2007–2008 financial crisis on cross‐border mergers and acquisitions (M&As) in the banking sector and emphasizes the role of emerging‐market banks in the postcrisis consolidation trend. Using M&A data and concentration data over the period 2000–2013, our analysis indicates that the financial crisis had a significant impact on worldwide M&As, especially on the direction of the transactions. Emerging‐market banks appear to be major acquirers in the postcrisis period, targeting both neighboring countries and developed economies in Europe. We also observe an increase in bank concentration in developed markets most hit by the financial crisis, especially in the United States and the United Kingdom, whereas bank concentration decreased in emerging markets. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

A hybrid approach to international market selection: The case of impact investing organizations

Social enterprises are hybrid organizations that concurrently pursue social and economic goals and hence are mid-way between conventional capitalistic firms and non-profit organizations. Many social enterprises are becoming international; delivering services across borders. With the objective of understanding the internationalization of these unconventional organizations, this paper examines their international market selection decision based on host countries’ macroeconomic conditions. Generally, we hypothesize that the international market selection decision of social enterprises is tied to their hybridity, an overarching characteristic that sets them apart from other types of organizations. We build an original dataset with information on 41 European and North American impact investing organizations and 153 developing countries. Largely, our findings support the hypothesis, suggesting that social enterprises operate in foreign countries that offer a desirable balance between their social and financial goals. However, they avoid contexts with high country risk, factors that could cause a shortfall in expected returns.     

Modelling spillovers between stock market and FX market: evidence for Nigeria

Abstract

The need to capture the foreign exchange (FX) and stock markets nexus in Nigeria is underscored by the rapidly expanding financial markets integration due to trade and financial liberalization policies which seem to have enhanced the inflow of capital as well as accelerated investment/business interactions. Using variants of the VARMA-AMGARCH model of McAleer, Hoti, and Chan (2009), we find that volatility persistence in the stock market is accentuated by bad news in the market and moderated by good news in the FX market. Finally, we establish that ignoring the asymmetric effects may exaggerate the spillover results.