Are Islamic stock indexes exposed to systemic risk? Multivariate GARCH estimation of CoVaR

The main objective of this paper is to assess the exposure of Islamic stock indexes to systemic tail events. We use Conditional Value-at-Risk (CoVaR) and Delta CoVaR measures as developed by Adrian and Brunnermeier (2011) and a sample of Islamic and conventional stock indexes, from various developed and emerging markets, during the period September 2005 to March 2015. The empirical results reveal that the systemic risk has a moderate adverse effect on Islamic indexes, with a lower level in Gulf Cooperation Council countries (GCC hereafter). The findings also show the Asian stock indexes can be considered as effective hedge assets, after the global financial crisis (GFC hereafter). Furthermore, the empirical reveal that portfolio including Islamic stock indexes performs better than a benchmark portfolio in turmoil periods. These findings have several implications in financial decisions including the strategy of stability and asset allocation.     

Investor induced contagion during the banking and European sovereign debt crisis of 2007–2012: Wealth effect or portfolio rebalancing?

This study investigates the way a crisis spreads within a country and across borders by testing the investor induced contagion hypothesis through the liquidity channel on stock-bond relationships of the US and five European countries before and during the global banking and European sovereign debt crisis of 2007–2012. We provide evidence consistent with the wealth effect as a source of contagion for the majority of countries. Nevertheless, we uncover evidence of investor induced contagion sourced by the portfolio rebalancing effect for correlations involving Spanish and Italian bonds during the debt crisis. Further, we find that tight (narrow) credit spreads reduce (magnify) the wealth and portfolio rebalancing effects, which are offset by the opposite effects of risk aversion amongst investors, a dynamic that is not restricted to crisis periods.     

Dynamic correlations and volatility linkages between stocks and sukuk: Evidence from international markets

An understanding of volatility and co-movements in financial markets is important for portfolio allocation and risk management practices. The current financial crisis caused a shrinkage in values of most assets, an increased volatility and a threat to the survival of several institutional investors. Managing risks and returns within the classic portfolio theory, when correlations across securities soar, is increasingly challenging. In this paper, we investigate the volatility behavior and the co-movements between sukuk and international stock indexes. Symmetric multivariate GARCH models with dynamic conditional correlations (DCC) were estimated under Student-t distribution. We provide evidence of high correlations between sukuk and US and EU stock markets, without finding the well-known flight to quality behavior affecting Islamic bonds. We also show that volatility linkages between sukuk and regional market indexes are higher during financial crisis. We argue that investors could obtain diversification benefits including sukuk in a well-diversified equity portfolio, given their lower volatility compared to equity. But higher volatility linkages and dynamic correlations during financial crises show that they are hybrid instruments between bonds and equity. Our findings are relevant for institutional investors and asset managers that include Islamic bonds in a diversified portfolio.     

Principles of Financial Regulation: A Dynamic Portfolio Approach

Economists seeking explanations for the global financial crisisof 1997–99 are reaching consensus that a major factorwas weak financial institutions, which resulted in part frominadequate government regulations. At the same time many developingcountries are struggling with an overregulated financial system—onethat stifles innovation and the flow of credit to new entrepreneursand that can stunt the growth of well-established firms. Inparticular, too many countries are relying excessively on capitaladequacy standards, which are inefficient and sometimes counterproductive.The author argues that financial systems can be reformed successfullyusing a "dynamic portfolio approach" aimed at managing the incentivesand constraints that affect not only financial institutions'exposure to risk but also their ability to cope with it. Thearticle sets out general principles of financial regulationand shows how the dynamic portfolio approach can help countriesdeal with the special problems that arise during the transitionto a more liberalized economy as well as those that arise indealing with a financial crisis similar to the 1997 crisis inEast Asia.      

Revisiting fast profit investor sentiment and stock returns during Ramadan

Using stochastic dominance (SD) approach, this paper revisits the Ramadan effect in the stock returns of 15 Muslim countries and altogether as a portfolio. Our study is motivated by the preferred statistical attributes of SD analysis. Specifically, SD requires no normal distribution of returns assumption and it imposes few restrictions on investors' risk-return tradeoff preference. Our results indicate that the Ramadan effect exists in most of Muslim countries used in the study during the sub-periods 1996–2000 and 2001–2006 and in the portfolio during the sub-period 1995–2007. However, its magnitude diminishes during the global financial crisis period (2007–2012). The findings of this paper indicate that previous results are not an artifact deriving from violations of distributional assumptions. We conclude that risk-averse investors would benefit from increased utility by switching from non-Ramadan to Ramadan.     

Assessing the impact of an EU financial transactions tax on asset volatility: An event study

Under the context of EMU debt and financial crisis, we assess the impact of EMU's announcement of a Financial Transactions tax (FTT) on bond and equity volatilities for seven countries, namely Germany, France (core EMU), Greece, Italy, Ireland, Portugal and Spain (periphery EMU). In the absence of historical data on volume and volatility of transactions of such a tax, we utilize the event study methodology. The selected event date considering the FTT announcement was found significant for core EMU's equity portfolio and periphery EMU's bond portfolio. Moreover, under GARCH models, we found that the announcement effect of FTT increases the volatility of both core EMU's equity portfolio as well as periphery EMU's bond portfolio.     

Financial contagion and the real economy

This paper studies the spread of the Global Financial Crisis of 2007–2009 from the financial sector to the real economy by examining ten sectors in 25 major developed and emerging stock markets. The analysis tests different channels of financial contagion across countries and sectors and finds that the crisis led to an increased co-movement of returns among financial sector stocks across countries and between financial sector stocks and real economy stocks. The results demonstrate that no country and sector was immune to the adverse effects of the crisis limiting the effectiveness of portfolio diversification. However, there is clear evidence that some sectors in particular Healthcare, Telecommunications and Technology were less severely affected by the crisis.     

金融危机对拉美国家私营养老金的影响及经验启示

2008年爆发的金融危机对全球经济产生了重要影响,也对拉美国家私营养老金制度的发展产生了巨大冲击。文章介绍了拉美国家私营养老金制度的改革路径和养老基金概况,从养老金资产价值、投资收益率、投资组合、雇员、制度覆盖面和缴费密度方面切入,分析了金融危机对拉美私营养老金制度的影响。在现状分析的基础上,得出了要保障私营养老金制度可持续运行的一些经验启示:构建多元化的混合型养老金体系,增强退休和养老金支付的灵活性,积极运用生命周期投资策略,实施多元化和分散化投资,以养老金长期收益作为投资目标,建立社会风险应急储备基金和政府担保机制,以及加强员工退休教育。     

Thresholds in the process of international financial integration

The financial crisis has re-ignited the fierce debate about the merits of financial globalization and its implications for growth, especially for developing countries. The empirical literature has not been able to conclusively establish the presumed growth benefits of financial integration. Indeed, a new literature proposes that the indirect benefits of financial integration may be more important than the traditional financing channel emphasized in previous analyses. A major complication, however, is that there seem to be certain “threshold” levels of financial and institutional development that an economy needs to attain before it can derive the indirect benefits and reduce the risks of financial openness. In this paper, we develop a unified empirical framework for characterizing such threshold conditions. We find that there are clearly identifiable thresholds in variables such as financial depth and institutional quality—the cost-benefit trade-off from financial openness improves significantly once these threshold conditions are satisfied. We also find that the thresholds are lower for foreign direct investment and portfolio equity liabilities compared to those for debt liabilities.     

Is There a Replication Crisis in Finance?

Several papers argue that financial economics faces a replication crisis because the majority of studies cannot be replicated or are the result of multiple testing of too many factors. We develop and estimate a Bayesian model of factor replication that leads to different conclusions. The majority of asset pricing factors (i) can be replicated; (ii) can be clustered into 13 themes, the majority of which are significant parts of the tangency portfolio; (iii) work out-of-sample in a new large data set covering 93 countries; and (iv) have evidence that is strengthened (not weakened) by the large number of observed factors.     

Determinants of time varying co-movements among international stock markets during crisis and non-crisis periods

In this paper, we use the DCC MIDAS approach to assess the validity of the wake-up call hypothesis for developed and emerging markets during the global financial crisis (GFC). We use this approach to decompose the total correlations into short- (daily) and long-run (quarterly) correlations for the period from 1999 to 2011. We then examine the transmission mechanisms by regressing the quarterly economic, financial, and behavioral variables on the quarterly DCC–MIDAS correlations. We find that country specific factors are crisis contingent transmission mechanisms for the co-movements of emerging country pairs and mixed pairs of advanced and emerging countries during the global financial crisis. However, we do not observe wake-up calls in the transmission of the crisis among advanced country pairs. The classification of the transmission mechanisms for crisis and non-crisis periods with the different country pairs has important implications for crisis management as well as for portfolio investment strategies. Thus, our findings contribute to the discussion on the role and effectiveness of the international financial architecture.     

Does economic policy uncertainty affect cross-border M&As? —— A data analysis based on Chinese multinational enterprises

This paper analyzes the impact of economic policy uncertainty (EPU) of home and host countries on cross-border mergers and acquisitions (M&As) using EPU indexes and the amount and quantity of China's cross-border M&As in 21 countries from 2001 to 2017. First, we find that uncertainty in the economic policy of the home country drives cross-border M&As, uncertainty in the host country's economic policy significantly inhibits cross-border M&As, and when the economy is in a pro-cyclical period, alleviates the influence of the host country's economic policy uncertainty on M&As. Second, the impact of the host country's economic policy uncertainty on cross-border M&As differs before and after the financial crisis. The host country's economic policy uncertainty is positively correlated with cross-border M&As before the crisis and significantly negatively correlated with it after the crisis. Third, the impact of economic policy uncertainty in the home and host countries on cross-border M&as is significant in developed countries but not significant in developing countries finally, differences in bilateral uncertainty and bilateral market growth are significantly positively correlated with the scale of M&A     

Transmission of the financial and sovereign debt crises to the EMU: Stock prices,CDS spreads and exchange rates

This paper tests for the transmission of the 2007–2010 financial and sovereign debt crises to fifteen EMU countries. We use daily data from 2003 to 2010 on country financial and non-financial stock market indexes to analyze the stock market returns for three country groups within EMU: North, South and Small. The following results hold for both the North and South European countries, while the smallest countries seem to be relatively isolated from international events. First, we find strong evidence of crisis transmission to European non-financials from US non-financials, but not for financials. Second, in order to test how the sovereign debt crisis affects stock market developments we split the crisis in pre- and post-Lehman sub periods. Results show that financials become significantly more dependent on changes in the difference between the Greek and German CDS spreads after Lehman’s collapse, compared to the pre-Lehman sub period. However, this increase is much smaller for non-financials. Third, before the crisis euro appreciations coincide with European stock market decreases, whereas this relationship reverses during the crisis. Finally, this reversal seems to be triggered by Lehman’s collapse.     

On cross-border bank credit and the U.S. financial crisis transmission to equity markets

This paper examines the role played by cross-border equity, bond and bank credit flows versus international trade in the transmission of the U.S. financial crisis to equity markets worldwide. We estimate vector autoregressive models with exogenous global factors using monthly data on 36 emerging and developed countries. The results from an eclectic methodology that includes causality tests, generalized impulse responses and forecast error variance decompositions indicate that the crisis is mostly transmitted through bank credit rather than portfolio flows and international trade. The results are robust to altering the exogenous versus endogenous vectors of variables, to measuring equity prices in U.S. dollars or local currency, to averaging the data across countries versus averaging the parameters from individual country estimation, and to redefining the start date of the crisis. The findings endorse the use of banking regulation and capital controls as part of the policy toolkit to limit financial vulnerability.     

Exchange market pressure in OECD and emerging economies: Domestic vs. external factors and capital flows in the old and new normal

We study the ways domestic and external global factors (such as risk appetite, global liquidity, U.S. monetary policy, and commodity prices) affected the exchange market pressure before and after the global financial crisis, as well as the role of these factors during the Federal Reserve's tapering episode. Utilizing a comprehensive database on capital controls, we investigate whether control measures have a significant impact on mitigating exchange market pressure associated with capital flows [net and gross]. Using quarterly data over the 2000–2014 period and a dynamic panel model estimation, we find that external factors played a significant role in driving exchange market pressure for both OECD countries and emerging market countries, with a larger impact on the latter. While the effect of net capital flows on exchange market pressure is muted, short-term gross portfolio inflows and outflows comprise important factors that account for exchange market pressure. Short-term portfolio flows and long-term foreign direct investment flows have a significant impact on exchange market pressure for emerging market economies and no significant effect for OECD countries. Capital controls seem to significantly reduce the exchange market pressure, although the economic size of this impact is highly dependent on the institutional quality.     

Characteristic-based mean-variance portfolio choice

We study empirical mean-variance optimization when the portfolio weights are restricted to be direct functions of underlying stock characteristics such as value and momentum. The closed-form solution to the portfolio weights estimator shows that the portfolio problem in this case reduces to a mean-variance analysis of assets with returns given by single-characteristic strategies (e.g., momentum or value). In an empirical application to international stock return indexes, we show that the direct approach to estimating portfolio weights clearly beats a naive regression-based approach that models the conditional mean. However, a portfolio based on equal weights of the single-characteristic strategies performs about as well, and sometimes better, than the direct estimation approach, highlighting again the difficulties in beating the equal-weighted case in mean-variance analysis. The empirical results also highlight the potential for ‘stock-picking’ in international indexes using characteristics such as value and momentum with the characteristic-based portfolios obtaining Sharpe ratios approximately three times larger than the world market.     

IPO or SBO?: The Increasing Importance of Operational Performance for Private Equity Exits Following the Global Financial Crisis of 2007–08

The authors report the findings of their recent study of the role of portfolio company operating performance in determining the choice of exit options by private equity firms between initial public offerings (IPOs) and secondary buyouts (SBOs), and how that role may have changed since the Global Financial Crisis of 2007–2008. Virtually all studies of PE exits in all countries have found that portfolio companies that exit through IPOs tend to be larger and have higher operating returns than companies that exit through SBOs or sales to other companies. After examining the exits of PE portfolio companies based in Denmark and Sweden during the period 2003–2013, the authors report that, although general market conditions continue to be a major factor, operating performance and size have become even more important requirements for IPO exits since the crisis. And thus PE firms that fail to make operating improvements in their portfolio companies are likely to find their exit options limited.     

全球金融周期与跨境资本流动

本文从全球42个主要的股票市场指数提取全球股票市场因子,作为全球金融周期的代理变量,考察全球金融周期对跨境资本总流入的影响。结果发现:(1)当全球股票市场因子(全球风险规避和不确定性)上升时,跨境资本流入显著下降;(2)一国处于经济繁荣时期,经济增速和利率处于相对较高水平,全球金融周期对资本流入的影响会减弱;(3)一国资本账户开放程度或金融发展水平越高,全球金融周期对资本流入的影响会越强;(4)更具弹性的汇率制度尽管不能完全隔绝全球金融周期的影响,但相比固定汇率制度,可提高一国抵御全球金融周期冲击的能力;(5)美国货币政策冲击是全球金融周期的重要驱动因素,并通过全球金融周期影响跨境资本流动。本文的政策含义在于,一国应夯实经济基本面、采取富有弹性的汇率制度和适当的资本管制措施,以缓解全球金融周期给资本流动带来的冲击。     

A nineties perspective on international diversification

Investors often look to international diversification as a means to reduce the risk of a stock portfolio while maintaining a given level of return. In this study we look at ten years of historical data from the stock markets in the G-7 countries. We see how diversification from an S & P 500 portfolio into a two-market (two-country) portfolio would have impacted the risk and return. Across this ten-year period, we find that a portfolio consisting solely of the S & P 500 dominates any portfolio that can be constructed from the S & P 500 and the major market index of the G-7 countries.     

The characteristics of infrastructure as an investment class

There is an enormous need for infrastructure investment. Although institutional savings has shown strong growth in the OECD countries since the mid-2000s, only a small proportion of institutional assets is allocated to infrastructure. Relatively little is known about the characteristics and risk–return profiles of infrastructure assets, making institutional investors reluctant to step up investing in this type of asset. There is a wide heterogeneity in risk–return characteristics across sectors, regions, and stage of development, creating an uncertainty that explains why the flow of funds from institutional investors toward infrastructure does not reach its full potential. However, infrastructure provides significant diversification benefits that justify increased investment. Moreover, the financial crisis led to a growing interest in infrastructure as a tool for portfolio diversification among various asset classes. The goal of this paper is to review the characteristics of infrastructure as an investment class. The paper will be useful for academics looking for topics of research in the field, and will be of practical use to institutional investors considering infrastructure investment opportunities.