The pricing of foreign exchange risk around the Asian financial crisis: evidence from Taiwan's stock market

The volatile exchange rate movement during the Asian financial crisis has led global investors to re-evaluate the importance of currency exposures in Asian stock markets. In this paper, we examine industry-level currency risk of Taiwan's stock market around the Asian financial crisis. The results show that most export-oriented industries, except for the electronics industry, are positively affected by the depreciation of the New Taiwan Dollars (NTD) against the US Dollars (USD). We also find that the magnitude of currency risk is less for banking and electronics industries in the Taiwan Stock Exchange (TSE) than for those in the over-the-counter (OTC) security exchange. Our results are consistent with the findings of Chow et al. (J. Financial Res. 2 (1997b) 191) and have important implications for international investors with exposures in Taiwan's stock market.     

Are Open Markets Good for Foreign Investors and Emerging Nations?

Although policymakers of emerging nations routinely brand foreign capital as "hot money" and hold it responsible for the ills of their economies, this article suggests that the experience of opening up their markets to overseas investors has been largely beneficial for the host countries. Based on their own recent study, the authors report that when emerging economies open their markets, the level of stock prices tends to rise without an associated increase in volatility, and more capital becomes available for domestic investment at a lower cost. The stock markets also appear to become more efficient, thus resulting in a better allocation of resources. Furthermore, the inflow of foreign capital does not lead to higher inflation or stronger currencies, nor does the volatility of inflation or exchange rates increase. If some countries experience large capital outflows with damaging consequences, the culprit is not foreign investors, but rather policymakers' futile attempt to defy market forces and the failure of their economies to put the capital to productive uses.
The authors' analysis also suggests that, when the recent turmoil in emerging markets is set in the context of a longer-run historical perspective, nothing appears to have changed that would materially alter the prospects for investing in emerging markets. The recent market volatility and currency crises in emerging nations are by no means extraordinary—indeed, the currencies of many developing countries fall routinely. What distinguishes the Mexican and Thai currency crises from such run-of-the-mill devaluations is that both governments resisted the inevitable until market forces brought about a crash. The recent emerging market currency crises should accordingly be viewed as more or less predictable "road bumps" that can be expected when the policymakers of emerging economies gradually—and grudgingly—relinquish their power to the markets.     

GOLBALIZATION, CORPORATE FINANCE, AND THE COST OF CAPITAL

International financial markets are progressively becoming one huge, integrated, global capital market—a development that is contributing to higher stock prices in developed as well as developing economies. For companies that are large and visible enough to attract global investors, having a global shareholder base means having a lower cost of capital and hence a greater equity value for two main reasons: First, because the risks of equity are shared among more investors with different portfolio exposures and hence a different “appetite” for bearing certain risks, equity market risk premiums should fall for all companies in countries with access to global markets. Although the largest reductions in cost of capital resulting from globalization will be experienced by companies in liberalizing economies that are gaining access to the global markets for the first time, risk premiums can also be expected to fall for firms in long-integrated markets as well. Second, when firms in countries with less-developed capital markets raise capital in the public markets of countries (like the U.S.) with highly developed markets, they get more than lower-cost capital; they also import at least aspects of the corporate governance systems that prevail in those markets. For companies accustomed to less-developed markets, raising capital overseas is likely to mean that more sophisticated investors, armed with more advanced technologies, will participate in monitoring their performance and management. And, in a virtuous cycle, more effective monitoring increases investor confidence in the future performance of those companies and so improves the terms on which they raise capital. Besides reducing market risk premiums and improving corporate governance, globalization also affects the systematic risk, or “beta,” of individual companies. In global markets, the beta of a firm's equity depends on how the stock contributes to the volatility not of the home market portfolio, but of the world market portfolio. For companies with access to global capital markets whose profitability is tied more closely to the local than to the global economy, use of the traditional Capital Asset Pricing Model (CAPM) will overstate the cost of capital because risks that are not diversifiable within a national economy can be diversified by holding a global portfolio. Thus, to reflect the new reality of a globally determined cost of capital, all companies with access to global markets should consider using a global CAPM that views a company as part of the global portfolio of stocks. In making this argument, the article reviews the growing body of academic studies that provide evidence of the predictive power of the global CAPM as well as the reduction in world risk premiums.     

Financial crises and emerging stock markets volatility: do internal factors matter?

This paper has two central aims. The first one is to deal empirically with the effects of financial crises on emerging stock markets volatility. The second objective consists in testing if the level of stock market development affects this relationship. For this purpose, we estimate a static panel data model for a sample of nine emerging economies from January 1990 to December 2006. We consider three types of financial crises, i.e. banking, currency and twin crises. Our empirical results suggest that the onset of financial crises strongly increased stock market volatility. In addition, we find that the biggest impact is exerted by twin crises. When dealing with the second objective, our results show that the market size and the liquidity level can attenuate the effects of banking and currency crises, but not the one associated to twin crises. Nevertheless, the degree of stock market integration seems to reduce the effects of banking, currency and twin crises on stock market volatility.     

Foreign institutional ownership and corporate cash holdings: Evidence from emerging economies

With the increased presence of foreign institutional investors in emerging stock markets, academic interest on the effects of foreign institutions on corporate managerial decisions has notably increased. This paper joins this debate by investigating the effects of foreign institutional ownership on cash holdings, a strategic corporate financing choice. Analysing a sample of firms from 23 emerging economies, the paper shows that, while foreign institutional ownership has a negative effect on cash holdings, it also increases the contribution of cash to firm valuation. These effects are potentially transmitted to cash through mitigation of agency conflicts and alleviation of financing constraints. In all, our findings suggest beneficial effects of foreign institutions on firms' financing structure, as foreign investors contribute to a more efficient and value-enhancing cash policy.     

The Financial and Economic Lessons of Italy's Privatization Program

Since 1994 the Italian government has sold equity stakes in some 75 large state enterprises, in the process raising over $125 billion‐more than any other country during the same period. In this article, a U.S. academic collaborates with the Italian government's Director of Privatization in summarizing the accomplishments and disappointments of Italy's privatization program, assessing its impact on Italian capital markets, and offering lessons for other countries embarking on new privatization programs. The article also describes the share issuance methods used by the government to execute several massive offerings, including the largest IPO in history. The principal benefits of Italian privatization have been dramatic increases in the size and efficiency of Italy's stock markets and in the safety and stability of its banking system. Despite such improvements, however, privatization has failed to bring about the increased competition in key industries and lower prices for consumers its planners originally envisioned. And based on this experience, the authors offer a number of lessons for government planners. Perhaps most important, privatization is likely to yield decisive benefits only if the divestment program is properly designed and sequenced. Governments should begin by privatizing state‐owned banks and other financial institutions, and as quickly as economically and politically feasible. Especially in less developed economies, commercial banks are for many companies both the only suppliers of credit and the only effective source of market discipline‐which explains why results have often been disastrous when governments have retained control of banks while privatizing other industries. Privatizing governments should also emphasize privatizations accomplished through share issuances rather than asset sales, with the aim of developing liquid and efficient stock markets and promoting effective corporate governance.     

Tracking Stock or Spin‐Off? Determinants of Choice

I examine the roles of valuable internal capital markets, cross-subsidization, and insider ownership as determinants of choice between tracking stock and spin-offs in corporate equity restructuring. I show that conglomerates are more likely to choose tracking stock if they want to obtain some of the benefits offered by a spin-off, without loosing the potential for valuable internal capital markets. My results suggest that the market rewards firms with valuable internal capital markets that opt for tracking stocks, and penalizes the possibility of consolidated tax treatments. The market also reacts more favorably to unanticipated tracking-stock announcements.     

What drives the systemic banking crises in advanced economies?

This paper examines the drivers of post-war “systemic” banking crises in advanced economies. Using binary response models and a balanced panel of data, we show that persistently large departures from the long-run trend in housing and stock markets best predict the crises. Similar deviations in credit markets do not add to the explanatory power of the model that combines housing and stock market dynamics. Indicators capturing financial market risk perception also have high explanatory power. These findings indicate that extrapolative forecasts and neglect of tail risk drive asset market boom-bust cycles and systemic banking crises. Cycles in credit markets are driven by cycles in real-estate and stock markets before the crises. Additionally, capital inflow bonanzas fuel the stock and credit booms that spark systemic crises.     

Crisis and Creative Destruction: Cases of Korean and Japanese Stock Markets

In this essay, we investigate the contrasting performance of Korean and Japanese stock markets before and after the East Asian currency crisis. The Korean stock markets showed a sharper decline and a faster recovery than the Japanese stock markets. First, we theoretically explain these contrasting movements of stock markets by explicitly modeling and adding some new elements to the idea of IT revolution in Greenwood and Jovanovic (Amer. Econom. Rev. 89, 1999, 116–122). Then we empirically prove that the theoretical model in this paper has some quantitative support by considering the level of monthly stock market capitalization and the return on daily stock index in Korea and Japan.JEL Classification Code: F43     

Was Deng Xiaoping Right? An Overview of China's Equity Markets

In the western world, stock markets arose from the search by privately owned companies for capital to build their businesses. Over time, the markets became places where ownership interests and even entire companies were bought and sold. In China, the complete opposite has happened. The markets arose out of the need for capital by bankrupt state‐owned enterprises operating in an economy with no history of private property. Deng Xiaoping, China's last emperor, gave the green light for the stock market experiment in early 1992 more with the hope of encouraging reform and efficiency than from any conviction that stock markets were the next sure thing. Now, after more than 20 years of experimentation with domestic and international listings, it appears evident that stock markets whose primary function is to trade minority interests in government‐controlled companies have not achieved the goal of improving enterprise performance, as China's leaders originally hoped. Instead, the combination of state monopolies with Wall Street expertise and international capital has led to the creation of national companies that represent little more than the incorporation of China's old Soviet‐style industrial ministries. As for the markets, the government's determination to prevent real privatization has produced separate classes of shares that are defined almost entirely by one thing: the shareholder's relationship to the government. And with all aspects of stock market activity regulated, managed, and owned by various state agencies, it is not surprising that non‐state investors have become motivated more by speculative opportunities than by investment fundamentals. But a quarter of a century is a short time in any country's development and, for all their shortcomings, the markets in mainland China and Hong Kong have played a significant role raising capital for China. It may be too early, perhaps, to suggest that China's equity markets have failed to accomplish what they were intended to do.     

The Asian financial crisis: The role of derivative securities trading and foreign investors in Korea

This paper is part of a larger research program pertaining to the role of derivatives during financial crisis and also part of the research pertaining to the causes of the Asian financial crisis. The Korean market is studied because of two reasons: (1) it is an important example of the Asian financial meltdown and (2) there is a detailed data set available of all transactions by different types of protagonists, including foreign investors. The results in this paper indicate that futures markets and trading by foreign investors played a key role during the Korean stock market turbulence in 1997.     

THE ROLE OF ACCOUNTING INFORMATION IN STOCK MARKET LIBERALIZATION: EVIDENCE FROM KOREA

Stock market liberalization is a decision by a country’s government to allow foreigners to buy securities in that country’s capital market. This study examines how the liberalization of the Korean stock market affected stock price behavior and changed the role of accounting information for investment decisions. The Korean stock market opened its door to foreign investment in 1991. Prior to this, market inefficiencies, such as the superfluous co-movement of stock prices with industry or market indices or investment based on rumor and speculation, were widespread. Since the opening of the stock market to foreigners, a more rational pricing behavior has emerged. This setting provides a unique opportunity to investigate how stock price behavior has changed with market liberalization and what was the role of accounting information in this process. Our results indicate that the co-movement behavior of stock prices by industry decreased and stock price differentiation based on individual firm characteristics increased after market liberalization. The results also show that the explanatory power of accounting numbers increased after market liberalization. Overall, the results imply that foreign investors contributed to the improvement of market efficiency with the opening up of capital markets in Korea. We believe that our results provide useful evidence to other capital markets that are in a similar situation.     

Stock markets,credit markets,and technology-led growth

The high-tech sector accounts for the majority of corporate innovation in modern economies. In a sample of 38 countries, we document a strong positive relation between the initial size of the country's high-tech sector and subsequent rates of GDP and total factor productivity growth. We also find a strong positive connection between a country's equity (but not credit) market development and the size of its high-tech sector. Our main difference-in-differences estimates show that better developed stock markets support faster growth of innovative-intensive, high-tech industries. The main channels for this effect are higher rates of productivity and faster growth in the number of new high-tech firms. Credit market development fosters growth in industries that rely on external finance for physical capital accumulation but is unimportant for growth in innovation-intensive industries. These findings show that stock markets and credit markets play important but distinct roles in supporting economic growth. Stock markets are uniquely suited for financing technology-led growth, a particularly important concern for advanced economies.     

Evidence of herding and positive feedback trading for mutual funds in emerging Asian countries

When analysing the behavior of investors, the emphasis is usually on positive feedback and herding behavior, and the existing literature abounds with studies on the domestic strategy of mutual funds or on their impact. Due to the advantages in terms of the data, many studies investigate US data. However, with the increased flows of capital into emerging markets, studying the behavior of international mutual funds in emerging markets has become more and more important. Nevertheless, studies involving emerging markets are relatively rare. This study examines whether the positive feedback effect and herding behavior exist in Asian markets based on mutual fund data covering the period from 1996 to 2004. The long period enables us to test the sensitivities under the following four conditions, namely the capital volatility (volatile vs. stable), the degree of suffering during the Asian crisis (more suffering vs. less suffering), and the timing of the Asian crisis (pre-, during, and post-crisis), using the exchange rate regime. It was found in this study that mutual fund inflows into the Asian market were attracted by positive stock returns and currency appreciation. Furthermore, it was found that the positive feedback effect and herding behavior did exist in the Asian markets. However, the extent of the above behavior is not the same under different conditions.     

US and Domestic Market Gains and Asian Investors’ Overconfident Trading Behavior

We find that subsequent to both US and domestic market gains, both Asian individual and institutional investors increase their trading and that this effect is more pronounced in bull markets, in periods of relatively favorable investor sentiment, in periods of extremely high market returns, and in markets with short‐sale constraints. We also find that individual investors trade more in response to market gains than institutional investors. Moreover, we find that further integration of Asian stock markets with US stock markets after the Asian financial crisis in 1998 is an important reason for Asian investors’ response to US market gains.     

A Look Back at Merton Miller's “Financial Markets and Economic Growth”

The author begins by agreeing with Miller's characterization of the fragility of U.S. banks and of the shortcomings of the Asian model of bank finance‐driven growth. The article also expresses “emphatic agreement” with Miller's arguments that the protection of banks through deposit insurance, regulatory forbearance, and other forms of “bailout” have created costly moral‐hazard problems that encourage excessive risk‐taking. And the author endorses, at least in principle, Miller's main argument that the development of capital markets that do not require the direct involvement of banks should make economies if not less prone to financial crises, then at least more resilient in recovering from them. But having acknowledged the limitations of bank‐centered systems and the value of developing non‐bank alternatives for savers and corporate borrowers, the author goes on to point to the surprising durability of some banking systems outside the U.S.—notably Canada's, which has not experienced major problems since the 1830s. And even more important, the author views banks and capital markets not as “substitutes” for one another, but as mutually dependent “complements” whose interdependencies and interactions must be recognized by market participants and regulators alike.     

股票流动性与中国企业创新策略:流水不腐还是洪水猛兽？

中国情境下股票流动性对企业创新的影响是激励机制还是压力机制占主导地位？本文基于上市公司分类专利的申请、授权、终止数据研究发现:一方面,股票流动性使企业发明专利申请显著增加,但能通过实质审查的授权增长极少,说明申请质量明显下滑;另一方面,股票流动性使创新含量较低的实用新型与外观设计授权显著增加,且这些专利拖累了企业盈利表现,法律效力提前终止的数量也明显更多,揭示企业实际上是以“策略性创新”来应对资本市场压力,加剧了“专利泡沫”问题。分样本检验发现,“重数量轻质量”的创新策略集中体现于民营、传统行业及长期机构投资者持股较少的企业。稳健性检验替换关键指标构造和模型估计方法、构造工具变量克服潜在内生性问题,前述结论仍然成立。本文启示,金融制度设计应防范资本市场压力对企业创新的“意外伤害”,更好地实现“以金融助实体、以改革促发展”的目标。     

Market integration and currency risk in Asian emerging markets

Most of the Asian emerging stock markets started to liberalize their markets in 1990s. In this paper, I examine whether those markets have become integrated with world stock market since the 1990s by estimating and testing a dynamic version of international CAPM (ICAPM) in the absence of purchasing power parity (PPP) using a parsimonious multivariate GARCH-in-Mean (MGARCH-M) approach. I also investigate to what extent the liberalization process has affected the cost of capital and price volatility for each market. The empirical results show that Philippines was segmented from the world stock market before its liberalization date, but no evidence of market segmentation is found for the other five markets (India, Korea, Malaysia, Taiwan, and Thailand) before their liberalization dates. However, all six markets have become integrated after opening up their markets to foreign investors. In addition, the estimated risk premia are lower after the liberalization, indicating that the liberalization process has reduced the cost of capital for their domestic firms. Moreover, there is no evidence of extra market volatility introduced by capital market liberalization, and on the contrary, the markets have become more stabilized through the liberalization process.     

Regional integration of the East Asian stock markets: An empirical assessment

The aim of this paper is to study the dynamics of regional financial integration in East Asia over the 1990:01–2012:08 period. To this end, we use the international capital asset pricing model (ICAPM) to assess the evolution of financial market integration through time and evaluate their risk premia. We also construct an Asian currency basket in order to obtain a reference currency in this area. Our empirical analysis is based on the multivariate GARCH-DCC approach with time-varying correlations. Our results show that the East Asian stock markets were partially segmented (except for Japan) within their region until approximately 2008. However, the last years are characterized by an upward trend in the regional integration of stock markets. Our findings also show that the risk premium related to regional stock markets is significant for all countries.     

Financial Markets and Economic Growth

The current economic problems in Southeast Asia can be attributed not to too much reliance on financial markets, but to too little . Like the U.S. economy a century ago, the emerging Asian economies do not have welldeveloped capital markets and so remain heavily dependent on their banking systems to finance growth.
For all its benefits, banking is "not only basically 19th-century technology, but disaster-prone technology." The extreme maturity (and, in some cases, currency) mismatch on banks' balance sheets plus the first-come, first-served nature of the deposit obligations mean that banks are inherently vulnerable to massive runs by depositors—and that their economies are subjected to periodic credit crunches. And, as the author says, "in the summer of 1997 a banking-driven disaster struck in East Asia, just as it had struck so many times before in U.S. history."
In this century, In this century, the U.S. economy has steadily reduced its dependence on banks by developing "dispersed and decentralized" financial markets. In so doing, it has increased the efficiency of the U.S. capital allocation process and reduced its susceptibility to the credit crunches that have occurred throughout U.S. history. By contrast, Japan has not reduced its economy's dependence on banks, and its efforts to deal with its banking problems have served only to destabilize itself as well as its neighbors. Developing countries in Southeast Asia and elsewhere are urged not to follow the Japanese example, but to take measures aimed at developing financial markets and institutions that will either substitute for or complement bank products and services.