International capital flows,returns and world financial integration

International capital flows have increased dramatically since the 1980s, with much of the increase being due to trade in equity and bond markets. Such developments are often attributed to the increased integration of world financial markets. We present a model that allows us to examine how greater integration in world financial markets affects the behavior of international capital flows and financial returns. Our model predicts that international capital flows are large (in absolute value) and very volatile during the early stages of financial integration when international asset trading is concentrated in bonds. As integration progresses and households gain access to world equity markets, the size and volatility of international bond flows decline. This is the natural outcome of greater risk sharing facilitated by increased integration. This pattern is consistent with declining volatility observed during 1975–2007 period in the G-7 countries. We also find that the equilibrium flows in bonds and stocks predicted by the model are larger than their empirical counterparts, and are largely driven by variations in equity risk premia. The model also predicts that volatility of equity and bond returns decline with integration, again consistent with the data for G-7 economies.     

Volatility Spillovers and the Risk-Return Relation Between Stock and Foreign Exchange Markets in Brazil

We examine the evidence of mean and volatility spillovers between stock and foreign exchange markets in Brazil with multivariate GARCH models and nonlinear Granger causality tests. We also use a multivariate GARCH-in-mean model to assess the relationship between risk and return in these markets. The results indicate that the stock market leads the foreign exchange market in price formation and that nonlinear Granger causalities from the exchange market to the stock market do occur. Part of these nonlinear causalities are explained by volatility spillovers. We show that exchange rate volatility affects not only stock market volatility but also stock returns.     

Emerging Securities Exchanges in Africa

ABSTRACT

African securities markets have not received the academic attention of those in Latin America and Southeast Asia. Historically, capital markets have not played a significant role in financing the development of the African economy. Today, however, African governments are focusing on the importance of moving toward more market-oriented economies and developing the financial market infrastructure to mobilize funds from both the private and public sectors. This paper describes the institutional characteristics of a newly revitalized stock exchange in Nairobi, Kenya. The study concludes that historical and cultural factors play a significant role in the characteristics of the Nairobi Stock Exchange.     

The impact of global factors on stock market movements in emerging market economies

Global factors are becoming increasingly important as a cause of international capital fl ows. It is nearly impossible for some countries to protect themselves from outside infl uences on their fi nancial markets. This paper investigates the extent to which various global factors such as stock market volatility, international liquidity and global interest rate levels impact on the effective fi nancial market exchange rates of selected emerging market economies. These results are compared with effects on the fi nancial market exchange rates of the United States, the United Kingdom and Germany.     

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.     

股市收益和波动性长期记忆的国际比较——基于V/S的经验证据

现有研究运用经典和修正R/S分析探讨我国股票市场的长期记忆效应。本文运用更为稳健的V/S分析,对比研究上证股市和另外7个国家和地区的股票市场,分别诊断各股市日收益和周收益、及三种典型度量的收益波动的长期记忆效应。研究表明:股市日收益和周收益序列都不存在显著的长期记忆;三种典型度量的收益波动普遍存在显著的长期记忆;日收益波动比周收益波动的长期记忆更显著。     

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).     

The nature and determinants of comovement between developed,emerging and frontier equity markets: Europe versus Asia‐Pacific

International investors are increasingly attracted towards emerging and frontier markets because of their potential to enhance diversification benefits of a global portfolio. This calls for a rigorous analysis of the nature and determinants of stock market comovement between developed, emerging, and frontier markets in Europe and Asia‐Pacific regions. The findings suggest that unlike their Asia‐Pacific counterparts, European developed, emerging, and frontier stock markets display a higher degree of comovement. Although Asia‐Pacific frontier markets provide good diversification opportunities, investors must be cautioned against their weak financial system. The volatility of returns, gross domestic product growth rate, and the 2008 global financial crisis (GFC) are the key determinants of stock market comovement in Europe. The mechanisms by which comovement in the Asia‐Pacific region is strengthened differ across markets. Comparative analysis of comovement and its determinants across different classes of equity markets and geographies is expected to provide valuable perspectives to global investors, portfolio managers, and policymakers.     

The impact of the US stock market opening on price discovery of government bond futures

We examine price discovery in sequential markets for the 10-year US Treasury note, German bund, and UK gilt futures over the period 2010–2017. We find that price discovery increases after the opening of the US stock market. Order flows in the bond futures markets are more informative for permanent price changes in the 30-min period after the US stock market opens. A placebo test using US statutory holidays confirms our findings. A cross-market analysis suggests that the increased price discovery in the bond futures is related to returns and net order flows of the US stock market.     

Stock Price Response to Earnings Announcements: Evidence From the Nigerian Stock Market

The author examines the stock market reaction to annual earnings information releases using data for a sample of firms on the Nigerian Stock Exchange. Using the event study method, the author found that the magnitude of the cumulative abnormal returns is dominated by significant reactions 20 days before the earnings release date, which suggests that a portion of the market reaction may be due to private acquisition and, possibly, abuse of information by insiders. The persistent downward drift of the cumulative abnormal returns, 20 days after the announcement, is inconsistent with the efficient markets hypothesis.     

Weak-Form Market Efficiency of the Nigerian Stock Market in the Context of Financial Reforms and Global Financial Crises

The weak-form efficient market hypothesis for the Nigerian Stock Market (NSM) is explored using different statistical tests. The analyses use overall stock market returns collected over the period 2000–2010. It is shown that the NSM is not weak-form efficient which questions the benefits of the 2004 financial reforms. It is also shown that the degree of market inefficiency varies across the periods corresponding to the financial reforms and 2007 global financial crisis, for daily and monthly returns. The results are important to security analysts, investors, and security exchange regulatory agencies in their investment, stock market development, and policy-making decisions.     

Financial liberalisation: from segmented to integrated economies

Capital market liberalisation transforms segmented stock markets into integrated ones. Further impact should be expected on the dynamics of the rest of the domestic economy. This study presents evidence to that effect. A significant change after liberalisation is the emergence of world returns as an influential factor on other economic fundamentals. The information content of world returns influences emerging market returns prior to capital market liberalisation and this relation continues after capital market liberalisation. What is new after liberalisation is the influence of world returns on the dynamics of the domestic economy as a whole and its relation to stock returns.     

Emerging Equity Market Volatility

Abstract

This paper considers two emerging markets that are under-researched, Kenya and Nigeria. It offers a comprehensive view of four time properties that emerged from the empirical time series literature on asset returns: (1) the predictability of returns from past observations; (2) the auto-regressive behavior of conditional volatility; (3) the asymmetric response of conditional volatility to innovations; and (4) the conditional variance risk premium. Results of the exponential GARCH (EGARCH) model indicate that asymmetric volatility found in the U.S. and other developed markets also characterized the Nigerian stock exchange. In Kenya, however, the asymmetric volatility coefficient is significant and positive, suggesting that positive shocks increase volatility more than negative shocks of an equal magnitude. The Nairobi Stock Exchange (KSE) returns series report negative but insignificant risk-premium parameters. In Nigeria (NSE), return series exhibit a significant and positive time-varying risk premium. The results also show that expected returns are predictable, that the auto-regressive return parameters (? ₁ ) are significant in both Kenya and Nigeria. Finally, the GARCH parameter (b) is statistically significant, indicating that volatility persistence is present in the two emerging markets studied.     

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).     

How Have the Emerging Stock Exchanges in Africa Responded to Market Reforms?

Abstract

In this paper, we focus on how the stock markets in Africa have responded to the reform process. We identify three main types of reforms implemented in these markets since the 1990s, namely revitalization of the regulatory framework, modernization of trading systems, and relaxation of restrictions on foreign investors. We invoke market microstructure theory to hypothesize the expected response of the markets in terms of efficiency and volatility to the three types of reforms. Econometric methods are applied to test the hypotheses on a sample of ten stock exchanges, for the period 1988:01-1999:12. The evidence generally suggests that there are benefits of investments to improve market microstructure. For example, a comparative analysis across the sample demonstrates that markets with advanced trading technology, tight regulatory system and relaxed foreign investors' participation show greater efficiency and lower market volatility. Although direction of causality between efficiency and volatility varies across the markets, in general, we infer that reforms, which reduce volatility, reap higher efficiency. However, in some markets, the effects of the reforms are too recent to show any clear response pattern.     

International financial markets: Control or liberalization?

Exchange rates, interest rates and share prices are subject—at least occasionally—to great fluctuations. Diverse economists regard the volatility of international financial markets as a threat to the goods and labour markets. They blame the price turbulences on the speculative behaviour of a large section of market participants, and claim that the deregulation and liberalization of the international financial markets in the eighties has therefore already gone too far. Under discussion today are approaches to a re-regulation of the money, capital and foreign exchange markets. These proposals are evaluated in the following paper.     

It Is Time to Reexamine the Role of Stock Markets in Developing Economies

Although the many perceived benefits of a stock market may have led to their rapid formation and development aspirations across economies, emerging findings that stock markets may not be as useful as previously thought, even a detraction in the case of some developing economies, raises the question of how practical stock markets may be in different situations. In light of the foregoing and using Fiji as an example, this study argues that it is indeed time to reexamine the role of stock markets in developing economies with a view to restructuring the financial system for improved efficiency and effectiveness.     

The impact of sovereign wealth funds on global financial markets

If sovereign wealth funds act similarly to private investors and thus allocate foreign assets according to market capitalisation rather than liquidity considerations, official portfolios reduce their “bias” towards the major reserve currencies — the US dollar and the euro. As a result, more capital flows “downhill“ from rich to less wealthy economies. In this scenario, the euro area and the United States would be subject to net capital outflows while Japan and the emerging markets would attract net capital inflows. The potential implications of a rebalancing of international capital flows for stock prices, interest rates and exchange rates remain uncertain, however. The authors wish to thank Marcel Fratzscher for excellents comments. The views expressed in this paper are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Central Bank.     

The interaction between foreigners' trading and emerging stock returns: Evidence from Turkey

Using monthly foreign flows data on Istanbul Stock Exchange (ISE) and employing a structural VAR model, we analyze the interaction between foreigners' trading and emerging stock returns. In contrast to most of the available theory and repeated previous findings on other markets, foreign investors negative-feedback-trade with respect to past local returns in ISE, however only in rising markets and especially under macroeconomic instability. Net foreign flows forecast future market returns, but not individual stock returns. Price impacts are permanent, suggesting that foreigners' trading incorporates information. Overall, results reject previous conclusions that foreigners are uninformed positive feedback traders: rather, they are a heterogeneous group dominated by sophisticated investors able to rationally adjust their trading style in line with the market's prevailing characteristics.     

Foreign Exchange Intervention in Emerging Markets: A Survey of Empirical Studies

Nowadays foreign exchange interventions occur in emerging market economies, whereas empirical studies on interventions mainly refer to advanced economies. However, interventions in emerging markets are different from those in advanced economies: they occur ‘regularly’ and central banks have considerable leverage, derived from relatively high reserves, some non‐sterilisation, the central bank’s information advantage and capital controls. Consequently, these interventions often successfully impact the level and volatility of exchange rates. Nevertheless, more research on interventions in emerging markets is needed analysing the influence of heterogeneous institutional circumstances, examining the role of central bank communication and using high‐frequency data.