Volatilities in emerging MENA stock markets

This article examines the interrelationships among the emerging stock markets of the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region, as well as the relationship between each MENA stock market and the larger and more developed markets of Europe and the United States. It explores whether MENA stock markets can offer international investors unique risk/return characteristics to diversify international and regional portfolios. This study adds to the existing literature by focusing—for the first time— on the dynamic relationships in the volatilities of the returns in MENA stock markets. The econometric part of the article uses the causality‐in‐variances GARCH model, the TARCH and ARCH‐M models, and VAR analysis to model conditional volatilities in stock market returns and the dynamic responses of volatilities to innovations in conditional variances. © 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

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.     

Shift‐contagion Vulnerability in the MENA Stock Markets

As part of a broader financial development reform agenda, the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) countries have successfully expanded and revitalised their stock markets over the last decade. Whereas previous contributions have investigated efficiency, international integration and portfolio diversification opportunities, very little is known about these markets’ vulnerability to external financial crises. In this paper, we investigate shift‐contagion to the MENA region using a comprehensive battery of econometric tests for a number of different crises episodes: the 1997 Asian crisis, the 1998 Russian virus and its Brazilian sequel, the 2000 Turkish collapse, the 9/11 turmoil, the 2001 Argentinean crisis, the 2002 Enron/WorldCom scandal and the 2007–09 global financial crisis. We found that Turkey, Israel and Jordan were the most vulnerable markets over the 1997–2009 period, followed by Tunisia, Morocco, Egypt and Lebanon. Our results also highlight heterogeneous but increasing levels of sensitivity to external financial shocks, especially during the recent global financial crisis. From a financial point of view, this suggests that MENA‐based diversification strategies may be relatively inefficient during periods of global turmoil. From an economic point of view, our results suggest that stock market development also involves potential destabilisation costs. This issue should be acknowledged and addressed by policymakers if these countries are to ensure a smooth transition towards international financial integration.     

Global commodity and equity markets spillovers to Africa during the COVID-19 pandemic

This paper examines the connectedness among 12 African equity markets and the global commodity, developed equity markets, paying particular attention to their evolution during the COVID-19 pandemic's peak period. We find that whilst African equity markets connect weakly to these markets, the levels of connectedness among these markets improved significantly during the pandemic. In addition, the energy market dominates the transmission of shocks in the system with commodity markets. Regarding the system with equity markets, the French and South African equity markets transmit the highest spillover in the full sample and during the pandemic's peak period, respectively.     

Global talent management during the COVID-19 pandemic? The Gods must be crazy!

The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has brought terrifying effects for labor markets all around the world. Just as we witness rapid changes in terms of the ways of working (working from home), we are also observing an increase in unemployment. The ways in which major corporations with international operations process their global talent management (GTM) already represents a challenge in relatively stable times and clearly, in a period of such great and sustained turbulence as current experienced, this task becomes still more difficult. Hence, our research aims to study the impact of GTM on the international performance of major companies during the COVID-19 pandemic period. To this end, we surveyed a sample of 59 large companies that act in external markets. Through recourse to multiple linear regressions, we conclude that GTM practices return positive impacts on levels of international performance. Our research returns theoretical implications in terms of the application of integrated GTM models and with the results of significant relevance to corporations operating internationally, and thus enabling them to better understand which strategic human resource management policies will return the best GTM results.     

Financial crises and contagion vulnerability of MENA stock markets

This paper examines contagion vulnerability and the international and regional financial linkages of the MENA stock markets. The degree of vulnerability of those markets to global and regional financial crises will have important bearings on the respective economies' growth rate, and on their ability to diversify international and regional portfolios. Granger causality tests and impulse response functions reveal that while the GCC equity markets still offer international investors portfolio diversification potentials, those markets are relatively less vulnerable to global and regional financial crises. Moreover, even though the remaining MENA stock markets of Egypt, Morocco, and Tunisia have matured and are now financially integrated with the world stock markets, they tend to exhibit more vulnerability to regional and international financial crises. Their vulnerability to international financial crises is due, on the one hand, to weak regional integration, and to greater economic and financial integration with the more advanced economies on the other.     

Spillover Effects among European,the US and Moroccan Stock Markets before and after the Global Financial Crisis

ABSTRACT

This paper assesses return and volatility spillovers among stock markets in Morocco, the US, UK, France and Germany represented respectively by MASI, S&P 500, FTSE 100, CAC 40 and DAX 30 indices, both before and after the global financial crisis (GFC) of 2008. The daily frequency data cover the period from January 2nd, 2002 to June 30th, 2016. Using the Diebold and Yilmaz approach, the results show varying financial connectedness between the Moroccan and the above mentioned developed stock markets. In fact, the significant increase of spillover index during the post-financial crisis period demonstrates that the US and European stock markets were the most affected. On the other hand, despite a relative increase of spillover effects coming from the US and German equity markets, our results show decline in the total net spillovers experienced by the Moroccan market after the recent financial crisis. These findings may provide some useful information to support decision-making and trading strategies for international investors.     

The conditional relationship between beta and returns: recent evidence from international stock markets

The risk–return relationship is one of the fundamental concepts in finance that is most important to investors and portfolio managers. Finance theory argues that the beta or systematic risk is the only relevant risk measure for investors. However, many studies have showed that betas and returns are not related empirically, no matter in domestic markets or in international stock markets. This paper examines the conditional relationship between beta and returns in international stock markets for the period from January 1991 to December 2000. After recognizing the fact that while expected returns are always positive, realized returns could be positive or negative, we find a significant positive relationship between beta and returns in up market periods (positive market excess returns) but a significant negative relationship in down market periods (negative market excess returns). The results are robust for both monthly and weekly returns and for two different proxies of the world market portfolio. Our findings indicate that beta is still a useful risk measure for portfolio managers in making optimal investment decisions.     

The global financial crisis,financial linkages and correlations in returns and volatilities in emerging MENA stock markets

The 2007 United States financial crisis has developed into the most severe worldwide economic crisis since the 1927 Great Depression. In addition to its severe repercussion in North America and the European Union, the crisis has put pressure on emerging markets in general, and the Middle East and North Africa region in particular. For a better understanding of how the crisis affected the MENA region, we focus in this paper on the global and regional financial linkages between MENA stock markets and the more developed financial markets, and on the intra-regional financial linkages between MENA countries' financial markets.     

Tail-event driven NETwork dependence in emerging markets

This paper employs the Tail Event NETwork (TENET) to identify financial markets with greater potential risk, and simultaneously investigate the interdependence between them. We find strong time-varying connectedness across 23 emerging markets during the main crisis episodes, including the most recent COVID-19 pandemic, using data from January 1995 to May 2021. The network analysis revealed that emerging European markets are top risk transmitters, whereas emerging Asian markets are top risk receivers. China showed disconnection from the network, reflecting its diversification potential for investors. Our findings offer several policy and regulatory implications.     

Industry and country factors in emerging market returns: Did the Asian crisis make a difference?

Should investors diversify across emerging stock markets or across industries to achieve improvements in their risk–return tradeoffs especially during financial crisis periods? We examine the issue using individual firm data from a selection of emerging markets and including the period of the 1997 Asian financial crisis. We find that country effects were the dominant force behind the low co-movements among emerging stock market returns. There is evidence of increased industry effects beginning at the time of the Asian financial crisis, but this may have been a temporary phenomenon associated with contagion effects during the crisis.     

Time and frequency connectedness of uncertainties in cryptocurrency,stock, currency,energy, and precious metals markets

This paper examines the connectedness of uncertainty in cryptocurrency, stock, currency, and commodity markets. We use the novel news-based cryptocurrency uncertainty indices of Lucey et al. (2021) and global implied volatility indices as uncertainty proxies for stock, currency, energy, and precious metals markets. We analyze weekly data between January 2014 and May 2021, employing the time and frequency connectedness measures of Diebold and Yilmaz (2012) and Baruník and Křehlík (2018). Our results show a low degree of uncertainty connectedness between cryptocurrency and other markets. The results imply long-term diversification opportunities and highlight the distinct dynamics of the cryptocurrency markets.     

Systemic risk spillovers and the determinants in the stock markets of the Belt and Road countries

We construct time-varying tail risk networks to investigate systemic risk spillovers in the Belt and Road (B&R) stock markets during 2008–2021. Network metrics clearly reflect aggregate risk level and individual risk accumulation for the B&R stock markets under extreme events (e.g., 2008 financial crisis and COVID-19 pandemic). Tail-event driven network quantile regression analysis shows that network impacts of the B&R stock markets under different risk levels are asymmetric and regional heterogeneity. Panel analysis on determinants of systemic risk spillovers shows that cross-border investment and international trade are significant contagion channels while economic freedom is potential driver.     

Military regimes and stock market performance

We examine whether military regimes harm stock market performance by investigating stock returns in ten emerging markets under military and civilian rule. We find no evidence of military regimes having a significantly negative impact on stock returns. In the case of Thailand and Pakistan, we find a significant positive military return premium. These returns cannot be explained by economic cycles, stock market cycles, or returns volatility. Our findings are robust to worldwide stock market movements, tests for spurious regression bias and randomization-bootstrap tests. Our results contradict the common view that military rule has a negative impact on stock market performance.     

Spillovers and connectedness among BRICS stock markets,cryptocurrencies, and uncertainty: Evidence from the quantile vector autoregression network

In this study we advance the understanding of the spillovers and connectedness network among conventional and Islamic BRICS stock markets, cryptos (Bitcoin, Ethereum, Litecoin) and various global uncertainties, using a quantile vector autoregression method and daily data covering the period October 8, 2016, to May 28, 2021. Further, the study uses a network and sensitivity analyses to assess the nexus, examines risk causes, and the transfer paths in these markets under bearish, normal, and bullish markets. The evidence offers major findings. First, the overall static and dynamic connectedness is very high and more intense at extreme events. Second, the network connectedness structure shows that the markets have played both roles: net transmitters and receivers of shocks under several market states. Finally, the sensitivity to quantiles analysis shows switching behavior of net transfer spillovers over the quantiles. This could be beneficial to investors aiming at optimizing hedging strategies. Policymakers should consider carefully the overall network connectedness in the market system and formulate appropriate policies to conceive stock market price sensitivity.     

Exports and governance: Is the Middle East and North Africa region different?

This paper aims to analyse whether better governance rewards economic performance and facilitates the integration of the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region into the world economy. In comparison with other regions in the world economy, MENA countries suffer from important institutional deficiencies, which generate insecurity and difficult international transactions. Despite this fact, the relationship between trade and institutional quality in MENA countries remains unexplored. A gravity model of trade augmented with governance indicators is estimated for the exports of 19 MENA countries, their 189 trading partners and for all exporters in the period from 1996 to 2013. The main results indicate that improvements in five of the six governance indicators increase exports from MENA countries, whereas better governance in destination countries does not affect MENA exports. Instead, each of the six governance indicators used has a positive effect on bilateral trade for the entire sample of exporters (189). Moreover, the effect of country‐pair similarity in governance indicators suggests that a similar level of regulatory quality and rule of law in exporting and importing countries increases exports from MENA countries. Similarities in voice and accountability also foster exports for the average exporter, but not for MENA exporters.     

Clustering in emerging equity markets

We consider pairwise tail behavior of return series for identifying the most important emerging markets clusters. Pairs of markets belonging to the same group present similar type and strength of interdependence during stressful times, represented by a common copula and a statistically equivalent measure of tail dependence. By collapsing data from d markets in to a group we overcome the difficult problem of finding their (higher dimensional) d-variate distribution. Results may help portfolio managers to deal with risk due to co-movements within clusters. We provide examples on how this can be done. Our study contributes to the discussion about the international association among stock markets during turbulent periods, and does not confirm the intuition that the observed association between extremes should be credited to linkages to leading markets. The study also confirms the importance of stock selection, particularly among the non-dominant stocks, instead of holding market-value weighed portfolios of stocks from countries within the same region.     

Dependence between the global gold market and emerging stock markets (E7+1): Evidence from Granger causality using quantile and quantile‐on‐quantile regression methods

This study examined the dependence between gold and stocks during 2002–18 in seven emerging countries. The study combined the bivariate cross‐quantilogram introduced recently with quantile‐on‐quantile regression (QQR) approaches to conduct comprehensive and complementary analyses. The QQR results for the full sample revealed a weak positive dependence in all the quantiles of gold and stock returns across all the countries selected during mild market conditions. The results for pre and post‐crisis periods largely were consistent with those obtained for the full sample, except for Turkey (pre‐crisis), and China and Indonesia (post‐crisis). The results of the causality test‐in‐mean (return) and that of the causality test‐in‐variance revealed no causal relation between stock and gold in the pre‐crisis period, while causality ran only from gold to some stocks in the post‐crisis period. Further, while there was volatility causality running only from gold to stocks during the pre‐crisis period, the volatility causality between the two markets was very high during the post‐crisis period. Therefore, we suggest that gold may have been a hedge for stocks during the pre‐crisis compared to the post‐crisis period. Further, international risk factors should be considered in optimal investment decisions between domestic and global markets' assets (stocks and gold).     

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 Effect of 2008 Crisis on the Volatility Spillovers among Six Major Markets

The scope of this paper is to determine whether global stock markets function differently under conditions of economic crisis by measuring volatility spillovers between six major markets, namely the US, the UK, Germany, Spain, Turkey, and Greece. We examine the volatility spillover effects of the 2008 US financial crisis to these six major markets using daily stock returns from January 2003 to December 2014, before, during, and after the 2008 financial crisis. We combine the Diebold and Yilmaz methodology with the stochastic volatility model of Taylor implemented through the sequential Efficient Importance Sampling method of Richard and Zhang to obtain variance decompositions derived from an estimated vector autoregressive model. The empirical findings suggest that stock markets tend to show increased volatility spillovers during the crisis period, thus resulting in lesser diversification benefits for investors.