Market efficiency and cointegration: Some evidence in Pacific-Basin black exchange markets

This paper investigates the efficiency of the black exchange markets in Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, South Korea, Taiwan, and Thailand. The study applies unit root and cointegration tests to examine black exchange market efficiency of Pacific-Basin countries. The generating process of black exchange rates appears to be a random walk. This is consistent with Gupta (1981) and other foreign exchange rate unit root test studies. Johansen cointegration tests are performed for these black exchange markets together with Japan and Singapore. The results suggest that there is at least one unit root among the black market exchange rates. Hence, black exchange markets are not collectively efficient.     

The asymmetric information and price manipulation in stock market

The interaction between asymmetrically informed traders has been mostly investigated in theoretical frameworks. Not only there are relatively few empirical studies but, if any, the mostly focus on cross-sectional analysis and use very short samples. In this study, we blend theoretic with empirical, and propose a new signalling system of turning points in the economy to examine the extent of volatility of these markets relative to their tranquil periods. The signalling system proposed here is based on the Markov-switching model. Differing from the existing literatures, the study employs three phases and time-varying transition probability, and captures the states of volatility. After examining the causality between high volatility and foreign portfolio investment (FPI) by using moving average and generalized autoregressive conditional heteroskedasticity, the portfolio's profitability of FPI and individual investors in different periods are compared. Finally, the investigation of FPI's leading effect is studied.     

Understanding New Resource Projects

The surge in new resource projects has been a prominent feature of the recent strong performance of the Australian economy, with mining and energy investment accounting for almost one‐half of all private investment. Although the current round of resource investment has now peaked, as swings in the resource sector tend to repeat themselves, there is an ongoing need to carefully understand the available information sources. We use a specially developed panel of matched projects from three widely followed, but under‐researched, sources to analyze cost inflation, the biases, the degree of independence, and timeliness of each source. This information is of use to policy makers who have to closely monitor these developments, analysts following the resources sector, and project proponents wanting to know something about the typical cost profile of a project.     

Electricity Market Restructuring: Reforms of Reforms

Electricity systems present complicated challenges for public policy. In many respects these challenges are similar to those in other network industries in providing a balance between regulation and markets, public investment and private risk taking, coordination and competition. As with other such industries, naturally monopoly elements interact with potentially competitive services, but electricity has some unusual features that defy simple analogy to other network industries. Following a reversal of a long-term decline in real electricity prices, the last two decades of the twentieth century were for the United States a time of reform, reaction, and reforms of reforms in electricity systems, moving slowly towards greater reliance on competition and markets. Changing technology, new entrants in the generation market, and a legislative mandate to provide access to the essential transmission facility accelerated a process that required major innovations in institutions and operations. Complete laissez faire competition is not possible, and the details of an efficient competitive electricity market are neither obvious nor easy to put in place. The benefits of reform may be substantial, but they require careful attention to market design. A review of the past identifies some choices on the road ahead.