Herding behavior in the Pakistan stock exchange: Some new insights

This study attempts to examine the presence of herding behavior in the Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX). The novel contribution of this paper is that it investigates the herding phenomenon from a large number of facets such as herding of firms towards market, herding of firms towards industry portfolios, herding of industry portfolios towards market, herding in mostly traded stocks and in large and small stocks, and herding in the crisis period. For this purpose, we use the herding behavior model of Christie and Huang (1995) on the daily closing prices data of 609 firms listed on the PSX from January 2004 to December 2013. Results show that individual firms do not herd towards market index, except when the market experiences a negative return of 5%. However, when we sort firms into small and large groups based on median market capitalization, results indicate that large firms show herding behavior in extreme market movements. Further, we find that firms in several industries herd towards their industry portfolios. However, we find weak evidence of industry portfolios herding towards the market. We also segregate the impact of financial crisis of 2008 from normal times. These findings support results of our baseline estimation.     

Bond finance,bank credit,and aggregate fluctuations in an open economy

Corporate sectors in emerging markets have noticeably increased their reliance on foreign financing, presumably reflecting low global interest rates. The evidence also shows a rebalancing from bank loans towards bonds. To study these developments, we develop a dynamic open economy model where these modes of finance are determined endogenously. The model replicates the stylized facts following a drop in world interest rates; in particular, rebalancing towards bonds occurs because bank credit becomes relatively more expensive, reflecting the scarcity of bank equity. More generally, the model is suitable for studying interactions between modes of finance and the macroeconomy.     

Institutional duality and political strategies of foreign-invested firms in an emerging economy

This study investigates how the complex institutional environment surrounding foreign-invested firms (FIEs) affects their corporate political strategies (CPS) in China. Analyses of data on 442 FIEs operating in China show that the relative potency of dual institutional pressure from FIEs’ home and host countries shapes their strategic choices. Institutional factors at the country, region, and firm levels not only affect firms’ adoption of multiple firm-based tactics but also shape their collective-oriented associational activities. Moreover, participation in both foreign and domestic business associations enhances an FIE's adoption of firm-based political tactics, but joining domestic business associations has a stronger effect.     

International investors’ reactions to cross-border acquisitions by emerging market multinationals

How do international investors react to announcements of cross-border mergers and acquisitions (CM&As) by emerging market multinational enterprises (EMNEs)? Using a unique and manually-constructed firm-level dataset, this paper examines the stock price reactions to CM&A announcements made over the period 1991–2010 by Chinese MNEs listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange and the wealth impacts of their corporate governance. Our empirical findings confirm a positive stock price reaction on average, and suggest that international investors react positively to the presence of large shareholders, but negatively to the presence of institutional shareholders. There is a negative impact if the largest shareholder is either the State or the corporate founder. We suggest that this is because the international investors perceive potential principal–principal conflicts in such ownership/control constellations and discount equity prices accordingly. We also find that Board size and independence have positive effects on the price reaction, but that large supervisory boards engender negative reactions.     

Pro-market institutions and outward FDI of emerging market firms: An institutional arbitrage logic

We offer new theory and evidence regarding the effects of pro-market institutions on outward foreign direct investment (FDI) of emerging market firms (EMFs). Drawing on the logic of institutional arbitrage, we integrate the escapism and exploitation mechanisms of EMF internationalization into a unified theoretical context. We propose an inverted U-shaped relationship between host market-supporting institutions (MSI) and the investment scale of an EMF’s FDI project in the country, showing an escape-driven upward slope for low-to-medium MSI levels and an exploitation-driven downward slope for medium-to-high MSI levels. We supplement this main argument with two boundary conditions: the alleviating effect of home market liberalization (HML) and the strengthening effect of home government subsidies (HGS), demonstrating the coexistence and variation of pro- and anti- market institutions in an emerging market. Using information on 1,450 FDI projects conducted by 288 Chinese listed firms in 116 host countries, we obtain supportive evidence for the predicted relationships between the three institutional forces. This study enriches the literatures on institutional arbitrage and pro-market institutions with evidence from EMFs.     

How are Africa's emerging stock markets related to advanced markets? Evidence from copulas

The finance literature provides ample evidence that diversification benefits hinges on dependence between assets returns. A notable feature of the recent financial crisis is the extent to which assets that had hitherto moved mostly independently suddenly moved together resulting in joint losses in most advanced markets. This provides grounds to uncover the relative potential of African markets to provide diversification benefits by means of their correlation with advanced markets. Therefore, we examine the dependence structure between advanced and emerging African stock markets using copulas. Several findings are documented. First, dependence is time-varying and weak for most African markets, except South Africa. Second, we find evidence of asymmetric dependence, suggesting that stock return comovement varies in bearish and bullish markets. Third, extreme downward stock price movements in the advanced markets do not have significant spillover effects on Africa’s emerging stock markets. Our results, implying that African markets, with the exception of South Africa, are immune to risk spillover from advanced markets, improves the extant literature and have implications for portfolio diversification and risk management.     

Does US news impact Asian emerging markets? Evidence from nonparametric causality-in-quantiles test

This paper aims to analyze whether US news on inflation and unemployment causes returns and volatility of seven emerging Asian stock markets from 1994 to 2014, by employing the causality-in-quantile approach. We find evidence that US news affect returns and/or volatility of all the seven stock markets considered, with these effects clustered around the tails of the conditional distribution of returns and volatility when they are either in bear or bull modes. In general, our results highlight the importance of modeling nonlinearity and studying entire conditional distributions of stock returns and volatility to draw correct inferences.     

The role of experiential and non-experiential knowledge in cross-border acquisitions: The case of Indian multinational enterprises

This paper investigates the antecedents of the internationalization of emerging economy multinational enterprises (EMNEs) through cross-border acquisitions. Using a panel data set of 1138 cross-border acquisitions made by 515 Indian multinational enterprises (MNEs) during 2000–2013, it examines interactions of in-house resources with experiential and non-experiential knowledge to explore how EMNEs manage and exploit their knowledge base when internationalizing. The results show that Indian multinational enterprises have ‘interface competence’. They combine in-house resources with experiential market and externally sourced technological knowledge for undertaking cross-border acquisitions. The Uppsala model provides insights in analyzing the role of market knowledge and the Global Factory model helps in analyzing the role of technology in cross-border acquisitions by EMNEs.     

Corporate Name Change and the Market Valuation of Firms: Evidence from an Emerging Market

Investors’ responses to a firm’s name change and the determinants of their response are scantly explored areas in the field of behavioral finance. Based on a sample of 415 Indian firms from 2005 to 2014, this study suggests that investors respond positively to the announcement of firm name changes. Furthermore, the study indicates that when firms do not indicate geographical specificity in the name and have a specific rather than generic name, then the firm will experience greater abnormal returns. Also, when firm names are fluent and are associated with the owner’s family name, again, abnormal returns generated are positive. Nevertheless, as a firm ages and investors gain more information about it, then abnormal returns due to name change decrease.     

An adaptive approach to forecasting three key macroeconomic variables for transitional China

The macroeconomic forecasts for emerging economies often suffer from the constraints of instability and limited data. In light of these constraints, we propose the use of a local autoregressive (LAR) model with a data-driven estimation window, i.e., a local homogenous interval, that is adaptively identified to strike a balance between information efficiency and stability. When applied to three key macroeconomic variables of China, the LAR model substantially outperforms the alternative models for various forecast horizons of 3 to 12 months, with forecast error reductions of between 4% and 64% for the IP growth, and between 1% and 68% for the inflation rate. The one-quarter ahead performance of the LAR model matches that of a well-known survey forecast. The patterns of the identified local intervals also coincide with the characteristic evolution of the gradual reforms and monetary policy shifts in China. In short, the LAR model is suitable for not only forecasting, but also the real-time monitoring of the effects of regime and policy changes in emerging economies.