Anders C. Johansson

Financial Markets in East Asia and Europe During the Global Financial Crisis

This paper analyzes equity market movements in East Asia and Europe during the global financial crisis. Extending the methodology in Chakrabarti and Roll (2002), we study regional as well as country-regional volatility, covariance and correlation. We also analyze regional and country-regional tail dependence in the two regions. The results show that volatility and covariance patterns in East Asia and Europe were relatively stable until the second half of 2008. Correlations were higher in Europe, but relatively high in East Asia as well. Both regions thus exhibit an overall increase in comovements compared to the time of the Asian financial crisis. There was a sharp decline in regional correlation during the third quarter of 2008 in both East Asia and Europe, which was then followed by a strong increase. The spread of the crisis affected Europe more, with resulting higher regional comovements. Moreover, average tail dependence stayed relatively stable in both regions throughout the pre-crisis and crisis periods with a notably higher level of tail dependence in Europe. Surprisingly, countries in East Asia such as China that are usually seen as insulated from the rest of the region show signs of increasing market integration with the rest of the region. The increasing level of financial market integration and the high level of comovements during times of international financial turmoil demonstrate the limited benefit of diversification in regional portfolios.

CHINA'S FINANCIAL MARKET INTEGRATION WITH THE WORLD

It is commonly argued that Chinas financial markets are effectively insulated from the rest of the world. To see if this is true, and to better understand Chinas financial development, we analyse Chinas integration with major financial markets. Using conditional copulas, we show that China has experienced an increasing level of integration with several major financial markets during the last decade, albeit at a slow pace and from very low levels. Furthermore, the level of integration has increased with several major markets during the global financial crisis. The results and possible reasons for the increasing integration are analysed and the implications for policymakers and market participants are discussed.

China’s Growing Influence in Southeast Asia – Monetary Policy and Equity Markets

This study analyses the potential transmission of China’s monetary policy shocks to equity markets in Southeast Asia. Impulse response functions indicate that the impact of a monetary expansion in China is significant and positive for four of the five Southeast Asian equity markets. One explanation for this result is that monetary policy shocks in China lead to an increase in demand for goods and services in both China and abroad, which then shows up in the foreign equity market. The results in this paper provide evidence of China’s influence in Southeast Asia and its financial markets. The transmission effect is small and very short lived, but can be expected to increase if the current trends of a deepening economic integration between China and Southeast Asia and a maturing Chinese central bank continue.

Stochastic volatility and time-varying country risk in emerging markets

This study suggests an alternative method to estimate time-varying country risk. We first apply a new multivariate stochastic volatility (SV) model to a set of emerging stock markets. To estimate the SV model, we use a Bayesian Markov chain Monte Carlo simulation procedure. By applying the deviance information criterion, we show that the new model performs well relative to alternative multivariate SV models. We then compute the conditional betas for the different markets and compare the results with an often-used procedure based on multivariate GARCH models. We show that the new multivariate SV model more accurately captures the time-varying nature of country risk. The conditional betas show signs of large variations, indicating the importance of taking time-varying country risk into consideration when managing emerging market portfolios.

An Analysis Of Dynamic Risk In The Greater China Equity Markets

This study looks at the time-varying nature of systematic risk in the Greater China equity markets. The Shanghai and Shenzhen markets both have a low average systematic risk when measured against the world market. The short outbursts in systematic risk for these two markets seem to be directly related to policy shifts. The Hong Kong and Taiwan markets are more integrated with world markets and they show signs of large variations in systematic risk over time. Furthermore, conditional betas in the Shanghai and Shenzhen markets are stationary, while the Hong Kong and Taiwan betas are integrated of order one. In addition, long memory tests show that all four markets exhibit a long-run dependence in their conditional betas. While the two mainland China market betas are covariance stationary, the Hong Kong and Taiwan betas are not.

On the Challenge to Competitive Authoritarianism and Political Patronage in Malaysia

In March 2008, Malaysia’s political landscape was shaken by election results showing that the Barisan Nasional had won less than two thirds of the parliamentary seats and lost five states to the opposition. A two-thirds supermajority had been seen as a sacred threshold for the coalition to ensure its continued legitimacy. We conjecture that the 2008 election represented a challenge to the competitive authoritarian regime and that this had direct effects on firms with ties to the ruling coalition. Our empirical results show that firms with political patronage were adversely affected by the electoral outcome. More specifically, firms with close ties to the Barisan Nasional experienced a significant negative value effect. Firms characterized by political patronage also decreased their leverage levels significantly more than other firms after the 2008 election, suggesting that their access to debt capital had become more restricted. Moreover, this effect was mainly driven by changes in long-term debt. These results suggest a significant negative effect on connected firms as the political status quo was challenged in Malaysia.

National and regional financial openness in China

Abstract While China’s economy has been subject to a wide range of economic reforms since 1978, its capital account is still restricted. The issue of capital account convertibility is widely debated both in China and by foreign observers. This study contributes to the understanding of China’s capital account by constructing new indices for China’s financial openness. First, we construct alternative indices, both of which suggest that China has experienced significant increases in its financial openness, albeit beginning at very low levels in the late 1970s. Then, we construct an index for financial openness at the provincial level from 2000. As expected, the eastern provinces exhibit much higher levels of financial openness than the provinces located in the central and western parts of the country. Taken together, these indices enable a clear overview of national and regional financial openness across time and are well suited for future studies on determinants and effects of financial openness in China.

CEO Incentives in Chinese State-Controlled Firms

This article investigates CEO incentives in Chinese state-controlled firms. We find that firm performance is positively related to CEO compensation. We also find that firm performance is positively associated with CEO promotion and negatively associated with CEO turnover. CEOs for state-controlled firms thus face significant incentives, not only in monetary form but also in terms of career prospects. These results suggest that the CEO labor market in China’s state sector exhibits characteristics like those found in managerial labor markets in developed countries. Moreover, we show that local institutions are associated with the relationship between CEO incentives and firm performance, with the relationship being stronger in regions characterized by stronger institutions. Overall, our results demonstrate that firm performance is associated with CEO incentives for state-controlled firms in China, suggesting that there is a functioning labor market for top managers in China’s state sector.