Robin L. Lumsdaine

Multiple Trend Breaks and the Unit-Root Hypothesis

Ever since Nelson and Plosser (1982) found evidence in favor of the unit-root hypothesis for 13 long-term annual macro series, observed unit-root behavior has been equated with persistence in the economy. Perron (1989) questioned this interpretation, arguing instead that the observed behavior may indicate failure to account for structural change. Zivot and Andrews (1992) restored confidence in the unit-root hypothesis by incorporating an endogenous break point into the specification. By allowing for the possibility of two endogenous break points, we find more evidence against the unit-root hypothesis than Zivot and Andrews, but less than Perron.

Dating the integration of world equity markets

Measuring the integration of world capital markets is notoriously difficult. For example, regulatory changes which appear comprehensive may have little impact on the functioning of the capital market if they fail to lead to foreign portfolio inflows. In contrast to the usual practice of documenting the timing of regulatory changes, we specify a reduced-form model for a number of financial time-series (for example, equity returns and dividend yields) and search for a common break in the process generating the data. In addition, we estimate a confidence interval for the break. Information on a variety of financial and macroeconomic indicators is employed to interpret the results and to identify the likely date the equity market becomes financially integrated with world capital markets. We find endogenous break dates that are very accurately estimated but do not always correspond closely to dates of official capital market reforms. After the break, stock markets are on average larger and more liquid than before; returns are more volatile and more highly correlated with the world market return, dividend yields are lower and credit ratings improve.

Testing For and Dating Common Breaks in Multivariate Time Series

This paper develops methods for constructing asymptotically valid confidence intervals for the date of a single break in multivariate time series, including I(0), I(1), and deterministically trending regressors. Although the width of the asymptotic confidence interval does not decrease as the sample size increases, it is inversely related to the number of series which have a common break date, so there are substantial gains to multivariate inference about break dates. These methods are applied to two empirical examples: the mean growth rate of output in three European countries, and the mean growth rate of U.S. consumption, investment, and output.

Identifying the Common Component of International Economic Fluctuations: A New Approach

In this paper, we develop an aggregation procedure using time-varying weights for constructing the common component of international economic fluctuations. The methodology for deriving time-varying weights is based on some stylized features of the data documented in the paper. The model allows for a unified treatment of cyclical and seasonal fluctuations and also accommodates the dynamic propagation of shocks across countries. Based on correlations of individual country fluctuations with the common component, we find evidence for a “world business cycle” as well as evidence for a distinct European common component. We also find some evidence that macroeconomic fluctuations have become more closely linked across industrial economies in the period after 1973.

What the Market Watched: Bloomberg News Stories and Bank Returns as the Financial Crisis Unfolded

This paper explores a unique dataset on the largest, most systemically important US banks, gathered via Bloomberg during the early stages of the recent financial crisis. Unlike previous literature that has often used information on headlines as a metric for news, the dataset here contains information on readership interest and therefore provides a glimpse into the extent to which financial market participants were focused on the news of a particular bank as the financial crisis unfolded. By examining the news that captured the attention of these participants and exploring its relationship to equity returns, this paper considers the role that market news and reputation may have had in shaping perception about banks during the crisis. There is strong evidence that those banks that on average had relatively high readership interest, or that ranked highly in readership interest a large proportion of the days in the sample, suffered significantly lower returns than those that did not, both contemporaneously and subsequently; in addition, greater news readership was associated with higher volatility of returns. A model portfolio that each day is short the ten banks’ stocks that were in the top readership rankings the previous day and long the other banks’ stocks generates a cumulative P&L of 60.8% in the run-up to the crisis. The results suggest that news stories that result in high readership among financial market participants can have a large effect in shaping the latter’s perceptions and subsequent decisions.

The Relationship Between Oil Prices and Breakeven Inflation Rates

This paper explores the role of oil prices in the inflation-linked bond markets. Early proponents of inflation-linked bonds highlighted their role in protecting against future inflation, portfolio diversification, asset-liability matching, and use as a commitment tool for monetary policy in keeping inflation contained. From an investment perspective, real return assets should be attractive in prolonged periods of high inflation and unattractive in periods of low inflation resulting in increased demand for real return assets as inflation expectations grow and decreased demand as such expectations diminish. The late 1990s and early 2000s saw an expansion in the inflation-linked bond markets, with more sovereign issuers, increased issuance size and a wider range of maturities; this tremendous growth in turn fueled greater interest and participation in these markets. After a prolonged period of low and stable inflation, the rise in oil prices that began in 2003/4 coincided with the rapid expansion of the inflation-linked bond markets and the start of the Federal Reserve’s tightening cycle. In addition, the widening of the yield spread between nominal and inflation-linked bonds, or “breakeven”, during this time was seen as an indication that inflation expectations were on the rise. Much of the runup in breakevens was attributed to the observed increases in oil prices. Yet despite similar trends, over most of the sample period, breakevens and oil have not moved one-for-one. Recently, however, the decline in oil prices has coincided with a dramatic decline in breakevens and unprecedented Fed easing. The results demonstrate that the coincidence of breakeven and oil price fluctuations is a relatively recent phenomenon, unique to the US market, and mainly associated with the front end of the breakeven curve.

Why Systemic Risk Considerations Affect the Market for Long-Term Care Insurance

New capital requirements and regulations, aimed at controlling systemic risk in the financial sector, could have the unfortunate, unintended consequence of discouraging insurers from offering long-term care insurance, according to Robin Lumsdaine of American University.