Thesis (MComm (Business Management))--University of Stellenbosch, 2006. / ENGLISH ABSTRACT: The study addresses foreign investment in China’s fund–management industry, with a detailed analysis of the opportunities and challenges that foreign investors may face. With the entry of China into the World Trade Organisation (WTO) in 2001, foreign investors have been allowed to hold up to 33% of a joint fund-management firm, which has increased to 49% from the end of 2004. As a trendy investment tool, investment funds, and particularly mutual funds, have expanded significantly especially as regards market size and economic importance in developed economies. This study starts with an introduction to the investment fund, which includes types of investment funds and the advantages of mutual funds. Then, the history of China’s fund-management industry is described to give a brief picture of this nascent industry. In order to justify the promising future for foreign investment in China’s fund-management industry, the study first analyses the sustainability of China’s economic growth, which is driven by some favourable aspects such as the gradual development of an economic structure, continued FDI inflow and WTO membership. Another two specific factors that may be favourable for the fund-management industry in this regard, namely pension fund reform and increased income, are also discussed. Foreign investors in China’s fund-management industry are also exposed to some challenges. For investment funds, the main platform is the financial markets, which means that the development of the fund-management industry is tied closely to the development of the financial markets. In the case of China, the financial markets are still developing and have not grown into efficient capital allocation mechanisms due to the restricted involvement of foreign participants and substantial government intervention. However, this study only focuses on major opportunities and challenges associated with foreign investment in China’s fund-management industry. A detailed analysis of each of various relevant aspects can be conducted in a future study, as well as a pertinent survey.

Les marchés obligataires d’État occupent une place centrale dans les sphères monétaires et financières. L’attractivité des titres d’État s’accentue en période de crise financières vu leur statut de valeurs refuges. La présente thèse se propose d’étudier l’organisation des échanges et les dynamiques des prix sur les marchés obligataires européen et chinois. Le choix du marché chinois est motivé par sa croissance soutenue. Nous avons essayé de voir si la croissance de ce marché obligataire émergent se réalise en concordance avec deux principaux marchés obligataires. Pour cela, nous avons articulé cette thèse en deux parties. Les deux 1er chapitres constituent la première partie en proposant d’étudier les particularités des marchés obligataires en Europe et en Chine en termes de microstructure et de formation des prix. La deuxième partie de la thèse, composée des deux derniers chapitres est consacrée à l’interrelation des marchés étudiés. Le 3ème chapitre propose de tester la cointégration entre ces marchés. Le dernier chapitre s’intéresse à l’explication de cette tendance commune à travers l’exploitation de la piste des chocs monétaires non anticipés. Nos résultats prouvent l’intégration du marché chinois. Cette intégration a été accompagnée par une succession de réformes visant la standardisation des échanges sur le marché chinois.L’intégration de ce marché se caractérise par son ajustement aux principales tendances communes du système de cointégration dominés par les marchés obligataires américain et allemand. Les résultats empiriques montrent que les chocs monétaires non anticipés américains et européen influencent les anticipations sur les marchés obligataires étudiés. / Government bond markets play a central role in financial and monetary spheres. The government bonds become more attractive during financial crises, when capitals migrate to sovereign debt markets. The attractiveness of government bonds can be motivated by their safety status. In this thesis, we studied market microstructure and price discovery in Chinese and European sovereign bond markets. Our interest in the emergent Chinese bond market is motivated by his rapid and important growth. We tried to study the relationship between the evolutions of this market and developed ones. To reach our purpose, we organized this research in two sections. In the first two chapters we studied the specificities of the European and Chinese government bond market regarding to the market microstructure and price formation. The second part of this thesis was reserved to study the interdependencies between bond markets. In the third chapter we tested the cointegration between US, German, Chinese and Honk Kong government bond markets. In the last chapter we tried to explain the role of monetary policy surprises in the international bond markets integration. Our results indicate the existence of international integration of the Chinese bond market. This integration may be explained by the succession of reforms in the direction of the standardization of the rules of exchanges in this emergent market. Cointegration tests results chow that the Chinese bond market is adjusting to the principal common trends dominated by the US and the German markets. Our empirical results indicate that the US and the European monetary policy surprises tend to influence anticipations on the studied bond markets.

In chapter 1, I investigate the return links and dynamic conditional correlations between the equity and commodity returns for G7 countries from 2000:01 to 2014:10. The commodity futures include BCOM Index which contains the futures and spot price of 22 commodities, Brent and Crude oil futures, gold and silver futures, Wheat, Corn and Soybean futures and CRB index. The finding indicates that during the full sample period GOLD, WHEAT and CORN have the smallest dynamic conditional correlations with all the Equity indexes. In addition, the correlations between the GOLD/Equity pairs are negative during the financial crisis. This fact indicates the benefit of hedging the stock portfolios with gold futures while we have stress in the financial markets. The results from hedging effectiveness suggest that all the commodity/stock portfolios provide better diversification benefits than the stock portfolios. In average, including CRB, BCOM and GOLD futures to the stock portfolios have the highest hedging effectiveness ratios. Chapter 2 investigates the impact of global and local variables on the Sovereign bond spreads for 22 developed countries in North America, Europe and Pacific Rim Regions, using monthly data from January 2010 to March 2015. There are a few main findings of this chaper. First, the global factors are considerably more important in déterminant the sovereign bond spreads for all the regions. Second, for the bond spread of each region over its local government bond, the countries’ domestic fundamentals are found to be more influential determinants of the spreads, compared to the spread over US government bond as a safe haven government bond. Third, the bond spreads in the Eurozone area is less influenced by the global factors compared to the other regions. Fourth, the sovereign bond spreads of all regions are positively related to the US corporate high yield spreads as a proxy of market sentiment and the log of VIX index as measurement for the investor risk aversion. The coefficient of the log of VIX index shows the strong power of the stock market implied volatility on determining the yield spreads in the fixed income market.

Die Arbeit befasst sich mit ökonomischen Effekten der rechtlichen Durchsetzung von Staatsschulden. Die Literatur nimmt weitgehend an, dass diese größtenteils irrelevant sind. Die Dissertation präsentiert neu erstellte Datensätze über Anlegerklagen in den USA und UK, und verbindet diese mit Finanzmarktdaten. Die zentralen Ergebnisse sind: (1) Staatsschuldenkrisen sind zunehmend begleitet von Anlegerklagen, wenn auch die Zahl gering ist. Klagen sind wahrscheinlicher wenn Regierungen hohe Verluste auf ihre Gläubiger abwälzen. Sie können zudem signifikante Kosten durch die Versperrung des Finanzmarktzugangs mit sich bringen. Insbesondere spezialisierte Investoren führen Klagen, und die vertragliche Gestaltung der Anleihen bedingt Teilnahme- und Klageraten. (2) Marktpreise spiegeln diese Entwicklungen wider. Die Marktliquidität nimmt während Schuldenkrisen signifikant ab und Staatsanleihen, die bessere rechtliche Durchsetzungsmöglichkeiten versprechen, werden zu höheren Preisen gehandelt. / This thesis studies the economic impact of legal enforcement of sovereign debt. The literature assumes that legal enforcement mechanisms are largely irrelevant. The thesis presents newly assembled datasets on lawsuits filed by private investors against governments in the US and the UK, and connects them with financial market data. The main findings are: (1) Sovereign defaults are increasingly subject to investor lawsuits, although the numbers are still small. Lawsuits are more likely if governments impose large losses on their creditors. Litigation can create significant costs by affecting governments'' financial market access. Distressed investors are especially likely to file suit, and contract design is a significant predictor of participation and litigation. (2) Sovereign bond pricing reflects these developments. Market liquidity decreases significantly during debt crises. Furthermore, sovereign bonds with stronger legal protection trade at higher prices during financial crises.

<p>Diss. (sammanfattning) Stockholm : Handelshögskolan, 2006 [6], xiii, [1] s.: sammanfattning, s. 1-259, [5] s.: 4 uppsatser. Spikblad saknas</p>

Asian efforts towards bond market development are driven by the 1997-98 financial crises; Central and Eastern European efforts by the transition towards EMU. The small size of most of the economies underlying these still "emerging" bond markets poses the question of minimum efficient scale and which options to pursue. We argue that the joint bond funds and regional bond market linkups that follow existing trade, FDI and bank ties will broaden the sources of finance, can improve market discipline, provide signals to the market, and thus increase financial stability. Based upon bond market data and analysis of regional efforts like the Asian Bond Funds, we argue that bond market development should be given more attention to foster growth and stability. (author's abstract) / Series: EI Working Papers / Europainstitut

The world bond market is nearly twice as large as the equity market. The goal of this dissertation is to study the dynamics of bond price. Among the liquidity risk, interest rate risk and default risk, this dissertation will focus on the liquidity risk and trading strategy. Under the mathematical frame of stochastic control, we model price setting in U.S. bond markets where dealers have multiple instruments to smooth inventory imbalances. The difficulty in obtaining the optimal trading strategy is that the optimal strategy and value function depend on each other, and the corresponding HJB equation is nonlinear. To solve this problem, we derived an approximate optimal explicit trading strategy. The result shows that this trading strategy is better than the benchmark central symmetric trading strategy.

Uma característica marcante da recente crise financeira que ocorreu entre 2007 e 2009, conhecida como \"A Crise do Subprime\", foi quão rapidamente se propagou por todo o mundo. Entretanto, a maior parte da evidência empírica até o presente momento mostra que no início da crise (jun/07 - ago/08) a resposta das economias emergentes foi limitada. Este trabalho corrobora este fato, bem como a rápida saída da crise, para um grupo de países emergentes em acelerado processo de desenvolvimento: Brasil, Rússia, Índia e China, os BRICs. Encontramos ainda evidências de que a China exerceu, principalmente durante a crise, forte impacto positivo nos BRICs, o que nos levou a concluir que este foi um fator importante para que fossem menos afetados, quando comparados com economias desenvolvidas como os EUA. Também mostramos que países dentre os BRICs cuja atividade econômica apresenta maior semelhança - Brasil X Rússia e Índia X China - são afetados de modo geral de forma análoga e observamos ainda evidência de notáveis ligações financeiras entre os países do grupo. Por último, notamos que variáveis reais dos BRICs responderam com menor intensidade aos efeitos da crise quando comparadas a variáveis financeiras do próprio grupo e variáveis reais de países desenvolvidos. Para o estudo, utilizamos modelos S-VAR, VEC e testes de cointegração em painel, este último para os modelos com variáveis macroeconômicas reais. Também utilizamos um índice de propagação de calor, desenvolvido pelo Fundo Monetário Internacional (FMI), que mede a intensidade dos efeitos da crise nas variáveis para cada instante do tempo. / One of the main characteristics of the recent financial crisis that took place between 2007 and 2009, known as \"The Subprime Crisis\", was how fast it spread all around the globe. Nevertheless, most empirical evidence shows that at the beginning of the crisis (Jun/07- Aug/08) emerging markets\' response was limited. This present study corroborates this idea for a fast raising group of emerging economies: Brazil, Russia, India and China, the BRICs. We show as well how rapid these economies have managed to get out of the crisis and the not negligent positive impact that China had in all of them, especially during the crisis period. We infer that China\'s booming economy must have been one of the main factors that made the crisis\' impact reduced for the BRICs when compared to developed countries such as the US. We also show that countries among the BRICs that have more similarities - Brazil X Russia and India X China - were in general affected in an analogous way and we observe that there are strong financial links between group members. Last, we find that the crisis\' effect on real BRIC\'s macroeconomic variables was not as intense as those on developed countries or on BRIC\'s financial variables. For this study, we use S-VAR, VEC and Panel Cointegration Models. This last one was used for models with real macroeconomic variables. To draw our conclusions, we also utilize a Heat Index which has been developed by the International Monetary Fund (IMF).This index is a measure of the crisis\' effects intensity on economic variables through time.

Uma característica marcante da recente crise financeira que ocorreu entre 2007 e 2009, conhecida como \"A Crise do Subprime\", foi quão rapidamente se propagou por todo o mundo. Entretanto, a maior parte da evidência empírica até o presente momento mostra que no início da crise (jun/07 - ago/08) a resposta das economias emergentes foi limitada. Este trabalho corrobora este fato, bem como a rápida saída da crise, para um grupo de países emergentes em acelerado processo de desenvolvimento: Brasil, Rússia, Índia e China, os BRICs. Encontramos ainda evidências de que a China exerceu, principalmente durante a crise, forte impacto positivo nos BRICs, o que nos levou a concluir que este foi um fator importante para que fossem menos afetados, quando comparados com economias desenvolvidas como os EUA. Também mostramos que países dentre os BRICs cuja atividade econômica apresenta maior semelhança - Brasil X Rússia e Índia X China - são afetados de modo geral de forma análoga e observamos ainda evidência de notáveis ligações financeiras entre os países do grupo. Por último, notamos que variáveis reais dos BRICs responderam com menor intensidade aos efeitos da crise quando comparadas a variáveis financeiras do próprio grupo e variáveis reais de países desenvolvidos. Para o estudo, utilizamos modelos S-VAR, VEC e testes de cointegração em painel, este último para os modelos com variáveis macroeconômicas reais. Também utilizamos um índice de propagação de calor, desenvolvido pelo Fundo Monetário Internacional (FMI), que mede a intensidade dos efeitos da crise nas variáveis para cada instante do tempo. / One of the main characteristics of the recent financial crisis that took place between 2007 and 2009, known as \"The Subprime Crisis\", was how fast it spread all around the globe. Nevertheless, most empirical evidence shows that at the beginning of the crisis (Jun/07- Aug/08) emerging markets\' response was limited. This present study corroborates this idea for a fast raising group of emerging economies: Brazil, Russia, India and China, the BRICs. We show as well how rapid these economies have managed to get out of the crisis and the not negligent positive impact that China had in all of them, especially during the crisis period. We infer that China\'s booming economy must have been one of the main factors that made the crisis\' impact reduced for the BRICs when compared to developed countries such as the US. We also show that countries among the BRICs that have more similarities - Brazil X Russia and India X China - were in general affected in an analogous way and we observe that there are strong financial links between group members. Last, we find that the crisis\' effect on real BRIC\'s macroeconomic variables was not as intense as those on developed countries or on BRIC\'s financial variables. For this study, we use S-VAR, VEC and Panel Cointegration Models. This last one was used for models with real macroeconomic variables. To draw our conclusions, we also utilize a Heat Index which has been developed by the International Monetary Fund (IMF).This index is a measure of the crisis\' effects intensity on economic variables through time.

Cette thèse s'intéresse aux questions d'accès aux marchés financiers dans les économies émergentes et en développement. La première partie donne un aperçu général des conséquences macroéconomiques de l'un des régimes de politique monétaire le plus favorable au marché - le ciblage d'inflation - en utilisant le cadre d'analyse de la méta-analyse. La deuxième partie analyse le risque et la stabilité des marchés obligataires des États. La troisième et dernière partie examine les effets disciplinaires résultant de la participation aux marchés obligataires souverains. Plusieurs résultats émergent. Au chapitre 1, les résultats indiquent que la littérature sur les effets macroéconomiques du ciblage d'inflation est sujette à des biais de publication. Après avoir purgé ces biais, le véritable effet du ciblage d'inflation reste statistiquement et économiquement significatif à la fois sur le niveau de l'inflation et la volatilité de la croissance économique, mais ne l’est pas sur la volatilité de l'inflation ou le taux de croissance économique réel. Aussi, les caractéristiques des études déterminent l’hétérogénéité des résultats de l'impact du ciblage d’inflation dans les études primaires. Le chapitre 2 montre que l'adoption d'un régime de ciblage d'inflation réduit le risque souverain dans les pays émergents. Cependant, cet effet varie systématiquement en fonction du cycle économique, de la politique budgétaire suivie, du niveau de développement et de la durée dans le ciblage. Le chapitre 3 montre que les envois de fonds des migrants, contrairement aux flux d'aide au développement, permettent de réduire le risque souverain. Cette réduction est plus marquée dans un pays avec un système financier moins développé, un degré d'ouverture commerciale élevé, un espace budgétaire faible et sans effet dans les pays dépendants des envois de fonds. Le chapitre 4 montre que les pays ayant des contrats d’échange sur risque de crédit sur leurs dettes sont plus sujets à des crises de dette. Il constate également que cet effet reste sensible aux caractéristiques structurelles des pays. Le chapitre 5 montre que la participation aux marchés obligataires de long terme (domestiques et internationaux) encourage les gouvernements des pays en développement à accroître leurs recettes fiscales intérieures. Il révèle également que l'effet favorable dépend du niveau des recettes de seigneuriage, d’endettement, du régime de change, du niveau de développement économique, du degré d’ouverture financière, et du développement financier. Le chapitre 6 montre que la présence de marchés obligataires domestiques, de long terme et liquides réduit considérablement le degré de dollarisation financière dans les pays en développement. Cet effet est plus important dans les pays avec un régime monétaire de ciblage d’inflation ou de change flottant, et à règles budgétaires. Enfin, il constate que la présence de marchés obligataires domestiques réduit la dollarisation financière à travers la baisse du niveau et de la variabilité de l'inflation, de la variabilité du taux de change nominal, et des revenus de seigneuriage. / This thesis focuses on some critical issues of the access to international financial markets in developing and emerging market economies. The first part provides a general overview of the macroeconomic consequences of one of the most market-friendly monetary policy regime—inflation targeting—using a meta-regression analysis framework. The second part analyses government bond market risk and stability. The last part investigates the disciplining effects of government bond market participation—bond vigilantes. In Chapter 1, the results indicate that the literature of the macroeconomic effects of inflation targeting adoption is subject to publication bias. After purging the publication bias, the true effect of inflation targeting appears to be statistically and economically meaningful both on the level of inflation and the volatility of economic growth, but not statistically significant on inflation volatility or real GDP growth. Third, differences in the impact of inflation targeting found in primary studies can be explained by differences in studies characteristics including the sample characteristics, the empirical identification strategies, the choice of the control variables, inflation targeting implementation parameters, as well as the study period and some parameters related to the publication process. Chapter 2 shows that the adoption of inflation targeting regime reduces sovereign debt risk in emerging countries. However, this relative advantage of inflation targeting—compared to money or exchange rate targeting—varies systematically depending on the business cycle, the fiscal policy stance, the level of development, and the duration of countries’ experience with inflation targeting. Chapter 3 shows that remittances inflows significantly reduce bond spreads, whereas development aid does not. It also highlights that the effect of remittances on spreads arises in a regimes of lower developed financial system, higher degree of trade openness, lower fiscal space, and exclusively in non-remittances dependent regimes. Chapter 4 indicates that countries with credit default swaps contracts on their debts have a higher probability of experiencing a debt crisis, compared to countries without credit default swaps contracts. It also finds that the impact of credit default swaps initiation is sensitive to several structural characteristics including the level of economic development, the country creditworthiness at the timing of credit default swaps introduction, the public sector transparency, the central bank independence; and to the duration of countries’ experiences with credit default swaps transactions. Chapter 5 shows that bond markets participation encourages government in developing countries to increase their domestic tax revenue mobilization. Finally, it finds that bond markets participation improves the mobilization of internal taxes, compared to tax on international trade, and reduces their instability. Chapter 6 shows that the presence of domestic bond markets significantly reduces financial dollarization in domestic bond markets countries. This effect is larger for inflation targeting countries compared to non-inflation targeting countries, is apparent exclusively in a non-pegged exchange rate regime, and is larger when there is a fiscal rule that constrains the conduct of fiscal policy. Finally, it finds that the induced drop in inflation rate and its variability, nominal exchange rate variability, and seigniorage revenue are potential transmission mechanisms through which the presence of domestic bond markets reduces financial dollarization in domestic bond markets countries.