This thesis examines the capital, risk and efficiency relationship in European banking in the 1990s. The topic is particularly relevant in the European context, as the ongoing process of increased financial integration is enhancing competition and emphasising the importance of efficiency. Yet, these factors could also increase incentives for bank risk-taking. In this environment, bank capital has become a focal point of bank regulation as the primary means for limiting risk taking by banks. The empirical analysis conducted builds on the earlier US work by Kwan and Eisenbeis (1997) and Berger and De Young (1997). We developed the aforementioned approaches by including market measures of bank risk, as well as including proxies accounting for charter value, and profit efficiency in a model evaluating the determinants of European bank capital. A positive effect of inefficiency on bank risk-taking, and also of inefficiency on higher leverage were found, supporting the moral hazard hypothesis. The latter implies that inefficient banks are more likely to have more incentives towards risk taking. In addition, excessive rates of loan growth are found to have a negative effect on banking risk and efficiency. This supports the hypothesis that due to agency problems entrenched managers may pursue a growth objective, which may damage both the risk and efficiency position of the institution. The empirical model results show a positive effect of risk on capital probably indicating regulators' preference for capital, as a means of restricting risktaking activities. Finally, as in most studies analysing the determinants of bank efficiency, capital is found to affect positively the efficiency of banks. The empirical results of this research concord with earlier US work by Kwan and Eisenbeis (1997) and Berger and De Young (1997). Overall, the results presented in this thesis suggest that moral hazard incentives may be playing an important role increasing systematic risk in European banking.

The aim of this thesis is to analyse international financial integration. Chapter 2 investigates the determinants of international financial integration. Variables including the capital control policy dummy variable, openness to international trade, domestic credit and economic growth are candidates for explaining variation in the degree of international financial integration. Chapter 3 analyses cointegration between the US and several European Union equity markets. Between 1993 and 1998, there is mixed evidence of cointegration ties with the US equity market. Over the period covering the introduction of the euro, most of the European markets did not show any evidence of cointegration with the US market. Granger causality tests reveal significant causality running from the US to the European markets. Chapter 4 estimates time series of market and idiosyncratic volatilities for the firms composing the index DJ Eurostoxx 50 following the volatility decomposition method of Campbell et al. (2001). There was a positive trend in both market and firm-level volatility and average correlation among firms has increased. This contrasts with the US evidence in Campbell et al. (2001) of a strong positive trend in firm-level volatility, no trend in market volatility and a decrease in the average correlation. Results confirm a statistically significant market risk-return trade-off and that firm-level volatility has no predictive power for subsequent market returns. Chapter 5 analyses the link between FDI and economic growth using panel data. FDI has a stronger positive impact on economic growth in countries with higher levels of education attainment, those that are more open to international trade, have better stock market development and lower rates of population growth and levels of risk. Chapter 6 investigates the determinants of the home bias. Results indicate that capital controls and transaction costs are factors driving the home bias of Australian equity portfolio investment. The home bias lessens if the bilateral trade is higher. Australian investors invest a higher share of their portfolio in countries with better institutions and larger market size.

The aim of this thesis is to analyse international financial integration. Chapter 2 investigates the determinants of international financial integration. Variables including the capital control policy dummy variable, openness to international trade, domestic credit and economic growth are candidates for explaining variation in the degree of international financial integration. Chapter 3 analyses cointegration between the US and several European Union equity markets. Between 1993 and 1998, there is mixed evidence of cointegration ties with the US equity market. Over the period covering the introduction of the euro, most of the European markets did not show any evidence of cointegration with the US market. Granger causality tests reveal significant causality running from the US to the European markets. Chapter 4 estimates time series of market and idiosyncratic volatilities for the firms composing the index DJ Eurostoxx 50 following the volatility decomposition method of Campbell et al. (2001). There was a positive trend in both market and firm-level volatility and average correlation among firms has increased. This contrasts with the US evidence in Campbell et al. (2001) of a strong positive trend in firm-level volatility, no trend in market volatility and a decrease in the average correlation. Results confirm a statistically significant market risk-return trade-off and that firm-level volatility has no predictive power for subsequent market returns. Chapter 5 analyses the link between FDI and economic growth using panel data. FDI has a stronger positive impact on economic growth in countries with higher levels of education attainment, those that are more open to international trade, have better stock market development and lower rates of population growth and levels of risk. Chapter 6 investigates the determinants of the home bias. Results indicate that capital controls and transaction costs are factors driving the home bias of Australian equity portfolio investment. The home bias lessens if the bilateral trade is higher. Australian investors invest a higher share of their portfolio in countries with better institutions and larger market size.

Supported by the investment barriers removal, financial deregulation and improvedmacroeconomic policies during the last three decades, the process of financial integration inthose markets, emerging markets in general and emerging markets within Asia PacificEconomic Cooperation (APEC) in particular, has been pro-actively accessed these days.Moreover, recent trend in globalization in many APEC countries and especially in theemerging markets has triggered a stronger financial integration progress across countries.Nevertheless, it is surprising to find that these countries not only benefited from regionalfinancial integration but also experienced global financial integration in the same period.Markets over the last two decades, which have been highlighted by financial crises occurredamong those APEC emerging countries in the early of the year 1997, have raised political,social and economic questions. One of prominent questions among them: “Are emergingmarkets in APEC regionally or globally integrated?” has raised our interest in measuring theintegration level in these countries. Our thesis paper, therefore, seeks to answer the questionon the degree of financial integration level in nine APEC emerging countries. Collectingstock indexes from the Chile (Santiago Stock Exchange), China (Shanghai Stock Exchange),Indonesia (Indonesia Stock Exchange), Malaysia (Bursa Malaysia), Mexico (Mexican StockExchange), Philippines (Philippines Stock Exchange), Peru (Lima Stock Exchange), Russia(RTS Russian Stock Exchange), Thailand (Thailand Stock Exchange), we computeempirically the integration scores for these nine countries. We then compare the level ofglobal financial integration and regional financial integration for each market during theexamined time. Results of this study indicate that our nine sampling countries integrated indifferent levels. Not surprisingly when we conclude that the financial integration degree ofthose countries has not been stable over time due to various objective reasons that we alsoexamine through our literature review for individual market.

This dissertation addresses three issues in international macroeconomics. The first chapter examines optimal portfolio decisions in a monetary open economy DSGE model. In a complete market environment, Engel and Matsumoto (2005) find that sticky price can generate equity home bias. However, their result is sensitive to the structure of the financial market. In an incomplete market environment, we find “super home bias” in the equilibrium equity portfolio, which casts doubt on the ability of sticky price in describing the observed equity portfolios. We further show that introducing sticky wages helps to match the data. The second chapter analyzes the welfare impact of financial integration in a standard monetary open-economy model. Financial integration may have negative effects on welfare if integration occurs in the presence of nominal price rigidities and constraints on the efficient use of monetary policy. The reason is that financial integration leads to excessive terms of trade volatilities. From a policy perspective, the model implies that developing economies that are experiencing financial integration may attempt to alleviate the welfare cost of integration by stabilizing the exchange rate. This prediction is consistent with the widespread reluctance to following freely floating exchange rates among these economies. On the other hand, for advanced economies that have the ability to operate efficient inflation targeting monetary policies, financial integration is always beneficial. Thus, the model accounts for the observed acceleration in cross-border asset trade among advanced economies in the early 1990s as it was mainly the industrial countries that switched to an inflation targeting regime at the time. The third chapter uses an open-economy neoclassical growth model to explain the saving and investment behavior of the U.S. and a group of other OECD countries. We find that while the model explains investment quite well, it tends to overpredict U.S saving and underpredict saving in the rest of the world. We show that the closed-economy version of the model also predicts saving accurately but that is only because it imposes equality between saving and investment. In effect, the model explains investment not saving behavior.

This dissertation addresses three issues in international macroeconomics. The first chapter examines optimal portfolio decisions in a monetary open economy DSGE model. In a complete market environment, Engel and Matsumoto (2005) find that sticky price can generate equity home bias. However, their result is sensitive to the structure of the financial market. In an incomplete market environment, we find “super home bias” in the equilibrium equity portfolio, which casts doubt on the ability of sticky price in describing the observed equity portfolios. We further show that introducing sticky wages helps to match the data. The second chapter analyzes the welfare impact of financial integration in a standard monetary open-economy model. Financial integration may have negative effects on welfare if integration occurs in the presence of nominal price rigidities and constraints on the efficient use of monetary policy. The reason is that financial integration leads to excessive terms of trade volatilities. From a policy perspective, the model implies that developing economies that are experiencing financial integration may attempt to alleviate the welfare cost of integration by stabilizing the exchange rate. This prediction is consistent with the widespread reluctance to following freely floating exchange rates among these economies. On the other hand, for advanced economies that have the ability to operate efficient inflation targeting monetary policies, financial integration is always beneficial. Thus, the model accounts for the observed acceleration in cross-border asset trade among advanced economies in the early 1990s as it was mainly the industrial countries that switched to an inflation targeting regime at the time. The third chapter uses an open-economy neoclassical growth model to explain the saving and investment behavior of the U.S. and a group of other OECD countries. We find that while the model explains investment quite well, it tends to overpredict U.S saving and underpredict saving in the rest of the world. We show that the closed-economy version of the model also predicts saving accurately but that is only because it imposes equality between saving and investment. In effect, the model explains investment not saving behavior.

This dissertation addresses three issues in international macroeconomics. The first chapter examines optimal portfolio decisions in a monetary open economy DSGE model. In a complete market environment, Engel and Matsumoto (2005) find that sticky price can generate equity home bias. However, their result is sensitive to the structure of the financial market. In an incomplete market environment, we find “super home bias” in the equilibrium equity portfolio, which casts doubt on the ability of sticky price in describing the observed equity portfolios. We further show that introducing sticky wages helps to match the data. The second chapter analyzes the welfare impact of financial integration in a standard monetary open-economy model. Financial integration may have negative effects on welfare if integration occurs in the presence of nominal price rigidities and constraints on the efficient use of monetary policy. The reason is that financial integration leads to excessive terms of trade volatilities. From a policy perspective, the model implies that developing economies that are experiencing financial integration may attempt to alleviate the welfare cost of integration by stabilizing the exchange rate. This prediction is consistent with the widespread reluctance to following freely floating exchange rates among these economies. On the other hand, for advanced economies that have the ability to operate efficient inflation targeting monetary policies, financial integration is always beneficial. Thus, the model accounts for the observed acceleration in cross-border asset trade among advanced economies in the early 1990s as it was mainly the industrial countries that switched to an inflation targeting regime at the time. The third chapter uses an open-economy neoclassical growth model to explain the saving and investment behavior of the U.S. and a group of other OECD countries. We find that while the model explains investment quite well, it tends to overpredict U.S saving and underpredict saving in the rest of the world. We show that the closed-economy version of the model also predicts saving accurately but that is only because it imposes equality between saving and investment. In effect, the model explains investment not saving behavior. / Arts, Faculty of / Vancouver School of Economics / Graduate

Cette thèse de doctorat consiste en trois chapitres étudiant les liens transnationaux dans différents groupes d’économies industrialisées. Le premier chapitre montre que depuis le milieu des années 1980 et 1990, la part de la variance du cycle de l’investissement des entreprises due aux facteurs communs internationaux a augmenté aux États-Unis ainsi que dans les principaux pays Européens. Le second chapitre estime l’impact de la libéralisation et de l’internationalisation des secteurs bancaires et financiers sur les variations communes de la croissance du PIB réel. Depuis la fin des années 1970, un facteur commun international a contribué à la majorité de la croissance économique dans les pays de l’UE, les États-Unis, le Canada et le Japon. Parmi plusieurs indicateurs financiers, bancaires et monétaires, les prix des actions suivi des investissements de portefeuille ont été de loin les principaux déterminants de ce facteur. La suppression des contrôles sur le crédit domestique apparaît comme la seule mesure de libéralisation financière ayant eu un effet substantiel et négatif sur la croissance commune avant 1995. Le troisième chapitre étudie les sources de covariations du PIB réel entre les pays fondateurs de la zone euro. Tout au long de l’UEM, la synchronisation des cycles réels a été robustement reliée aux disparités en matière de politique budgétaire et de gains de productivité totale des facteurs. La synchronisation des cycles était étroitement associée à la similarité de la croissance des coûts salariaux unitaires avant 2007, mais non après 2007 lorsque les différentiels entre les taux d’intérêt à long terme sont devenus une cause majeure de divergence cyclique. / This doctoral thesis consists in three chapters investigating cross-country linkages in different samples of industrialized economies. The first chapter shows that the share of the investment cycle's variance due to common international factors has increased in the United States as well in large European countries. The second chapter estimates the impact of the liberalization and internationalization of the financial and banking sectors on real GDP growth comovements. Since the late 1970s, a common international factor has contribued to most economic growth in th EU countries, the United States, Canada and Japan. Among several financial, bank and monetary indicators, equity prices, followed by portofolio investment have been by far the main drivers of this factor. The removal of controls on domestic credit emerges as the only financial liberalization policy measure with a large and negative effect on common growth before 1995. The third chapter investigates the sources of real GDP's comovements between the founding member states of the euro area. Throughout EMU, real cyclical synchronization was robustly linked to disparities in term of fiscal policy and of total factor productivity gains. Cyclical synchronization was closely related to similarities in unit labour cost growth before 2007, but not after 2007 when long-term interest rate differentials became a major cause of cyclical divergence.

O objetivo deste estudo é verificar o grau de integração econômica entre os países membros do Mercosul (Argentina, Brasil, Paraguai e Uruguai) para o período de julho/1995 a setembro/2011, por meio da análise das séries de tempo dos diferenciais de taxa de juros reais (rids) ex ante. São desenvolvidos testes de estacionariedade nas séries bilaterais, considerando a presença de outliers e quebras estruturais, e nas séries em painel. Os rids são então aproximados por um processo AR(1) e avalia-se a evolução temporal desses coeficientes, estimados recursivamente e via janela móvel. Os resultados dos testes de raiz unitária bilateral apresentaram divergências entre si, enquanto os testes considerando os dados em painel apontaram evidências de estacionariedade. Já os resultados encontrados para as medidas de persistência evidenciam que o processo de integração entre os países está aumentando, ainda que lentamente. / The aim of this paper is to assess the degree of economic integration among the members of Mercosul (Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay) from July/1995 to September/2011, through the time-series analysis ex ante real interest rate differentials (rids). Unit root tests are performed to both panel and bilateral series, considering the presence of outliers and structural breaks. The differentials are then approximated by an AR(1) and its coefficients, estimated recursively and by rolling window, are analyzed. While bilateral unit root tests were not unanimous, panel data presented some evidence of stationarity. Persistence measures pointed to an increasing, albeit slow, integration.

Com o crescimento do comércio entre os países emergentes na última década, um aumento do fluxo de capitais entre esses países tem sido observado, o que defende a hipótese de integração financeira crescente entre esses países e seus respectivos mercados acionários. Ao mesmo tempo, essa categoria de comércio tem gerado um fator grupo que tem explicado parte da diferença significativa de desempenho econômico entre os países emergentes e os desenvolvidos, conhecida como decoupling. Esta pesquisa pretende investigar se existe um fenômeno de decoupling entre os mercados acionários dos BRICS e dos EUA e se esse fenômeno pode ser explicado pela integração entre os mercados dos BRICS de 2003 a outubro de 2012. Foram analisados modelos em que a variável dependente é a diferença absoluta de desempenho entre um portfólio com índices dos mercados acionários dos BRICS e o índice S&P500 do mercado norte-americano. A variável independente consistiu de proxies para integração entre os mercados acionários dos BRICS. Os modelos foram analisados antes e depois da crise financeira de 2008. Adicionalmente, foram gerados modelos sem a inclusão do mercado chinês para verificar seu impacto na relação entre as variáveis estudadas. Entre os resultados, foram encontradas evidências de: (i) um possível decoupling entre os desempenhos dos mercados dos BRICS e dos EUA, principalmente de 2003 a 2006; (ii) uma influência significativa da integração dos mercados acionários dos BRICS no decoupling identificado; (iii) um impacto relevante do mercado chinês nos fenômenos analisados; e (iv) mudanças importantes nos resultados antes e depois da crise financeira de 2008. Esses resultados suportam a hipótese de que a recente interação entre os mercados emergentes tem produzido um fator grupo que tem gerado desempenhos significativamente diferentes dos mercados desenvolvidos, tendo implicações importantes para a teoria da diversificação internacional de portfólios. / With the growth of the trade between emerging countries in the last decade, an increase in the capital flow between these countries has been observed, which defends the hypothesis of rising financial integration between these countries and their respective stock markets. At the same time, this category of trade has generated a group factor that has explained part of the significant difference of economic performance between emerging and developed countries, known as decoupling. This research aims to investigate if there is a decoupling phenomenon between the BRICS stock markets and the US market and if this phenomenon can be explained by the integration between the BRICS markets from 2003 to October of 2012. I analyzed models in which the dependent variables is the absolute difference of performance between a portfolio with indexes of BRICS stock markets and the S&P500 index of the north american market. The independent variable consisted of proxies to the integration of the BRICS stock markets. I analyzed the models before and after the financial crisis of 2008. Additionally, models were generated without the inclusion of the chinese market in order to verify its impact on the relation between the studied variables. Among the results, I found evidences of: (i) a possible decoupling between the performances of BRICS and US markets, mainly from 2003 to 2006; (ii) a significant influence of the integration between BRICS markets and on the identified decoupling; (iii) a relevant impact of the chinese market on the analyzed phenomena; and (iv) important changes on the results before and after the financial crisis of 2008. These results support the hypothesis that the recent interaction between the emerging markets has produced a group factor that has generated performances significantly different from the developed countries, having important implications to the theory of international diversification of portfolios.