In this thesis I study the investment climate in the four rapidly growing emerging economies Brazil, Russia, India and China (BRIC). The first study, Chapter 2, uses a bivariate EGARCH methodology with time varying conditional correlation to study the global and regional integration of the BRICs and to identify the existence of diversification opportunities for international investors. The second study, Chapter 3, employs a restricted version of the model to explore the relationship between equity market returns and volatility of equity returns in the BRIC countries and global oil prices. Chapter 4 is an extension of Chapter 3, and focuses on the sustainability of Russia???s economic growth in view of its large dependence on oil income. A qualitative analysis of the oil industry in Russia, including an overview of the operations of the largest oil producing companies, government regulations, oil production and proven oil reserves, is conducted for the purpose of this study. The last study, Chapter 5, uses a panel data methodology to explore the determinants of changes in sovereign bond spreads for the BRICs as an asset class and for each of the BRIC countries individually. I conclude that the regional and global level of integration of the BRICs is relatively low, and portfolio investors can enjoy sound diversification benefits particularly by taking investment positions in the Indian and Chinese equity markets. Despite the aggressive economic growth of the BRICs and their increased oil consumption, the volatility of stock returns from the BRICs does not have a significant impact on global oil prices; however, oil prices do impact the volatility of equity returns in India and China, and particularly the level of returns and volatility of equity returns in Russia. Based on this and the qualitative analysis in Chapter 4, it is concluded that in the short to medium term Russia???s continued economic growth will depend on increased reinvestment in the oil industry and in the longer term the government should diversify its revenue sources and focus on development of other sectors within the economy. Lastly, it is concluded that sovereign risk in the BRICs is driven by different global and country-specific factors, hence risk should be observed on an individual country basis and not for the BRICs as an asset class.

This thesis investigates the pricing of sovereign credit risk in the bond and credit default swap (CDS) market for Turkey. Using daily data, CDS premiums and Emerging Market Bond Index (EMBI) are examined over the period 1, January 2001- 20, June 2012. Firstly, the short-run and long-run determinants of CDS premiums are compared with those of EMBI, employing the Autoregressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) bounds testing approach. Then, the basis, the difference between CDS and EMBI spreads is analyzed seeking the factors which drive the two markets apart. Empirical results reveal that the CDS and bond market price credit events differently and hence, two spreads deviates in the short run. On the other hand, cointegration analysis shows that two prices move together in the long run, as theory predicts. Applying VECM analysis, the findings suggest that CDS spreads move ahead of the EMBI in the terms of price adjustment.

Submitted by Miguel de Campos Pinto Coelho (miguelpintocoelho@gmail.com) on 2016-03-01T02:08:17Z No. of bitstreams: 1 2015-16_S2-932304-Miguel_Pinto_Coelho.pdf: 1544988 bytes, checksum: 0410eb0c13fc1b0030abc341426188b1 (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Ana Luiza Holme (ana.holme@fgv.br) on 2016-03-01T12:28:51Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 2015-16_S2-932304-Miguel_Pinto_Coelho.pdf: 1544988 bytes, checksum: 0410eb0c13fc1b0030abc341426188b1 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2016-03-01T13:13:25Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 2015-16_S2-932304-Miguel_Pinto_Coelho.pdf: 1544988 bytes, checksum: 0410eb0c13fc1b0030abc341426188b1 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2016-01-18 / This project investigates if there was any influence of credit rating agencies and long-term government bond yields on each other before, during and after Europe’s sovereign debt crisis. This is addressed by estimating the relationship and causality between sovereign debt ratings or bond yields and macroeconomic and structural variables following a different procedure to explain ratings and bond yields. It is found evidence that, in distressed periods, ratings and yields do affect one another. This suggests that a rating downgrade might create a self-fulfilling prophecy, leading relatively stable countries to default. / Neste projeto, investigamos se as agências de rating e as taxas de juro de longo prazo da dívida soberana tiveram uma influência recíproca antes, durante e após a crise da dívida soberana Europeia. Esta análise é realizada, estimando a relação existente entre os ratings da dívida soberana ou taxas de juro e factores macroeconomicos e estruturais, através de uma diferente aplicação de metodologias utilizadas para este efeito. Os resultados obtidos demonstram que, no período da crise soberana, os ratings e as taxas de juros tiveram um mútuo impacto, sugerindo que as descidas dos ratings podem ter conduzido a profecias auto-realizáveis, levando países relativamente estáveis a um eventual incumprimento