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With the process of financial globalization, many thousands of stock traders and stock brokers endeavor to seek the best portfolio diversification. Ever since the emergence of stock exchanges, whether international stock/equity markets are correlated or not generates more and more attention by investors. Based upon the augmented Dickey- Fuller (ADF) test and the error correction model (ECM), this paper tests the cointegration of three of the biggest stock exchanges in the world. Two periods, 1991-2000 and 2001-2010 are studied. The main finding is that there is no cointegration in the long run period among the tested markets, but in short run Dow Jone Industiral Average (DJIA) will affect Deutscher Aktien- Indice (DAX) and Nikkei Heikin Kabuka, 225 (NIKKEI 225).

In this dissertation I explain the relationship among inflation volatility, rational bubbles, and asset prices. In addition, I investigate the transmission of asset prices and volatility among countries. In the second chapter, which deals with the relationship between inflation volatility and asset prices, my empirical analysis shows that real stock returns tend to co-vary negatively with expected inflation during periods of stable inflation, but co-vary positively with expected inflation during periods of volatile inflation for 16 countries. To investigate the relationship between rational bubbles and asset prices in the third chapter, I formulate an information error model which allows one to derive the measure of non-fundamentals in stock prices in a straightforward manner. This study provides a new method by specifying rational bubble measures that follow the Weibull distribution. As a result, my empirical analysis is the first step in applying survival analysis to bubbles, and it reveals preliminary evidence that there is the increasing bursting rate at a decreasing rate for extraneous or instrinsic bubbles in the U.S. stock market. In the fourth chapter, which deals with the transmission of asset prices and volatility, I investigate how the 1997 crisis has changed the Korean market by focusing on price and volatility spillovers from the U.S., Chinese, and Japanese markets. I have used daily stock prices from January 3, 1995 to July 31, 2007 and employed an EGARCH model. New information on stock prices originated in the U.S. market was more transmitted to the Korean market for all periods. The price spillover effect from the Japanese market to the Korean market became stronger from the crisis period. The influence of U.S. and Japanese innovations on market volatility increased after the crisis period. However, the magnitude of spillover effects from the Chinese market to the Korean market remained small and stable between the prior- and post-crisis periods and the volatility spillover effect remained stable for all periods. Asymmetry in the spillover effects on market volatility was pronounced in the Korean market after the financial crisis.

In the early 1980's several developing countries introduced liberalisation policies in their economies. One of the reforms they implemented was to develop their stock markets. The theoretical justification for the liberalisation process was provided by the work of McKinnon (1973) and Shaw (1973). Their model follows neo-classical assumptions on savings and investment. Other researchers later completed their model with respect to the stock market, and claimed that its development could benefit the emerging economies [Cho (1986)]. The aim of this thesis is to empirically examine if stock market development in a sample of emerging countries assisted economic growth or not. To examine this, we form three research questions. The first question is: what is the direct impact of stock market development on economic growth in developing countries? The second question refers to the indirect impact of stock market development on the economy via stock price volatility. The question is: has stock market volatility increased following liberalisation policies or not? The third question is: have the emerging stock markets become more integrated with each other and with developed markets following liberalisation? Stock market integration is a result of stock market development so we should expect these stock markets to become more integrated after they were liberalised. In examining these issues, we take into account the special circumstances surrounding each country. To this end we provide an overview of some of the emerging economies we examine and discuss the implications of their individual characteristics for our analysis. We carry out a literature survey which suggests that research in this area has been scarce. The few empirical evidence on these questions are mixed. This thesis aims to contribute to this growing literature by providing additional evidence on the questions we posed and by overcoming some of the problems which are inherent in the methodologies followed by previous researchers who examined these issues.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the effects of a decade of financial deregulation on stock markets in term of market integration within Asia-Pacific countries. It investigates the existence of inter-relationships between five emerging and two developed stock markets in the region. Then, it examines the 'causal' relationships between each market and its country's economic fundamentals. The study is comprised of three major sections of empirical analysis: In the first section, three tests, correlation coefficients, unit root tests, and cointegration tests, are used to examine the short-term as well as long-term changes in the co-movement patterns of Asia-Pacific stock markets before and after financial deregulation. The second section employs VAR model to estimate and analyze the dynamic interdependencies among Asia-Pacific stock markets and trace out the effects of shocks to those markets. It also examines whether there is one or more dominant or particularly influential market within the region. Finally, the third section investigates the existence of interactions between stock returns and domestic economic fundamentals by applying causality tests. It focuses on the predictive content of historical information of stock returns in explaining economic variables, and hence, it tests whether the economic variables do or do not Granger-cause stock returns, and vice versa. The study provides a number of interesting and important results which can help us to understand the nature of stock market integration as well as evolution of financial integration in this increasingly important region. The study suggests that financial liberalization has enhanced the inter-relationships among Asia-Pacific stock markets, and that therefore high capital controls account for instances of low interactions. The study shows that the effects of a shock to stock markets are completed within two days, indicating that stock markets adjust quickly, but not instantaneously, to all relevant information in the region. The study also finds that Japan and Hong Kong are the most influential markets in terms of their effects on other markets in the region. Moreover, the result of the absence of cointegration may simply rule out the existence of a long- run equilibrium tending relationship, but does not invalidate any short-run relationships which may arise due to profit-seeking opportunities in transactions. Furthermore, examining the 'causal' relationships between a stock market and economic fundamentals shows that the exchange rate and the corporate bond rate are the only two out of several factors tested that are 'causal' of stock returns in many markets in the Asia-Pacific region. In short, the results are consistent with the view that stock returns only respond to monetary variables. Hence, one possible implication is that most of the indicators of macroeconomic fundamentals in the Asia-Pacific region are not the predictors of stock returns and that information captured in a stock market does not reflect changes in its country's macroeconomic fundamentals.

This thesis began with an introduction and literature review in Chapter 1. In Chapter 2, I propose a new intertemporal asset-pricing model based on heterogeneous beliefs to bring together the concurrent theories that could generate value and momentum effects. In this model, I assume that such behaviour occurs simply due to an agnostic view of forecasting returns considering the dominant strategy in the market. Given the endogenous price determination in the model, individuals were expected to adjust their own strategies to match the dominant strategy to obtain higher profits (from more accurate fore- casts). The idea was to bridge the literature on intertemporal asset allocation with the one on heterogeneous beliefs. In Chapters 3 and 4, I consider the empirical problem of implementing Markowitz (1952) mean-variance optimisation on a portfolio of stocks. In particular, I focus on the out-of-sample performance of the minimum-variance portfolio obtained from the use of asset group information and regularisation methods to obtain more stable estimates of the parameters in the model. Specifically, in Chapter 3, I introduce the use of regularisation methods to the portfolio selection problem and a literature review on the subject. In Chapter 4, I propose two alternative approaches for the use of the group structure information and to obtain more stable and regularised minimum-variance portfolios. I show that these procedures produce significantly better results in the portfolios compared with the unconstrained minimum-variance portfolios estimated from the whole data set in terms of portfolio variance and the Sharpe ratio.

This thesis investigates the impact of terrorist attacks on equity financial markets. It employs traditional event study approaches to identify and measure stock market reactions to terrorist attacks in New York on September 11, 2001, and subsequent terrorist attacks in Madrid, London and Bali. Three studies are presented. The first study investigates the impact of September 11 on the tenant firms within the World Trade Centre. The second study investigates industry effects following the Madrid and London bombings. The third study undertakes a sensitivity analysis to different event study techniques over the various terrorist attacks. The results from the three studies suggest that equity markets can remain efficient in the wake of terrorist events. Terrorist events can trigger large abnormal movement in both equity prices and volume traded. These price and volume effects are influenced by industry effects. Terrorism has a differential impact on stock markets and industry portfolios within stock markets. The detailed analysis presented in this thesis can be used to exploit that industry effect and can be employed to guide diversification strategies that could minimize terrorist risk through industry diversification. The thesis has also evaluated alternative event study methods and produced a critical analysis of event study methodology. It shows clearly that methodological choices can and do significantly influence results. The thesis contributes to eliminating some uncertainty about the markets response to terrorist events, and identifies opportunities for reducing terrorist risk in stock markets.

No description available.

No description available.