G15 - International Financial MarketsReturn

Using developing countries in Europe for context, this study examines the complex relationship between financial crises and financial integration. We use panel data comprising 37 countries in Europe, including Iceland, Belarus, Ukraine, Turkey, and Russia from 2000-2019 and the general method of moments. Our findings show that there is a positive relationship between financial integration and development and economic growth. In addition, the results suggest that a higher degree of financial integration is not necessarily increasing financial fragility during a financial crisis. Therefore, the results show that it is a self-defeating policy for developing countries to apply a strategy of financial protectionism over a financial crisis.

Price changes on all international financial and commodity markets have shown a sig- nificant correlation. The correlation dependence increased due to macroeconomic changes that led to cyclical economic trends caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. In the new economic circumstances, there has been a change in investment strategy of individual and institutional investors. The investment portfolios have increased in demand related to the purchase of gold, seen as a safe-haven asset, which has led to significant growth in aggregate demand on the international precious metals market. This paper deals with a dynamic conditional correlation (DCC) between the investment in gold as an asset and the movement of major world market indices. We used cryptocurrency (bitcoin) volatility as an independent variable in the model. We tested its correlation to the other major market indices and gold as a safe-haven asset. Related to a proposed model based on GARCH DCC and the Generalised Reduced Gradient (GDR) algorithm, we set up the Hedging Effectiveness (HE) index and an optimally weighted investment portfolio.

This paper employs a dynamic herding approach that takes herding under different market regimes into account. We use daily data on US stock returns for the S&P 500 ranging from 2006 to 2017. The results of the linear model yield no evidence of herding. However, the findings of switching regression of Bai and Perron (1998) demonstrate evidence of herding during crisis regimes of S&P 500. The alternative approach of Markov switching also supports these findings.

For successful monetary policy implementation, it is crucial to know the pricing behaviour of banks and the determinants of banks' lending rates. With the onset of the global financial crisis, markets in unsecured lending ceased to provide a reliable level of market costs, while markets in cross-currency products gained significance. The aim of this research is to gauge the extent to which the EUR-CZK cross-currency basis spread is reflected in the corporate lending rates provided by Czech banks. We discovered that just over 50% of the changes in the basis pass through to the lending rates. The greater part of this pass-through can be identified in EUR lending rates, which are, as a result, higher. In the case of CZK, the negative basis should tend to decrease the lending rates. However, the impact is fairly limited, and we were not able to confirm any significant long-run relationship.

This paper analyses the impact of German macroeconomic news announcements and ECB meeting days on the conditional volatility of the Czech, Polish, and Hungarian Foreign Exchange markets as proxied by CZK/EUR, PLN/EUR, and HUF/EUR exchange rate returns over six years (2010-2015). A currency intervention period (11/2013-2015) in the Czech Republic is examined separately. EGARCH-type models with normal and Student's t-distributions are employed. The comprehensive analysis shows the following results. (i) The IFO index, Factory Orders increase and the PMI index from the Service Sector, the labour market data decrease conditional volatility of PLN/EUR. (ii) The IFO index and Industrial Production increase conditional volatility of HUF/EUR on the day of the announcement. (iii) Data from the labour market has a calming effect on CZK/EUR after the central bank launched currency interventions. (iv) IFO index increases and the PMI index from the Manufacturing Sector decreases conditional volatility of CZK/EUR before currency interventions were introduced (2010-11/2013).

In this survey article, we present a rich extent of literature on volatility and its propagation on financial markets via spillovers. We document how new approaches or improved existing methodologies lead to results that offer richer insights than those derived from standard econometric techniques. Moreover, the implications of the results can be related to a wide set of markets as the surveyed articles cover emerging and developed European markets as well as the United States.

This paper analyses the dynamic nexus and bidirectional spillover effect between stocks and exchange rates in seven major emerging markets and one developed market. Three types of BEKK-GARCH models were utilized in the research process - basic BEKK-GARCH, asymmetric BEKK-GARCH and asymmetric BEKK-GARCH with structural breaks. Model with breaks gave the best fitting results in six out of eight cases. VAR based volatility spillover method serves as a complementary methodology. Results showed that dynamic connection between two major asset classes behaves in accordance with the portfolio balanced approach in emerging markets, while the nexus is in line with the flow oriented theory in the US market. In addition, according to the BEKK-GARCH results, shock and volatility spillover effect is predominantly directed from exchange rate market to stock market in all countries, while in the VAR based model it is not so obvious.

The macroeconomic announcements and their effects on stock markets are considered to be a measure of stock market integration. Earlier studies show that integrated stock markets exhibit immediate reaction to international macroeconomic news, whereas partially integrated or segmented markets mostly do not react to such announcements. This paper investigates the effect of surprises disguised in the macroeconomic announcements made by the European Monetary Union on CIVETS (Colombia, Indonesia, Vietnam, Egypt, Turkey, and South Africa) stock markets. Daily stock market data starting from January 1, 2007 to December 31, 2012 is analysed. The impact of macroeconomic announcements is estimated by using EGARCH model. The results show that the returns of four out of six CIVETS stock markets significantly react on the day of macroeconomic announcements, whereas the market volatility of all markets is affected due to the EMU's announcements. The results also show that not all types of announcements have significant impact on returns and volatilities in CIVETS, highlighting the importance of the contents of macroeconomic surprises.

The aim of this paper is to examine the interaction patterns between equity and real estate returns in 8 emerging economies from Central and Southeastern Europe. For that purpose we apply the TAR model entailing two regimes and endogenously determined threshold, delay parameter, and lag length. The results suggest that in all the countries, the interaction between equity and real estate returns is subject to regime switching in at least one direction. Equity returns in general seem to be much more sensitive to real estate returns changes, while the reaction of real estate returns to changes in equity returns is not always present and it is much more subdued and delayed. In the majority of the countries, the value of the threshold is large and negative suggesting that equity returns (real estate returns) react differently to large negative changes of real estate returns (equity returns) when compared to changes of different magnitudes and alternative signs. Equity returns react more strongly to large negative changes of the real estate returns than to small negative or positive real estate returns changes, while the reaction of the real estate returns to the equity returns changes varies across countries, making neither regime more prevalent.

This paper relates to the initial public offering problem and companies' profitability levels before and after this event. In the presented study, profitability ratios in the year before initial public offering increase over the previous year, and then, after the IPO, fall. This confirms the phenomenon of distorting the level of profit before the IPO and partially equity dilution after the IPO.

This study analyses the Czech, Hungarian, and Polish currencies by examining the statistical characteristics of the Swiss franc as well as the ECB monetary policy in order to indicate shocks in these markets between 2002 and 2013. The abundance of monetary easing decisions can be used as a viable sign of market misbehaviour in addition to the low probability of extreme exchange rate fluctuations. Indeed, the temporal distribution of extreme currency fluctuations provides vital information about the nature of the recent crisis. Contagions can be defined as increased correlations during periods of crisis, while divergence means a significant decrease in this regard. Methodologically, common movements in this study were calculated by using DCC-GARCH modelling. The findings of this study underline the special features of the Swiss franc exchange rate, notably that its extreme fluctuations can be managed by using swap agreements and that it tended towards divergences during the crisis era. These results support the idea of avoiding lending in reserve currencies.

In this paper, we examine the efficiency of the transmission of information across the stock markets of Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Romania, and Slovakia, as well as the relative importance and influence of advanced equity markets of Germany and France on the abovementioned markets. The analysis is carried out using maximum likelihood regressions, Generalized Autoregressive Conditional Heteroskedastic (GARCH) models, and vector autoregression (VAR) estimations. The empirical results suggest that the Central and Eastern European stock markets react to the arrival of price innovations from Germany and France, but national stock market price innovations account for more error variance compared to those of Germany and France, and generally show an increasing responsiveness over time, which could be interpreted as progress in the European financial integration.

This paper examines the role of financial development in promoting innovation-related activity using panel data for seven East Asian countries for the period from 1998-2009. On overall financial development, we find that, financial sector size and the overall activity of banks and stock market exert positive influences on patent applications. In particular, our results show that all measures of banking development are positively and significantly related to the number of patent applications after controlling for variables known to affect innovative activities. Interestingly, we find no evidence that variation in patent applications is affected by a country's stock market development. The findings suggest that banking sector plays important roles in supporting innovation activity in East Asian countries.

This paper investigates multiscale interdependence between the stock markets of Germany, Austria, France, and the United Kingdom. Wavelet energy additive decomposition was analyzed to investigate which scales capture the most energy (volatility), whereas a wavelet cross-correlation estimator was used to analyze comovement and lead/lag relationship between stock markets' return dynamics on a scale-by-scale basis. The main findings of the paper are as follows. First, major financial market crises had a significant impact on return volatility of investigated stock markets. Among them, the global financial crisis of 2007-2008 had the greatest and the most durable impact. Second, the lowest scale (associated with stock markets' return dynamics over a 2-4 days horizon) and the second lowest scale (associated with stock markets' return dynamics over 4-8 days horizon) MODWT (maximal overlap discrete wavelet transform) decompositions of stock markets' returns captured the greatest share (together about 70-80%) of indices' returns volatility. Third, comovement between stock market returns is a scale-dependent phenomenon. Fourth, a strong comovement between stock market returns of Germany, France, and the United Kingdom exists at all scales, while the Austrian stock market is less correlated with the three biggest stock markets in Europe. Fifth, the dynamics of stock market returns seems to be well time-synchronized at daily (raw returns) and the lowest scale (scale ) return decomposition as most of the return innovations are transmitted between stock markets intraday. Sixth, at the highest investigated scale (associated with stock markets' return dynamics over a 64-128 days horizon), significant leads and lags between dynamics of stock markets' returns were detected. The time-synchronization of the stock markets' return dynamics for investments of 64 to 128 days horizon is less perfect than for investments of shorter investment horizons.

We tested the hypothesis of procyclicality against the economic activity and stock exchange of Croatia - as a country preparing for EU accession - in order to investigate the spillover effect, i.e., the degree and pace of integration into larger financial markets such as the EU. The empirical findings obtained in application of OLS methodology for the 2000-2010 period provided evidence that EU accession is a trigger for a closer financial integration of a candidate country as Croatia; and a trigger for a rise in stock prices and economic revival, was reflected in by an increase in GDP and large FDI.

Growth in the intensity of the inverse relationship between the US dollar exchange rate and the Brent crude oil price has been observed over the last decade. This may be linked, among other things, to the growing role of commodities as an alternative investment instrument at times of excess liquidity and low interest rates on global markets. This analysis examines monthly data from January 1982 to September 2010. Since 2002 the direction of the relationship in the Granger causality sense has been from the dollar exchange rate to the oil price. A weakening of the dollar of 1% causes the Brent oil price to rise by 2.1%. The contrary movements in the Brent oil price and the dollar exchange rate are a factor dampening the impact of sharp fluctuations in the dollar price of oil on "non-dollar" economies, including the Czech Republic. This dampening effect was clearly visible in the period of sharp oil price growth in 2007 and 2008.

The aim of this paper is to shed light on Collateralized Debt Obligation (CDO) valuation based on data before and during the 2007-2009 global turmoil. We present the One Factor Gaussian Copula Model and examine five hypotheses regarding CDO sensitivity to entry parameters. For our modelling we used data of the CDX NA IG 5Y V3 index from 20 September 2007 until 27 February 2009 and we appropriately transform its quotes into CDO quotes. Based on the results we discovered four main deficiencies of the CDO market: i) an insufficient analysis of underlying assets by both investors and rating agencies; ii) investment decisions arise from the valuation model based on expected cash flows, they neglected other factors such as mark-tomarket losses; iii) mispriced correlation; and finally iv) obligation of the mark-to-market valuation. Based on the mentioned recommendations we conclude that the CDO market has a chance to be regenerated but in smaller volumes compared to the pre-crisis period. However, it would then be more conscious, driven by smarter motives rather than by pure arbitrage and profit incentives.

This research investigates the emergence of stock market in the Czech Republic. We use Czech mass privatization as an experiment that allows us to analyze under what conditions a viable stock market arises. On the Prague Stock Exchange (PSE), unlike its counterparts in Poland or Hungary, exceptionally large amounts of shares were delisted e.g. excluded from public trading soon after trading at this market began in 1993. We estimate the determinants of shares delisting analyzing the period 1993-2004. Using firm-level data on listed and delisted companies we show that it was possible to prevent massive delisting if certain pre-privatization and privatization characteristics of the companies had been taken into account when deciding which companies to place on the stock exchange for public trading following the mass privatization. This result has important implications for establishing stock markets in emerging economies.

This paper examines the long-run relationship between oil prices and stock market prices of G7 countries by using Robinson (1994a) tests for fractional integration and cointegration instead of the classical approaches. Having found that the unit root null hypothesis cannot be rejected for any individual series, it is examined whether oil prices and stock market prices have a fractional cointegration relationship. Test results on the residuals from the cointegrating regressions indicate that there is evidence of fractional cointegration between oil prices and DAX 30, Dow Jones, FTSE 100 and SP-TSX indices while there is no evidence of fractional cointegration for others.

The portfolio theory and the basic ideas of Markowitz can be applied to currency investments as well as to classical asset classes as shares or bonds. The question whether currency investments can be treated as efficient asset classes is not finally answered in theory and practice. This article applies a modified historical simulation approach to shares, bonds and currencies. The questions according to the efficiency of currency investments are answered empirically from a euro-investor's point of view. The empirical analysis leads to the result that currency investments are not efficient in general. Some specific cases exist. The used data lead to the result that the Czech koruna seems to be an efficient asset class and leveraging a euro portfolio by other currencies is useful as well. But it has to be doubted if these effects will remain in the future.

During different GDP growth regimes, the dynamics of global financial markets impacts the Slovenian stock exchange with varying intensity. We propose a smooth transition regression model to explain Slovene stock exchange index returns employing financial and macroeconomic variables. According to our model, the reaction of the stock market to several of the explanatory variables depends on the magnitude of GDP growth. The weaker relationship between Slovene stock exchange index returns and S&P 500 returns in the period of lower or negative GDP growth could be explained by less developed financial market in Slovenia and therefore not closely linked interchange of securities.

In this paper I study the main determinants of successful reaccess to international capital markets on a set of emerging market countries after a financial crisis. I focus on three components of the reaccess strategy: commitment to pay, ability to pay, and global liquidity. I employ a panel of 49 countries over a nearly 30-year period and apply a simple probit approach to show that, indeed, a sound external position and a sustainable debt profile, accompanied by a favorable global liquidity environment, are the key considerations for creditors considering whether to resume lending.

This contribution focuses on the modelling of volatility of returns in Czech and US stock markets using a two-factor stochastic volatility model, i.e. the volatility process is modeled as a superposition of two autoregressive processes. As the volatility is not observable, the logarithm of the daily range is employed as the proxy. The estimation of parameters and volatility extraction are performed using the Kalman filter. We have obtained a meaningful decomposition of the volatility process into one highly persistent factor and another quickly mean-reverting factor. Moreover, we have shown that although the overall level of the volatility of returns is roughly the same in both markets, the US market exhibits substantially lower volatility of the volatility process.

An exposure to macroeconomic risk factors across banks is a source of systemic risk that influences the banking sector performance. In this paper, we present some evidence on macroeconomic variables affecting the non-performing loans (NPL) ratio in the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Slovenia. The GDP growth might have improved borrowers' ability to serve their bank loans in Slovenia, meanwhile the accelerating NPL ratio dynamics has failed to support the hypothesis that the GDP growth fosters an improvement in the NPL ratio in the case of Slovakia. Meanwhile deceleration in the NPL ratio on export impulses has supported a procyclical theory in the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Slovenia. The response of non-performing loans to inflation supports the hypothesis about the lowering inflation that decelerates the NPL ratio. Savings have accelerated the NPL ratio in the case of Slovakia and Slovenia. The banking sector performance is possibly reflecting a favourable assessment of the economic growth and an increasing indebtedness of private sector could become causes of concern if the macroeconomic environment should develop less favourably.

The behaviour of selected European stock indices in the period 2001-2005 was analysed. UKX (GB), DAX (Germany), CAC (France) and MIBTEL (Italy) represented well established West European markets, whereas PX-50 (Czech Republic), SKSM (Slovak Republic), BUX (Hungary) and WIG (Poland) were the examples of Central European emerging ones. The subject of this analysis were logarithmic daily returns computed from closing values of corresponding indices. Cross correlation function reached typical values 0.7 (West Europe) and 0.4 (Central Europe) excepting the Slovak Republic. The patterns of both common and solitary movements were revealed with the use of principal component and cluster analysis. To establish some dynamical relations in return time-series, vector autoregression models and Granger causality tests were employed. As for West Europe, the causal chain UKX_MIBTEL_DAX_CAC was revealed. On the other hand, the form of this chain for Central Europe was PX-50_BUX_WIG. Finally, the behaviour of both BUX and WIG returns was strongly determined by all West European counterparts.

Financial sector is prone to cyclical movements and procyclicality of the financial system may endanger financial stability, which depends on asset prices and loan losses due to the fact that the deterioration of bank assets through non-performing loans is characteristics of banking distress. This was the case during Japan's lost decade and the Nordic banking crises. Even the classic banking panics of the Great Depression are being revised in the light of new evidence on the fundamental deterioration of bank assets. Much empirical evidence supports the view that balance sheet variables, such as net worth affect investment and produce business cycle dynamics. In an upswing, the greater availability of credit leads to higher asset prices, which then serve as collateral for more borrowing. Relatively unstable development of share prices on the capital market increases equity risk. This paper is based on the presumption that the stability of macro economic environment, less pronounced cyclical movements and insignificant procyclicality between GDP and equity (used as collaterals for credit insurance) lower equity risk. There was proved no significant procyclicality between collaterals and GDP according to low stock market capitalization. And due to the relation that equity risk (as a part of market risk) is determined by unstable development of shares prices, I accepted the hypothesis of low equity risk in the analysed transition economies on the basis of tested procyclicality.

The EU-25 will start operating on May 1, 2004. This paper reviews the position of the new Member States (NMS) in the Economic and Monetary Union (EMU) with respect to future adoption of euro. It argues that further integration in this area is much more about the deepening of the political integrity of the EU than about lowering transaction costs. However, a debate on the political and economic implications resulting from the adoption of euro by the NMS is full of unsolved issues. The central one is to define the possible scenario of the path to the euro. It implies actions on both sides: the NMS need to implement many economic reforms and enhance the political debate on the benefits of the euro adoption. The EU side must proceed with reforms, including the redefinition of the Stability and Growth Pact. The lack of reforms may hamper the political position of the EU.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the time-series and distributional properties of Central European stock returns. We test the random walk hypothesis and then consider an alternative to random walk - the ARIMA model for stock prices. The behavior of volatility of returns over time is studied using the GARCH-t model which also allows us to learn more about the distribution properties of stock returns. We employ the BDS test to assess the ability of the estimated GARCH-t model to capture all nonlinearities in stock returns. Our empirical findings reveal that the Czech and Hungarian stock market indices are predictable from the time series of historical prices, whereas that of Poland is not. The returns on all three indices are conditionally heteroskedastic and non-normal. The estimated number of degrees of freedom ranges from 18 to 4.

The paper discusses the prospects for capital inflows to the Czech Republic before Economic and Monetary Union accession. It reviews the potential costs and benefits of capital flows and the history of capital flows to the Czech Republic, before turning to future capital inflows. It notes that different theoretical models provide different predictions about future capital inflows. To get further insight, the paper discusses the future capital inflows from the perspective of nonresidents' supply of external savings and residents' demand for external borrowing and from the perspective of external vulnerability related to large foreign direct investment (FDI) inflow. It concludes that FDI is likely to decline somewhat in the future, but increasing sovereign borrowing needs could lead to higher inflow of portfolio capital. The final section discusses the potential for capital inflows resulting from the so-called convergence plays and concludes that there is presently little incentive for convergence-play related capital inflows.