Asia Pacific Financial Markets in Comparative Perspective: Issues and Implications for the 21st Century: Volume 86

The Asia Pacific region is a geographical appellation that many still feel with justification will be the dynamic economic arena for this century. Accepting this premise and acknowledging the importance of the role of finance in that development brings with it the imperative to gain a greater understanding of the unique financial characteristics of the region. This chapter has two major pursuits. The first goal is to provide some background on the various markets of the region. An understanding of institutional detail (size and scope) of the relevant markets affords a view that lends or detracts from the credibility of intermarket comparisons. An exposure to institutional detail also supplies information that may bear on the statistical results of the empirical analysis. The vital roles played by stock markets of pricing capital, issuing new shares, providing a liquidity-creating secondary feature, serving as a vehicle for asset transfer and providing a linkage to international capital markets are as important to emerging markets as to developed countries. However, fixed income markets are still not as well developed in emerging markets and therefore an even heavier capital sourcing burden is placed on emerging stock markets. The Asia Pacific region derivatives markets (futures and options) play their risk-transfer role in equity and fixed income areas and are integral to the scene. The second pursuit in this chapter is to provide a thumbnail sketch of each of the contributions. The summary will include the nature of the empirical work, the type of methodology or statistical technique applied, and the results. In addition the results will be viewed in light of any reinforcement or digression from a priori expectations drawn from other markets. This volume contains 19 original research papers from 36 authors who represent major academic and financial institutions around the globe.

We study up to 27 years of weekly data on nine currencies to examine the importance of the Japanese yen in exchange rate determination in North and Southeast Asia. We combine a time-varying methodology alongside a focus on long-run equilibrium. Our findings suggest that the Japanese yen had virtually no influence on Asian exchange rates in the 10-year period prior to the Asian financial crisis in the late 1990s. Since the crisis, the yen and the German mark in particular have exerted a significant influence over the region's exchange rates except for the Chinese yuan, the Hong Kong dollar and the Malaysian ringgit, which continue to be closely related to the US dollar.

This study investigates the effect of volatility scaling on valuing financial assets by examining the long-term return properties of the spot USD/AUD. Tests are conducted for evidence of a scaling law in USD/AUD returns. The economic implications of dependence and non-normality of the distribution of returns are explored using the Garman and Kohlhagen modified Black–Scholes model for valuing foreign currency options. The results suggest that the USD/AUD does not conform to a stable distribution and that as a result of differential scaling laws, Garman and Kohlhagen option values using implied annual volatility will be consistently too high or too low.

The study investigates the interdependence of the stock markets between the following countries Hong Kong, Japan, Korea, Taiwan, Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and the advanced stock markets of Australia, Germany, United Kingdom and the United States. Using data from 1994 to 2003 the paper employs both correlation, causality and cointegration analysis to describe the behaviour of the above stock market indices over the period pre and post the 1997 Asian Financial Crises. The paper investigates both the short- and long-run relationships between the Asian markets and the markets of selected advanced industrial countries.

This paper provides evidence of financial linkages across countries as a channel of contagion of currency crises in the case of the 1997 Asian crisis using high-frequency data, focusing on the hardest hit countries in the region: Thailand, Indonesia, Malaysia, and Korea. Stock markets in the region were found to play an important role in transmitting initial and local shocks beyond its country of origin to other emerging economies during the 1997 crisis. Stock market linkages seem to have contributed importantly to the quick and wide-scale contagion of the ensuing exchange rate crisis across countries in the 1997 Asian crisis episode.

In this paper, we investigate the information content of non-current assets (NCA) among firms listed on the main board of Bursa Malaysia. Specifically, we investigate the information content of tangible and intangible NCA during the economic crisis period of 1997–1998. Our empirical analysis uses time-varying and fixed effects models for the period 1995–1999. We measure information content based on the association of analysts’ earnings forecasts errors (AFE) with both capitalized tangible and intangible NCA. We find evidence of higher information content in tangible NCA compared to intangible NCA during the Asian economic crisis period of 1997–1998. Our evidence is consistent with the assumption that tangible assets are more reliable compared to intangible assets for prediction of expected cash flows during economic crisis periods.

This study examines return and volatility spillovers from the US and Japanese stock markets to three South Asian capital markets – (i) the Bombay Stock Exchange, (ii) the Karachi Stock Exchange and (iii) the Colombo Stock Exchange. We construct a univariate EGARCH spillover model that allows the unexpected return of any particular South Asian market to be driven by a local shock, a regional shock from Japan and a global shock from the USA. The study discovers return spillovers in all three markets, and volatility spillovers from the US to the Indian and Sri Lankan markets, and from the Japanese to the Pakistani market. Regional factors seem to exert an influence on these three markets before the Asian financial crisis but the global factor becomes more important in the post-crisis period.

We investigate the relationships between the sovereign bonds issued in international markets by major Asia-Pacific issuers (China, Korea, Malaysia, Philippines and Thailand) and various benchmark US Treasury bonds (2, 5, 10 and 30 year maturities). The results suggest that the equilibrium relationship holds only between pairs of bonds of equivalent credit status. The dynamics of these processes highlight aggregation issues for portfolio managers constructing portfolios of sovereign Asian bonds of different credit ratings.

This paper focuses on the impact of country and sector effects in Asia Pacific equity market returns. Our study concludes that Asia Pacific market returns are mainly driven by country effects. Accordingly, country diversification is the most useful tool for managing portfolio risk. Recent evidence from developed markets indicates that country effect is no longer dominant and that sector exposure is of increasing significance in managing portfolio risk. We observed the same phenomenon; the difference is that it happened after the crisis period, not during the period as observed in the previous study.

This paper investigates aggregate buying and selling by foreign investors, subdivided into US, European and Asian investors, in the Japanese stock market over the period 1981–2004. The results indicate that in the late 1990s US investors began to take more active positions than other foreign investors, and traded with good timing from the middle of the 1990s. US investors were also generally better than other investors when completing net purchases. While European and Asian investors also traded with good timing, other foreign investors generally did not net purchase or sell with good timing.

The literature on executive options has burgeoned over the past decade. While early literature tended to expound the benefits associated with the adoption of options plans, more recent literature has taken on a more cautionary tone. Recent empirical research has suggested a range of conditions under which the adoption of options plans might result in unanticipated outcomes. This paper adds to the literature by discussing options holding concentration, which we define as the proportion of options outstanding under a firm's executive options plan held by a firm's board and the top five non-board executives. We examine previous empirical literature on executive options plans and some of the incentive problems associated with the implementation of such plans, which have been reported in the literature. On the basis of these discussions, we discuss why it might plausibly be expected that options holding concentration could represent a variable with the power to explain the degree to which incentive problems are encountered by organisations, which employ executive options schemes. We report observed options holding concentration for a sample of Australian listed corporations between 1997 and 2002, but demonstrate that while significantly inversely associated with firm size, holdings concentration does not appear to be associated with factors which point towards organisational risk taking and cash payment policy choices. We discuss possible reasons for our findings and suggest potential future research extensions flowing from our work.

This paper studies the empirical application of an asset pricing model derived from the irrational individual behavior of loss aversion. Previous research using loss aversion asset pricing finds conclusive evidence that estimations match market equity premium and volatility using simulation data. We find that within its empirical application, the estimated errors are comparable to errors estimated from the capital asset pricing model. This study of the correlations between rational and irrational asset pricing model from the empirical results finds validity for both estimated values. Finally, we see the importance of cultures, economic development and financial development on asset pricing through an empirical examination of five pacific-basin countries in the estimation of asset pricing models.

The ‘managed stock’ market in Taiwan is neglected by the authorities and general investors. In this paper, we explore the link between financial trait and stock price changes in this special market.

Overall, we analyze and discuss managerial implications for institutional investors, general investors and the authorities as well.

The current work studies the cause, process, and effects of financial reform in 10 countries in Eastern Asia for the period of 1993–2002, especially focusing upon comparisons between pre- and post-Asia financial crisis. This study utilizes Mann–Whitney U test and Intervention Analysis to explore the different effects of the changes of GDP, stock index, exchange rate, CPI index, and the changes of the unemployment rate before and after the Asia financial crisis. It shows the consistent relationship between stock index, exchange rate, CPI index, and the changes of unemployment rate.

While China is currently moving toward the full development of its own financial derivatives markets, to date, China's experience with these has been a negative one. This paper examines the importance to China of developing a fully integrated financial derivatives market from both the economic and financial market perspectives. It examines the best way forward for derivative trading, both market based and over-the-counter, and the types of products best suited to both, given the current state of the Chinese financial markets. Consideration is given to market structure, regulation, trading and settlement systems and international cooperation.

Post-crisis policy measures in Asia have focussed on banking sector and market reform. The paper argues that in order to propel growth, banking and market reform in Asia must be undertaken with the view that they are not mutually exclusive competitive tradeoffs. Rather banks and markets must be viewed as complementary supportive pillars in a financial system. Additionally, legal and functional reform must be undertaken simultaneously. The paper proposes that a likely consequence of doing so will enable creating a four-pillared multi-dimensional growth paradigm in the region to help restore and promote growth.

In the past decade, academic research has been awash with proposals on how Japan should reform, redesign and administer its bank-based financial system (Schinasi & Smith, 1998; Kuratani & Endo, 2000; Hattori, Koyama, & Yonetani, 2001; Rhee, 2001; Baba & Hisada, 2002; Batten & Szilagyi, 2003). Until the late 1980s, this unique regime, involving banks having cross-ownership with industry, was a driving force behind Japan's post-war economic miracle. However, the burst of the asset bubble, and the subsequent prolonged ailing of both the banking sector and the economy as a whole suggests that during the bubble period, the monitoring effectiveness of banks was compromised by a lack of independence from industry and the absence of external discipline. This banking crisis ultimately impaired the corporate sector's fund-raising ability, while trapping excess liquidity in the financial system through a lack of attractive investment choice afforded to risk-averse Japanese investors.

Corruption can take many forms. One of the most alarming aspects of corruption has been the impact of money laundering on financial markets. The amount of money laundered in the Asian region is estimated at approximately $200 billion, or one-fifth the global total. Some of the Asia-Pacific countries still lack any consistent anti-money laundering legislation. The Asia-Pacific region is also home to five of the six remaining non-cooperative countries and territories on The Financial Action Task Force's 2004 list. In this paper, I present a clinical examination of the impact of money laundering and Off-shore financial centres on Asian Pacific financial markets. I describe the money laundering cycle, tools and techniques utilized in the Asia-Pacific region as well as anti-money laundering measures and regulation.

In March 1999, the Reserve Bank of New Zealand changed its method of implementing monetary policy from targeting settlement cash to specifying an (official) Overnight Cash Rate (OCR). This paper explores some of the impacts of this, by comparing market movements before and after the change.

We find that, since the introduction of the OCR, key lending interest rates have been found to be more responsive to changes in official monetary policy, with a significant shortening of the half-life of interest rate changes. This suggests that monetary policy is now more efficient, while the speed of response supports the case for regarding the New Zealand banking market as competitive.

The Asian Monetary Fund, proposed during the 1997–1998 Asian Financial Crisis, was an attempt by East Asian nations to develop collective policy responses to financial crises and provide rapid distribution of emergency funding. It was envisaged that policy prescriptions would exhibit greater regional sensitivity and prevent contagion. The proposal was rejected because of the perceived perpetuation of moral hazard, duplication and conflict with the International Monetary Fund and belief that historical disunity would prevent successful collaboration. This paper advocates, in the context of international financial architecture reform, enhanced East Asian regionalism is crucial to prevent and manage future financial crises.

Zaleha Abdul Shukor is a Senior lecturer in Accounting at the School of Accounting, Universiti kebangsaan Malaysia. She obtained Masters of Commerce from Macquarie Uni, Australia and BSc (Acctg) from Syracuse Univ, NY. She is pursuing her PhD at Universiti Teknologi MARA, Malaysia. Her research interests include, financial reporting and capital market-based research.