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Lai, Li, Conover, and Wu (2010) propose a four-factor financial distress model to explain stock returns in the U.S. and Japanese markets. We examine this model in the stock markets of Australia, and six Asian markets (Hong Kong, Indonesia, Korea, Malaysia, Singapore, and Thailand). We find broad empirical support for the four-factor financial distress risk asset-pricing model in those markets. The four-factor financial distress asset pricing model improves explanatory power beyond the Fama–French (1993) three-factor asset pricing model in six of the seven Asian-Pacific markets (12 of 14 portfolio groupings), while the Carhart (1997) momentum-based asset pricing model only improves explanatory power beyond the Fama–French model in three of the seven markets (4 of 14 portfolio groupings).

To survive in the turbulent, global business environment, companies must apply strategies to increase their competitiveness. Expectancy theory indicates that salary rewards can motivate employees to achieve company objectives (Vroom, 1964). First, we develop an analytical model to predict that companies using a high-reward strategy could outperform those using a low-reward strategy. Then, we obtain archival data from banking firms in Taiwan to test the proposed model empirically. We control the effects of operating scale (firm size) and assets utilization efficiency (assets utilization ratio). Empirical results show that salary levels and assets utilization efficiency significantly affect banks’ profitability.

Emerging-market (EM) assets have historically been regarded as inherently risky and particularly vulnerable to international shocks that result in a general increase in investor risk perceptions. In this chapter, we assess the ongoing relevance of this view by examining the linkages between EM and non-EM stock and bond markets in the past two decades, with a focus on how these relationships played out during the global financial crisis of 2007–2009. We evaluate how these linkages have evolved over the period 1992–2009, through statistical tests of whether the volatility of EM financial markets changed – either in their response to international shocks originating in advanced-economy markets or in their independent fluctuations.

We find that over a longer period EM, bond and stock prices have on average moved in the same direction as the prices of non-EM risky assets, and this co-movement has persisted. However, these relationships have evolved somewhat over time. Both EM sensitivity to international shocks and EM-specific volatility in EM sovereign-bond spreads appear to have decreased over time, consistent with the greater fundamental stability of EM economies and perhaps a reduced inclination by investors to sell off EM assets in response to a rise in risk perceptions. Somewhat in contrast, while an upward trend in co-variation between EM and non-EM stock prices suggests an increasing degree of global market integration, idiosyncratic volatility has declined, consistent with a diminished level of locally driven risk in these markets.

In addition, the response of EM asset prices to the latest financial crisis appears to be moderate in comparison to historical experience. This evidence may reflect reduced EM vulnerability to external shocks in general, which is consistent with some encouraging improvements in the underlying fundamentals of EM economies over the decade preceding the onset of the crisis.

This chapter examines a multifactor model for stock returns in nine Asian markets (Japan, China, South Korea, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Singapore, Indonesia, Malaysia, and Thailand). The authors develop a model using the market risk premium, size, book-to-market, profitability, investment, momentum, price-to-earnings ratio, and dividend yield factors for each market. The empirical results suggest that this eight-factor model can better explain the variations of stock returns than the original Fama–French three-factor model. Factor-based models using local data outperform those using data from US markets. In addition, the evidence suggests that the eight-factor model can better explain stock returns when the market is under stress.

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.

The authors consider a variety of cryptocurrency and equity risk factors as potential forces that drive cryptocurrency returns and carry risk premiums. In a cross-section of 2,000 biggest cryptocurrencies during 2014–2020, only downside market risk, cryptocurrency size and cryptocurrency policy uncertainty factors are systematically priced with significant premiums. Cryptocurrencies, which have greater exposures to these factors, yield higher returns subsequently. Equity market risk, particularly equity downside market risk, appears to be more important than cryptocurrency market risk, suggesting greater linkages between cryptocurrency and equity markets than we used to think. Global and the US equity factors are more relevant for the cryptocurrency market than local factors from other markets. However, there is no evidence that exposure to momentum, volatility and Fama–French factors is compensated by higher returns.

This chapter tests the market risk and economic policy uncertainty (EPU) of five Asian stock market returns and finds positive and significant intertemporal relations between excess stock returns and conditional volatility/downside risk. The results support positive risk-return relations across five Asian markets after controlling for the lagged dividend yield and the change in EPU ( Δ EPU). The evidence strongly indicates that excess stock returns are negatively correlated with the Δ EPUs. This finding holds true not only for the domestic market but also for external sources. The negative effect of Δ EPU is more profound from the US and global markets as compared with those from the Europe, Japanese, and domestic markets and suggests that a pathway to forming an optimal strategy for portfolio risk management depends on developing an effective hedging strategy against the impact of Δ EPUs from US/global markets.

This chapter aims to determine whether diversification benefits accrue from adding emerging market hedge funds (EMHFs) to an emerging market bond/equity portfolio, and subsequently whether the type of exposure hedge funds provide is justified by their fees. We use multivariate cointegration analysis to show that the advantages of adding hedge funds to balanced portfolios are limited for the three regions of Asia, Eastern Europe, and Latin America, as well as for the entire global emerging market universe. In summary, we find that emerging market hedge funds are generally redundant for diversifying long-only emerging market investment portfolios with long-term investment horizons. This result also holds when we extend our sample by the global financial crisis in 2008 and 2009 and allow for structural breaks according to the Gregory-Hansen (1996) test. Hence, even during the global financial crisis in 2008 and 2009, when risk diversification was most needed, long-term comovements between hedge funds and traditional assets is, with the exception of the Eastern European region, not disrupted. Because EMHF returns are heavily influenced by the emerging market equity and bond markets, we conclude that the “alpha fees” charged by EMHFs may not always be appropriate for the three main regions under consideration. This also holds, however, to a lesser extent, for a global diversification among hedge funds and traditional assets in emerging markets.

Luxury goods manufacturers may find it profitable to enter a different demographic segment, and several strategies are available to do so. Nevertheless, such market expansion can be risky, and the luxury goods company must avoid tarnishing the equity contained in the luxury brand. This study examines the effects of a co-branding strategy between luxury brands and retailers on consumers’ evaluation of the luxury brand's image. We use information integration theory (IIT) as the basis for our study, as it can be used to explore how attitudes are formed and changed as new information is combined with existing cognitions and thoughts. A theoretical model based on IIT is built and empirically tested using a sample of 240 Taiwanese adult consumers. We conduct an experimental survey study in which we manipulate luxury brand familiarity and product and brand fit between luxury brand and the co-brand, and assess prior-attitudes and post-attitudes toward the luxury brand and attitudes toward the co-brand. We find support for many of our hypotheses: prior-attitudes toward the luxury brand is positively related to the attitude toward the co-brand, brand fit is related to attitudes toward the co-brand, and brand fit is marginally related to the post-attitude toward the luxury brand. Other hypotheses, however (such as those regarding product fit) were not supported. We conclude by discussing our theoretical and managerial contributions.