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The purpose of this paper is to examine the relative importance of global sector effects in African sector portfolios (ASPs). It explores the dynamics of the rate of change and the level of global sector effects in their respective ASPs.

The variance of African industry returns is decomposed to the component attributable to the corresponding global industry and the proportion that is African industry specific. The authors then scale the global component by the African sector-specific component to obtain the relative global sector influences in their corresponding ASP returns.

The evidence suggests that global sector effects are dominated by African industry-specific influences on the African markets; however, in the recent period the global sector influence has risen in importance. Additionally, the 2008 Global Financial Crisis had significant impact in the relative global sector effects in the ASPs. Turning points in the rate of change of and the relative importance of the corresponding global sector effects in the ASPs are identified. The findings infer time-varying global sector effects in their respective ASPs. The evidence suggests sector-level differences in the diversification gain of the ASPs.

The ASPs offer global investors the opportunity for diversification gains when included in geographically diversified portfolio within the same sector, although, global sector effects on the African markets have increased recently.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the co-movements among emerging markets. The authors, additionally, investigate the driven force of the within emerging markets integration. The authors provide evidence of volatility clustering, leverage effect and time-varying integration of emerging markets.

The study used dynamic conditional correlation techniques to estimate the time-varying conditional correlations among emerging markets. The cross-sectional and time series variations in the within emerging markets correlations are then described by various market and economic factors.

The authors show that investment, domestic credit to the private sector and import of financial services have a positive relation within emerging markets co-movements. However, claim on central government, current account balance and financial services exports have a negative relation with the integration among emerging markets. Evidence is also provided that liquidity and market depth explain the correlation between emerging markets.

The findings show that emerging markets ability to convert domestic assets into investments appears to be the single most important factor influencing with in emerging markets integration. The findings indicate that across-emerging markets diversification potential exists.

The innovations in fundamentals coupled with noise traders induce co-movement in diverse markets. This co-movement in equity markets which is evidenced higher during the turmoil period influences economic fundamentals of a country dissimilar in nature. The purpose of this paper is to examine whether economic fundamentals or investors’ behavior attributable to disturbances across the world are the rationale behind the crisis transmission, and thereby distinguish fundamental-based contagion from investor-induced contagion.

Initially, the study investigates the role of macroeconomic fundamentals and stock returns on crisis occurrence using panel probit estimates. Additionally, ordinary least squares estimates controlling the influence of fundamentals on domestic return capture the discrete country effect measuring the influence of domestic as well as foreign economic fundamentals along with foreign returns on the domestic stock index.

The empirical results reveal that foreign country stock index returns are having a significant influence on domestic returns besides a prominent role in crisis occurrence. The binary probit model confirmed the influence of both macroeconomic factors and foreign returns in crisis occurrence. The OLS estimates found evidence for investor-induced contagion in the crisis period where the effects of economic fundamentals are small in comparison to foreign market returns that are mainly dominant in pre- and post-crisis period.

The propagation of crisis from one market to other would enable the policy makers to make clear regulations at right time to control for the crisis in future. The results can help the policy makers as well as investors in reducing the impact of the crisis in future by clearly monitoring the behavior of the factors under study.

The current study addresses the role of macro fundamentals and investors influence in crisis propagation. Adopting subprime crisis of 2008-2009 as a reference point and separating the sample period into pre-crisis, crisis and post-crisis period, the study explains how badly the other 30 markets impacted the crisis that emerged in the USA.

Aim of the present monograph is the economic analysis of the role of MNEs regarding globalisation and digital economy and in parallel there is a reference and examination of some legal aspects concerning MNEs, cyberspace and e‐commerce as the means of expression of the digital economy. The whole effort of the author is focused on the examination of various aspects of MNEs and their impact upon globalisation and vice versa and how and if we are moving towards a global digital economy.

“It should also be noted that the objective of convergence and equal distribution, including across under-performing areas, can hinder efforts to generate growth. Contrariwise, the objective of competitiveness can exacerbate regional and social inequalities, by targeting efforts on zones of excellence where projects achieve greater returns (dynamic major cities, higher levels of general education, the most advanced projects, infrastructures with the heaviest traffic, and so on). If cohesion policy and the Lisbon Strategy come into conflict, it must be borne in mind that the former, for the moment, is founded on a rather more solid legal foundation than the latter” European Commission (2005, p. 9)Adaptation of Cohesion Policy to the Enlarged Europe and the Lisbon and Gothenburg Objectives.

We have used the Michigan computable general equilibrium (CGE) model of World Production and Trade to calculate the aggregate welfare and sectoral employment effects of the menu of U.S.–Japan trade policies. The menu of policies encompasses the various preferential U.S. and Japan bilateral and regional free trade agreements (FTAs) negotiated and in process, unilateral removal of existing trade barriers by the two countries, and global (multilateral) free trade. The U.S. preferential agreements include the FTAs approved by the U.S. Congress with Chile and Singapore in 2003, those signed with Central America, Australia, and Morocco and awaiting Congressional approval in 2004, and prospective FTAs with the Southern African Customs Union (SACU), Thailand, and the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA). The Japanese preferential agreements include the bilateral FTA with Singapore signed in 2002 and prospective FTAs with Chile, Indonesia, Korea, Malaysia, Mexico, Philippines, and Thailand. The welfare impacts of the FTAs on the United States and Japan are shown to be rather small in absolute and relative terms. The sectoral employment effects are also generally small in the United States and Japan, but vary across the individual sectors depending on the patterns of the bilateral liberalization. The welfare effects on the FTA partner countries are mostly positive though generally small, but there are some indications of potentially disruptive employment shifts in some partner countries. There are indications of trade diversion and detrimental welfare effects on nonmember countries for some of the FTAs analyzed. Data limitations precluded analysis of the welfare effects of the different FTA rules of origin and other discriminatory arrangements.

In comparison with the welfare gains from the U.S. and Japan bilateral FTAs, the gains from both unilateral trade liberalization by the United States, Japan, and the FTA partners and global (multilateral) free trade are shown to be rather substantial and more uniformly positive for all countries in the global trading system. The U.S. and Japan FTAs are based on “hub” and “spoke” arrangements. We show that the spokes emanate out in different and often overlapping directions, suggesting that the complex of bilateral FTAs may create distortions of the global trading system.