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In this note, I document the change in correlation between Hong Kong, Singapore and the US financial market indexes using Geweke Measures after the handover of Hong Kong to China. The results show that these relationships have changed significantly. While the feedback relationship between Hong Kong, Singapore and the US markets increase after the handover of Hong Kong, the increases in feedback relationship between Singapore and the US markets is relatively higher compared to the change between Hong Kong and the US markets.

Based on a small, open-economy IS-LM prototype model, this paper examines the sources of macroeconomic instabilities in Hong Kong and Singapore operating under two different currency board arrangements. The empirical findings suggest that in general, both external and internal factors contribute to the macroeconomic volatilities observed in the two economies. There is evidence of a tradeoff between exchange rate and interest rate targeting for the stability of money supply in Singapore. Our findings have important implications for Mainland China's monetary authorities in the transition from a hard-peg exchange rate regime like Hong Kong to a basket-link system like the one in Singapore.

This paper first provides a brief review of the global financial tsunami. It then explains why the quantitative easing in the US and the unique characteristics of the Asian property markets have contributed to the formation of property bubbles in some Asian economies. Thereafter, it discusses the possibility of a bursting of property bubbles in Hong Kong, Singapore or another Asian economy a few years from now, and highlights that the bursting of the property bubble in that economy could trigger severe corrections of property prices in this region through the contagion effect. After pointing out that the implied crisis could be more severe than that during the Asian Financial Crisis, it (i) discusses policies that could mitigate the damages of the potential crisis and (ii) draws important lessons and conclusions that could pre-empt similar disasters in the future.

This paper aims to investigate the role of a consumer satisfaction index (CSI) for financial investments in the Hong Kong market. Using yearly data for Hong Kong consumer satisfaction index (HKCSI) to compile a CSI at company level, the effect of consumer satisfaction on company market value is identified. A hypothesized investment portfolio based only on CSI at company level is created, and its return compares with a widely used index measuring stock market performance in Hong Kong. A formal statistical test on the outperformance of portfolios that load on consumer satisfaction is conducted. Using the Capital Asset Pricing Model (CAPM), the beta risk of the entire time period is evaluated, and shows that the portfolio risk based on company level CSI is not significantly different than the market risk. This paper concludes therefore that consumer satisfaction can be incorporated into financial models and applied for formulating investment portfolios with better performance than the market rate in Hong Kong.

In this paper, the results of a survey on capital structure decisions of Hong Kong listed firms are reported. It is found that Hong Kong firms conformed more to the "pecking order" principle than a target long term debt-equity mix in their financing decisions. Financial managers' preferences over alternative capital raising instruments are also investigated. The degree of information asymmetry and firm size are found to have impacts on the ranking of some factors governing capital structure decisions. However, signaling motivation does not play a role in managers' financing decisions.

This paper studies the extent to which real estate prices impact common stock prices in Hong Kong. Real estate-related firms account for over 30 percent of Hong Kong's stock market capitalization. The real estate markets are therefore major determinants of changes in common stock prices. This study, using data during the 1974-1998 period, not only supports empirically that both unexpected changes in residential and office property prices are important determinants of the change in stock prices for Hong Kong, it also finds that the property and stock price series are cointegrated. Impulse response function based on an error-correction VAR model is used to examine the dynamic relationships between real estate and common stock prices.

Chinese listed companies issue Class A, B and H shares to Chinese, foreign and Hong Kong investors, respectively. Entitled to exactly the same rights and obligations, the three classes of shares are, however, traded at significantly different prices. The valuation differential is attributable to the different responses to the country-specific risk related to the emerging Chinese stock market by the three categories of investors. The country risk of China can be decomposed into political risk, exchange rate risk, interest rate risk and market risk. Empirical tests provide strong evidence to support the decomposition model. Compared with Chinese investors of A-shares, foreign investors would require a higher rate of return for B-shares to adjust for the political risk of China, reflecting a differential in the risk premium required on the world capital market. In comparison, the Hong Kong investors, who have greater tolerance of the political risk involved in H-shares as a result of the increasing integration between the Hong Kong and Chinese markets under "one country and two systems", are willing to pay a higher price for H-shares relative to B-shares.

The least effective working capital management and poor corporate governance resulted in the 2008 global financial crisis besides various other factors as highlighted by the prior studies. So far, the existing literature reveals that WCM and CG affect firm performance (FP) on an individual basis. However, the collective effect of working capital management and corporate governance on firm performance has been paid the least attention. This study investigates the collective effect of working capital management and corporate governance on firm performance for Australia and Hong Kong markets, being the top two markets in the Pacific region. For this purpose, a system generalized method of moments based on two steps is applied to address the endogeneity issue. The results establish that working capital management and corporate governance affect firm performance on an individual basis and then these individual effect results compliment the collective effect results. The limitation of the study is that it did not consider two stages of Least Squares Regression due to difficulty in the identification of instrumental variables for both explanatory variables. As a policy implication, firm manager may take the benefit of the findings of this study while devising financial policies to enhance firm performance. Future investors may use the findings of this study to make an informed decision on future investment in both markets.