Review of Pacific Basin Financial Markets and Policies

We estimate the current potential default cost of the large amount of bad loans in the Japanese banking system to fail to range from 30 trillion yen to 45 trillion yen or higher. For many banks this would deplete at least 50% of their capital. However, it would also fix the loss and avoid potentially larger losses if weak credits continue to be supported. Using a simulation methodology, we also find that the assumed level of credit risk, equity investment, bank operating expenses, bank net interest margin, and the assumed future financial environments interact to determine future bank risk levels. If the negative financial and real estate market conditions of the recent past persist over the next three years, it is very likely that the major Japanese banks will suffer further large losses and exhaust their already low levels of capital. Alternatively, a return to a more positive economic and financial environment would moderate the risks and the cost of resolving the current problems. Nevertheless, under both scenarios, the risk of further bank failures appears to be substantial and additional large capital infusions will likely be needed to avoid losses by depositors. The implications of this analysis for emerging economies, center on the management and regulation of financial institutions in countries where financial market regulatory structures are in a state of change and asset price bubbles also occur.

Korean and US IPO markets show significant initial underpricing, accounting for dramatic initial price increases. However, unlike its US counterpart, the Korean IPO market shows considerable market adjusted long-run returns. Hypotheses influenced by Korean institutional and regulatory factors, tested to explain the IPO cumulative returns, suggest that some of the theoretical arguments and empirical regularities observed in the US IPO market also apply to the Korean IPO market. However, this is a function of the regulatory environment in the four periods investigated in this study.

Weekend effects have been well known in many financial markets. Australia however displays its effect on Tuesdays rather than on Mondays. In this study, we investigate on the possible linkage between the US Monday and Australian Tuesday returns. We document that the Tuesday effect in Australia is one-way Granger caused by the weekend effect in the US conditional on the weekend effects in the UK and Japanese markets. Furthermore, in the post-1987 period where the US Monday returns are positively significant, the Australian Tuesday return also turns out to be positive. This latter finding provides further evidence that the anomaly in Australia is induced by the weekend effect in the US.

This paper examines the risk-relevance of the Basel capital regulations in Taiwan. We investigate (1) whether the regulatory information can explain bank risk, (2) whether the new 1998 version provides incremental information to assess bank risk, given the old 1992 version, and (3) which regulatory version is more useful in assessing bank risk. This paper employs an option pricing methodology to calculate implied asset risk as a proxy for total risk. We find that the Basel capital ratio and its components help explain risk and that the components under the new version have incremental explanatory power over those under the old. Additionally, the new version has greater information regarding risk than the old. Finally, two risk dimensions categorized by supervisors, credit risk and market risk have different explanatory power. Regulatory information about credit risk has explanatory power, but market risk does not. It implies that the Basel accord, contrary to expectation, does not fully capture all risk. Overall, this study contributes to capturing the risk-relevance of the ongoing evolution of the Basel capital regulations in an emerging market economy.

Following the 1997 financial crisis in East Asia, the issue of contagion has resurfaced. Contagion has most often been associated with high frequency events; hence, it has been measured on stock market returns, interest rates, the exchange rate, or linear combinations of them. This paper tests for evidence of contagion between selected East Asian stock markets, thereby exploring the importance of the linkages between stock markets as a transmission channel during the crisis.