Review of Pacific Basin Financial Markets and Policies

The focus of this paper is to test the cointegrating and Granger-causal relationships between Australian short-run interest rate securities and those of the UK, US, Japan, Hong Kong, Singapore and New Zealand. A relatively new methodology known as Long Run Structural Model (LRSM) (Pesaran and Shin, 2002) followed by vector error-correction model, generalized variance decompositions, generalized impulse response, and persistence profile have been used. The findings tend to suggest that Australia's short-term interest rates are cointegrated with those of its major trading partners. The results of this paper indicate that the ability of Australian policy makers to target and manipulate domestic interest rates may be limited and that they should look to the policy decisions of the US and Japan in particular when setting domestic policy.

This paper investigates whether the introduction of trading by qualified foreign institutional investors (QFIIs) has impacted the lead and volatility behavior of the futures market when the macroeconomic effects and some major economic events are controlled. First, we detect that some market inefficiency exists in Taiwan index futures market. Second, the evidence shows a strengthening in the lead of index futures over index spot markets following the introduction of trading by QFIIs. Third, we find evidence of an increase in the level of futures market volatility, implying that the quantity of information flowing into the futures market increases following the onset of trading by QFIIs. Finally, the asymmetries do not reduce after the opening up of the futures market to QFIIs. This finding is inconsistent with the view that the introduction of informed foreign investors may improve the reliability and quality of information and mitigate the effect of noise traders on market volatility.

Financial markets have developed formulas and models to derive fair values for bonds, futures, swaps, options and other securities. This model derives a fair value of an exchange rate, which might be used as a benchmark for a long-term equilibrium level to stabilize currency markets. The model is based on the value-added tax adjusted purchasing power parity exchange rate. This rate is then modified by five components: the macro-economic component, the foreign currency reserve component, the debt component, the interest rate component, and the political stability/leadership component. With respect to the American dollar, the model shows that the Euro and the Japanese Yen are overvalued compared to its current exchange rate, while the Brazilian Real, the Russian Ruble, the Chinese Yuan and the Australian dollar are currently undervalued.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the determinants of Taiwan's manufacturing firm growth, in particular, the effects of financial structure, corporate financing choices and Taiwanese outward FDI in China on firm growth in different industries besides other physical factors discussed in the literature. We construct an unbalanced dynamic panel data using 280 listed and OTC manufacturing firms over the period 1991–2002. The empirical method utilized is the generalized method of moments (GMM) proposed by Arellano and Bond (1991). Our results find that (1) the growth rates of firms are positively related to firm size, age, capital intensity, lagged R&D, export ratio, investment ratio, and profits; (2) high debt-to-equity ratio is associated with low corporation growth, while high return on total assets is associated with high corporation growth, which reflects that a firm with a relatively sound financial structure will facilitate their growth; (3) higher liquidity of stock market relative to the banking sector lead to higher growth of firms. However, larger size of stock market relative to the banking sector leads to lower the firm's growth, i.e., the smaller the indirect finance, the lower the firm growth; (4) firms engaged in FDI toward China might be hollowing-out; (5) individual firms that could be financed more from either bank or equity market will enjoy higher rates of growth compared to others in the same industries, but, those effects on traditional and basic industries are weaker; (6) high bank-financing ratio and internal financing are associated with higher firm growth, while firms using more bonds or equity financing tend to experience lower growth. However, the net positive effects of equity financing on traditional and basic firm growth are significantly greater.

This study examines the return behavior of 15 emerging equity markets for persistent deviations from the fundamental value hypothesis. The duration dependence test shows that rational expectations bubble do not cause deviations from fundamental value in any of the markets. Markov chain test results imply that markets in China, Malaysia, the Philippines, and Singapore deviate from their fundamental values due to non-random price changes. A price decrease is more likely to follow two periods of price decrease in these four equity markets. Finally, time reversibility test reveals that all equity markets, except for Jordan and Egypt, exhibit asymmetrical price patterns, suggesting departures from fundamental values.

Understanding the impacts of transparency in capital markets is important for determining the trading mechanism and for evaluating market efficiency and market fairness. The recent reforms covering trade transparency on the Taiwan Stock Exchange give us an opportunity to address and examine the relevant arguments. Evidence from this study indicates that increasing trade transparency may create a more efficient market due to decreased effective spreads compared with before the event. Asymmetric information also declines after transparency is liberalized. However, the movement direction of the realized spread does not seem obvious or pronounced. The implication from our results is that the exact effects from trade transparency may be dependent on the stock market's structure itself.