Review of Pacific Basin Financial Markets and Policies

This paper examines the changes in earnings quality of registered American Depositary Receipts (ADRs) as a result of switching accounting standards. We aim to shed light on the potential impact of International Financial Reporting Standard (IFRS) adoption on US firms. A suboptimal approach to achieve this goal is through examination of US firms’ surrogates such as ADRs. Unlike previous studies, we made a distinction between registered and unregistered ADRs and affirmed that registered ADRs are the closest surrogates with which to conduct our analysis because they are exclusively required to adhere to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC)’s stringent disclosure requirements. When cross-listing their equity on the US exchanges, foreign issuers can file their financial reports with the SEC using IFRS, US GAAP (generally accepted accounting principles), or their domestic GAAP with reconciliation to US GAAP. An improvement in earnings quality is documented when ADRs adopt US GAAP or IFRS versus domestic GAAP. However, when the comparison is made between US GAAP and IFRS, no difference in earnings quality is documented. These results indicate that switching to high-quality accounting standards is likely to improve earnings quality. This improvement is maximized when the difference between reporting standards is high and minimized if otherwise. Our conclusion is that the adoption of IFRS in the US is unlikely to change earnings quality of local issuers. Moreover, we drew a distinction between reconciliation with and adoption of high-quality accountings standards and find that while the former can enhance earnings quality, the latter can further improve it.

This study examines the impact of the Global Financial Crisis (GFC) on Initial Public Offering (IPO) underpricing in the context of an emerging market from January 2006 to December 2011. Models consist of hierarchical and dummy variable regressions have been evaluated. Our results show, firstly, by comparison between the pre-GFC, GFC and post-GFC periods, it can be observed that IPOs initial returns (offer-to-close) are generally lower due to the crisis. Secondly, IPO underpricing provides an average of 17–25% of initial returns in the pre-GFC period, 1–3% during GFC period, and 3–7% in the post-GFC period. Thirdly, the financial crisis does not act as a moderator that worsens the relationship between underpricing of IPO and oversubscription ratio. Lastly, this study dispels the notion that investors should totally shun IPO during crisis period as there are still positive initial returns among the new issues. To the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study on the impact of the GFC on IPO underpricing in Malaysia.

In April 2015, two index futures, IH and IC, respectively underlying big blue chip and small-medium stock indexes, were launched in China. However, because of a market crash, they came under strict control four months later. Using a panel-data evaluation approach, this paper examines how the introduction of IH and IC affect the volatility of their corresponding stocks. Results show that IH significantly reduces spot volatility before (after) a crash, but its function is significantly weakened during a crash. IC always fails to stabilize the spot market and even largely magnifies volatility during (after) a crash. Such different intervention effects on the two spot markets result mainly from the different levels of speculation on them.

In this paper, we first review several alternative methods to estimate implied variance. Then we show how the MATLAB computer program can be used to estimate implied variance based upon the Black–Scholes model. In addition, we also discuss how the approximation method derived by Ang et al. (2013) can be used to estimate implied variance. Real-world data from US individual stock options are used to compare the estimation results using three typical alternative methods: regression method proposed by Lai et al., MATLAB computer program approach and approximation method derived by Ang et al. Also, this paper presents the empirical results of China ETF 50 options which were new in the financial markets.

We model the returns of the convertible arbitrage strategy using a non-linear framework. This strategy has generated long periods of positive returns and low volatility, followed by shorter periods of extreme negative returns and high volatility, associated with market upheaval. We specify a smooth transition regression model to assess performance, a class of model particularly suited to this type of strategy as it allows gradual transition between risk regimes. We show that in alternate regimes, the strategy exhibits relatively high (low) exposure to risk factors and alpha is high (low). The evidence reported can account for abnormal returns demonstrated in previous studies.

This paper conducts a fundamental analysis of Chinese firms based on accounting numbers in their financial statements. The sample consists of 2,164 Chinese firms listed on Shanghai and Shenzhen Stock Exchanges during the period 2001 to 2013. We use nine fundamental signals and specify a benchmark model and an augmented model. We regress future excess returns on the signals and find that they are associated with excess returns; five of the signals are negatively associated with excess returns, while the other four are positively associated with excess returns. Further analysis suggests that our finding is mainly driven by state-owned firms.

Motivated by recent studies on political connections and stock price crash risk, this study investigates whether there is an association between politically connected (POLCON) firms and stock price crash risk. Further, we examine whether institutional investors’ ownership can moderate this association. Using a dataset of Malaysian firms for the period 2002–2012, we show that POLCON firms are associated with higher risk of stock price crashes. However, the positive association between POLCON and stock crashes is attenuated by higher institutional ownership, implying effective monitoring. Finally, we find that only local institutional investors can significantly mitigate the positive association between POLCON firms and stock price crash risk. This suggests that different types of institutional investors can produce different monitoring outcomes in POLCON firms.