The Behaviour of Asset Return and Volatility Spillovers in Turkey: A Tale of Two Crises

This paper examines return and volatility spillovers between the Turkish stock market with international stock, exchange rate and commodity markets. Our aim is not only to examine spillover behaviour with a large emerging market but also to examine cross—asset spillovers and how they vary across two periods of financial market crisis; the dotcom crash and the liquidity-induced financial crisis. This is to be compared with existing work that typically focuses on industrialised countries or single asset markets only. Using the spillover index methodology we uncover an interesting distinction between these two periods of markets stress. Over the dotcom period spillovers are largely between the same asset class, notably two exchange rate series and two international stock markets series. However, in the period including the financial crisis, spillovers both increase and cross asset types and suggest a much greater degree of market interdependence. Understanding this changing nature in spillovers is key for investors, regulators and academics involved in theoretical model development

Following in Scottish footsteps: the amalgamation movement in English and Welsh banking, 1870-1920

The Amalgamation Movement was an outbreak of bank mergers and acquisitions in England and Wales that began around 1870, lasted for half a century and transformed the English and Welsh banking industry into a concentrated oligopoly dominated by five banks. This Amalgamation Movement was a response to the economic growth unleashed by the Industrial Revolution. For the first time ever, a human population was experiencing a sustained increase in its per-capita incomes. Economic growth like this made the British one of the wealthiest people on earth but it also gave rise to a monetary problem. An expanding post-Industrial Revolution British economy required a growing money supply to finance the increase in the value of the transactions undertaken. However, the supply of precious metals available to fashion into gold and silver coins was finite. Post-Industrial Revolution Britain had to erect its money supply on a foundation of credit and the obligation to furnish much of that credit ultimately fell upon the domestic banks. The solvency of the banking system became a vital economic consideration under these circumstances. The Amalgamation Movement secured monetary stability by putting the banking industry in England and Wales under the control of five well-resourced and effective bureaucracies. Large banks subject to good administration maintained public confidence in a money supply composed of a growing proportion of bank deposits. Bank amalgamations also compensated for the loss of the inland bill of exchange, a financial security that was the English and Welsh banking industry’s favourite reserve asset prior to 1870. Finally, the Amalgamation Movement accommodated the banking industry’s conversion to a regime of limited liability during the 1880s. Britain acquired one of the safest banking systems in the world because of the Amalgamation Movement. The run of monetary good fortune continued until a global financial crisis in 2007/08 exposed the dangers inherent in Britain’s overreliance on large banking institutions deemed to big to fail.Thesis (Ph.D.) -- University of Adelaide, School of Humanities, 201

Gold and Silver prices, their stocks and market fear gauges: Testing fractional cointegration using a robust approach

The present paper investigates the long-run relationships between daily prices, stocks and fear gauges of gold and silver by employing an updated fractional cointegrating framework, that is, the Fractional Cointegrating Vector Autoregression (FCVAR). The initial unit root tests results indicate that the series are I(d)s with values of d around 1 in all cases, and these are homogenous in the paired cointegrating series. Evidence of cointegration is found in the three pairs (prices, stocks and market gauge indices), while these cointegrations are only time-varying in the case of market gauge indices for the commodities. The fact that cointegration exists in prices and stocks of gold and silver implies the possibility that gold and silver prices and stocks can interchangeably be used to access the performances of the commodity markets, with the recommendation that the two commodities are not to be traded in the same portfolio

Analysing the changing landscape of European financial centres: the role of financial products and the case of Amsterdam

The turn of the twenty-first century saw the re-emergence of debates about the reconfiguration of European financial geographies and the role of stock exchange mergers in this process. There has been, however, no systematic attempt to date to analyse such changes. This paper proposes a specific conceptual framework to explore these issues. It uses a product-based analysis to examine, in the context of recent stock exchange mergers, the factors affecting the competitiveness of a financial centre. It argues that it is important to understand three intertwined influences – product complementarities, the nature of local epistemic communities, and regulation – and their contingent effects on change. This is exemplified by a tentative application of the framework to the case of Amsterdam in order to better understand its recent decline in competitiveness as a European financial centre

The History of Japanese Economic Development

This is an easy-to-read book that explains how and why Japan industrialized rapidly. It traces historical development from the feudal Edo period to high income and technology in the current period. Catch-up industrialization is analyzed from a broad perspective including social, economic and political aspects. Historical data, research and contesting arguments are amply supplied. Japan’s unique experience is contrasted with the practices of today’s developing countries. Negative aspects such as social ills, policy failures, military movements and war years are also covered. Nineteenth-century Japan already had a happy combination of strong entrepreneurship and relatively wise government, which was the result of Japan’s long evolutionary history. Measured contacts with high civilizations of China, India and the West allowed cumulative growth without being destroyed by them. Imported ideas and technology were absorbed with adjustments to fit the local context. The book grew out of a graduate course for government officials from developing countries. It offers a comprehensive look and new insights at Japan’s industrial path that are often missing in standard historical chronicles. Written in an accessible and lively form, the book engages scholars as well as novices with no prior knowledge of Japan

Designing a Forex Trading and Equity Investment Strategy for the New-State Capital Hedge Fund

Construct the investment strategy for the New-State Capital Hedge Fund. Identify profit making opportunities in Foreign Exchange (Forex) & Equities using both conventional and non-conventional indicators. The author is to articulate and document his current knowledge in the chosen area in order to stimuate ideas in creating potential investment strategies. Justify knowledge with actual results in a genuine live investment. Critique and evluate the effectiveness of the proposed investment strategy. Conclude with lessons learned and future research

Three Essays on The Effects of Reverting Capital Flows on U.S. Financial Markets

The United States has been running, for a long time now, an-increasing current account deficit. In fact, the U.S. has a current account deficit with most countries in the world. The implication is that Americans have been enjoying an ever-increasing standard of living by consuming way more than what they produce, not only manufactured goods, but also important commodities such as oil. In other words, a significant fraction of our prosperity is based on borrowing rather than increased production. These persistent deficits, which translate into additional indebtedness by the U.S. and an-ever increasing amount of dollars reserves by countries such as China, Japan, South Korea and others, have damaging economic consequences in the long-run. Historically, studies concerning transmission of financial shocks have been unidirectional, going from the U.S. to other nations or regions of the world. However, conditions are now ripe to investigate how this remarkable amount of financial flows reverting to the United States from these “surplus” countries impacts the U.S. financial markets. This dissertation explores the effects of reverting financial flows using financial modeling and forecasting as a research design platform to shed light on three specific issues: (1) the impact of Chinese purchases of U.S. Treasury securities on the U.S. Treasury Yield Curve, (2) the impact of foreign purchases of U.S. corporations’ stocks on the U.S. stock market, and (3) the impact of recent oil and other macroeconomic shocks on the U.S. dollar exchange rates. This study finds support for the notion that the decision of China to invest a considerable portion of their positive net cash flow from trade and foreign investments directly into the U.S. Treasury securities has a significant lowering and flattening effect on the U.S Treasury Yield Curve. The study also finds that there exists a short-run as well as a long-run positive and significant relationship between the U.S. stock market and net purchases of U.S. stock by foreign investors. Finally, the study finds that oil price shocks significantly contribute to the explanation of movements in the value of the U.S. dollar relative to key currencies of net oil exporters and other widely traded currencies