Currency Market Reactions to Good and Bad News During the Asian Crisis

There is considerable disagreement among analysts about the extent to which the spread of the Asian crisis was based on reasonable changes in expectations about fundamentals versus pure contagion effects resulting from imperfections in the behavior of currency and financial markets. In this paper we focus specifically on the behavior of the foreign exchange market for the five Asian countries. We find little support for the hypothesis that the Asian currency crisis was dominated by panic in the markets such that investors and speculators reacted much more strongly to bad than to good news. While the strongest reactions were to home news, there were also a number of significant cross effects. Almost all of these were of the same sign, suggesting that investors typically assumed that what was good for one country was good for all. Again, there was no systematic evidence of stronger reactions to bad than to good news. The markets may have overreacted in general, pushing currencies below the levels justified by the fundamentals, but, if so, this did not undercut the markets ability to respond to good as well as bad news, nor do these responses appear to have been systematically smaller to good than to bad news. The symptoms of the blind panic that has so often been alleged do not appear in the data.

Securities and Financial Regulation in the Second Circuit

The Second Circuit has long been the country’s preeminent court in the field of securities and financial regulation. The reputation of the Second Circuit in the realm of securities has been so great that other courts, including the Supreme Court, often mention by name the particular judges that decided a given Second Circuit precedent to justify their reliance on that decision. Many courts have long looked to its jurisprudence for guidance in deciding novel or complex securities law issues. This article tracks the Second Circuit’s significant role in developing civil enforcement mechanisms for federal securities laws and making criminal prosecution for corporate malfeasance a real weapon

Securities and Financial Regulation in the Second Circuit

The Second Circuit has long been the country’s preeminent court in the field of securities and financial regulation. The reputation of the Second Circuit in the realm of securities has been so great that other courts, including the Supreme Court, often mention by name the particular judges that decided a given Second Circuit precedent to justify their reliance on that decision. Many courts have long looked to its jurisprudence for guidance in deciding novel or complex securities law issues. This article tracks the Second Circuit’s significant role in developing civil enforcement mechanisms for federal securities laws and making criminal prosecution for corporate malfeasance a real weapon

Global Connectedness and Bilateral Economic Linkages - Which Countries?

Access to off-shore markets, technology, and ideas are important to greater productivity and higher living standards in New Zealand. Global connectedness requires deep and rich links with other countries. However, as a small country, we only have the resources to focus on a handful of countries. Are there a key set of countries with which New Zealand should be seeking to form deeper bilateral economic relationships? This paper reviews the benefits from deeper external bilateral economic engagements using the insights from the new literature on economic growth, which place great importance on trade; international integration, human capital, and local and cross-border knowledge spillovers from research and development (R&D) and foreign direct investment (FDI). This paper will then use insights from the new literature on economic growth to develop criteria for selecting countries as partners for deeper bilateral economic linkages across six global connectedness dimensions: FDI, R&D links, trade in goods, inbound tourism, education exports, and people linkages. To account for the growing role of a number of economies in global trade, the partner selection criteria will identify two groupings of target countries. The first grouping is focus countries: those countries that are of immediate interest for deeper bilateral linkages. The second country grouping is horizon countries: countries that are likely to grow in their importance to New Zealand over the next 10 to 20 years. The key message of this paper is a greater bilateral economic focus by New Zealand on the major economies along the Asia-Pacific Rim (and the UK). When external initiatives come before decision-makers, they should be seen through a lens that places greater confidence in proposals for deeper relationships with the Asia-Pacific Rim countries (or the UK), and greater scrutiny of proposals that emphasise other regions and countries.economic growth; trade; economic integration; migration; technology diffusion; New Zealand