Irreversibility, endogenous mean reversion, and the investment decision of a foreign firm

The paper derives a valuation formula for the real option of a firm to undertake an irreversible investment in a foreign economy based on the endogenous dynamics of a stochastic macroeconomic framework with sluggish price adjustment. The option valuation formula is implemented to analyze the impact of macroeconomic dynamics on the attraction of an economy for foreign investors.

Contagious speculative bubbles: a note on the Greek sovereign debt crisis

The Greek sovereign debt crisis of 2009/2010 fostered widespread fears of contagion. We analyzed the danger of contagion by studying to which extent news to speculative bubbles in the Greek equity market spread to the equity markets of Portugal, Ireland, Italy, and Spain. To this end, we estimated a version of the present-discounted value model of equity valuation extended to include a rational stochastic speculative bubble. We then studied cross-country causal links between news to speculative bubbles. We found evidence of causality from Greece to the other countries, but no strong evidence of reversed causality. This finding implies that, as far as equity markets are concerned, movements in speculative bubbles in the Greek equity market may in fact have the potential to spread in a contagious way to the other European countries in our sample

International Equity Flows and the Predictability of U.S. Stock Returns

We examined the link between international equity flows and U.S. stock returns. Based on the results of tests of in-sample and out-of-sample predictability of stock returns, we found evidence of a strong positive (negative) link between international equity flows and contemporaneous (one-month-ahead) stock returns. Our results also indicate that an investor, in real time, could have used information on the link between international equity flows and one-month-ahead stock returns to improve the performance of simple trading rules.International equity flows; predictability of stock returns; performance of trading rules; the United States

The Financial Crisis and the Stock Markets of the CEE Countries

Stock markets in Central and Eastern European (CEE) countries significantly collapsed during the financial crisis of 2008. We studied whether the collapse of stock markets in CEE countries was due to international linkages of deteriorating fundamentals or international spillovers of speculative bubbles. To this end, we estimated a state-space model to decompose the stock market indexes of three large CEE countries (Czech Republic, Hungary, and Poland) into fundamentals and speculative bubbles. We then used the techniques of cointegration analysis to study the long-run linkages of fundamentals and speculative bubbles. Our results suggest that international long-run linkages varied over time. The long-run linkages with the U.S. stock market strengthened in terms of both fundamentals and speculative bubbles during the market jitters caused by the financial crisis of 2008.stock markets, fundamentals, speculative bubbles, cointegration analysis, CEE countries, Kalman filter

Real-time macroeconomic data and ex ante predictability of stock returns

We report results on the ex ante predictability of monthly excess stock returns in Germany using real-time and revised macroeconomic data. Our real-time macroeconomic data cover the period 1994-2005. We report three results. 1) Real-time macroeconomic data did not contribute much to ex ante stock-return predictability. 2) The performance of an investor who had to rely on noisy real-time macroeconomic data would have been comparable to the performance of an investor who had access to revised macroeconomic data. 3) In real time, it is important for an investor to know which real-time variable to use for predicting stock returns. --Ex ante predictability of stock returns,real-time macroeconomic data,performance of investment strategies,Germany

Scattered Fiscal Forecasts

The banking debacle of 2007/2008 and the Greek sovereign debt crisis have witnessed that forecasts of government balances play a major role for how participants in financial markets assess the sustainability of government budget deficits. But how do forecasters form their government-balance forecasts? Do forecasters deliver unbiased forecasts? Our results imply that they do not. On the contrary, using more than 100,000 forecasts of government balances for 38 countries we report strong evidence of forecaster anti-herding, i.e. forecaster scatter their projections around the consensus forecast.Government balance, Survey data, Forecasting

Real-time forecasting and political stock market anomalies: evidence for the U.S.

Using monthly data for the period 1953-2003, we apply a real-time modeling approach to investigate the implications of U.S. political stock market anomalies for forecasting excess stock returns. Our empirical findings show that political variables, selected on the basis of widely used model selection criteria, are often included in real-time forecasting models. However, they do not contribute to systematically improving the performance of simple trading rules. For this reason, political stock market anomalies are not necessarily an indication of market inefficiency. --Political stock market anomalies,predictability of stock returns,efficient markets hypothesis,real-time forecasting

Business Cycle Volatility in Germany

Stylized facts suggest that output volatility in OECD countries has declined in recent years. However, the causes and the nature of this decline have so far been analyzed mainly for the United States. In this paper, we analyze whether structural breaks in the dynamics and the volatility of the real output process in Germany can be detected. We report evidence that output volatility has declined in Germany. Yet, this decline in output volatility is not as clear-cut as it is in the case of the United States. In consequence, it is difficult to answer the question whether the decline in output volatility in Germany reflects good economic and monetary policy or merely ‘good luck’.Business Cycle; Volatility; Germany

Forecasting stock market volatility with macroeconomic variables in real time

We compared forecasts of stock market volatility based on real-time and revised macroeconomic data. To this end, we used a new dataset on monthly real-time macroeconomic variables for Germany. The dataset covers the period 1994-2005. We used a statistical, a utility-based, and an options-based criterion to evaluate volatility forecasts. Our main result is that the statistical and economic value of volatility forecasts based on real-time data is comparable to the value of forecasts based on revised macroeconomic data. --Forecasting stock market volatility,Real-time macroeconomic data,Evaluation of forecasting accuracy

The value of waiting: Russia's integration into the international capital markets

Capital flight has characterized the transformation process in Russia. Inflows of foreign direct investment have been minor and have been preceeded by inflows of portfolio capital. The paper shows that uncertainty about macroeconomic stabilization exhibits a strong negative effect on the volume of capital inflows when investment decisions are irreversible. Reducing uncertainty may but must not necessarily lead to more investment. The fact that monetary stabilization policies have not been accompanied by comprehensive institutional reforms can explain the pattern of Russia's capital flows in general and the dismal performance in attracting foreign direct investment in particular.