Consistent with predictions from the psychology literature, we find that stock prices co-move more (less) in culturally tight (loose) and collectivistic (individualistic) countries. Culture influences stock price synchronicity by affecting correlations in investors' trading activities and a...

Motivated by the rising importance of international sourcing by U.S. firms in recent decades, we study the influence of international sourcing on capital structure. We find that international sourcing has a significant negative influence on financial leverage. The negative influence is stronger...

In this paper, we show (i) that the risk-return characteristics of our sample of 17 developed stock markets of the world have converged significantly toward each other during our study period 1974-2004, and (ii) that this international convergence in risk-return characteristics is driven mainly...

To the extent that investors diversify internationally, large-cap stocks receive the dominant share of fund allocation. Increasingly, however, returns to large-cap stocks or stock market indices tend to co-move, mitigating the benefits from international diversification. In contrast, stocks of...

Considering that the popular Fama-French-Carhart (FFC) factors are actually long-short stock portfolios, we (i) test if the FFC six country factors are globalized, (ii) compare the pricing performance of the global, country, and local orthogonalized factors, and (iii) study the pricing...

We propose a new investment strategy employing “factor funds” to systematically enhance the mean-variance efficiency of international diversification. Our approach is motivated by the increasing evidence that size (SMB), book-to-market (HML), and momentum (MOM) factors, along with the market...

The forward premium anomaly refers to the situation where the slope coefficient in a regression of spot returns on the lagged interest rate differential is negative and significantly different to unity. This paper explores some of the asymmetries and non linearities present in the anomaly and...

We construct a global portfolio investment network by employing network analysis and using bilateral cross-border portfolio holdings data and show that a country's network centrality within this global network has a positive relationship with stock market co-movement. Moreover, network...

This paper examines how the extent of industrial firms' connectedness to other firms through board interlocks is associated with their bond yield spreads. We hypothesize that the transmission of more “soft” information about better connected firms would lower information asymmetries of such...