This Paper develops a test of contagion in financial markets based on bivariate correlation analysis, which generalizes existing tests, and applies it to the international effects of the Hong Kong stock market crisis of October 1997. Contagion is defined as a structural break in the...

This paper presents a theoretical framework to highlight possible channels for the international transmission of financial shocks. We first review the different definitions and measures of contagion adopted by the literature. We then use a simple multi-country asset pricing model to classify the...

This paper builds on a standard factor model of stock market returns to reconsider recent empirical literature on contagion in financial markets based on bivariate correlation analysis. According to this literature, contagion is defined as a structural break in the linear transmission mechanism...

This paper analyzes the Risk Appetite Index (RAI), a measure of investors' risk aversion proposed by Kumar and Persaud (2001, 2002). We show that the RAI distinguishes between risk and risk aversion only under theoretically restrictive assumptions on the distribution of returns and the shocks...

We make a thorough analysis of the Risk Appetite Index (RAI), a measure of changes in risk aversion proposed by Kumar and Persaud (2002). Building on Misina (2003), we first argue that the theoretical assumptions granting that the RAI correctly distinguishes between changes in risk versus...

This paper builds a general test of contagion in financial markets based on bivariate correlation analysis - a test that can be interpreted as an extension of the normal correlation theorem. Contagion is defined as a structural break in the data generating process of rates of return. Using a...

How does uncertainty about fundamentals affect speculation in the foreign exchange markets? This paper studies empirically the role of uncertainty in currency crises. Uncertainty, which is measured using the dispersion of survey forecasts of key macroeconomic variables, is found to have a...