We investigate whether the globalization process of the last thirty years has lead to “convergence” of asset prices in a wide set of countries, encompassing both developed and emerging markets. We examine several measures of convergence for interest rates (real and nominal) and bond and...

During the period leading up to the global financial crisis many asset classes registered rapid price increases. This coincided with a significant rise in global liquidity. This paper attempts to determine the extent to which the rise in asset prices was influenced by developments in global...

The position of countries in a network of external portfolio investments provides a novel macroeconomic characteristic to explain violations of uncovered interest rate parity. I derive a network centrality measure, where central countries are highly integrated with key suppliers of tradeable...

I empirically investigate the economic effects of uncertainty about the performance of financial firms. More specifically, I focus on the simple standard deviation of stock market returns across financial firms at every quarter, referring to this measure as financial volatility. First, I show...

Financial losses can have persistent effects on the financial sy stem. This paper proposes an empirical measure for the duration of these effects, S pillover P ersistence. I d ocument that Spillover Persistence is strongly correlated with financial c onditions; d uring b anking crises, Spillover...

We consider whether key financial variables predict macroeconomic series and if any predictive power for output growth is also seen in consumption or investment growth. Such information will allow the use of financial markets as a leading indicator for macroeconomic performance. Full sample...

This paper proposes Spillover Persistence as a measure for financial fragility. The volatility paradox predicts that fragility builds up when volatility is low, which challenges existing measures. Spillover Persistence tackles this challenge by exploring a novel dimension of systemic risk: loss...

This paper uses time-varying second moments to investigate exchange rate exposure betas. Using a BEKK-GARCH(1,21)-M model, time-varying exchange rate exposure betas are obtained with explicit focus on the non-orthogonality between exchange rate changes and market returns. We look into certain...

Over the last two decades, a number of financial disasters have occurred due to failure in risk management procedures. If some, as the Asian financial crisis, had a very much more muted global impact (even though they sent shock waves through global financial markets, the main damage were fairly...

This paper extends the economic growth model tested by Levine and Zervos (1998) by including a measure for capital allocation efficiency proxied by stock price informativeness. Using a sample of 59 countries, this study finds that stock price informativeness as measured by firm-specific return...