This article investigates the impact on the spot market of trading in KOSPI 200 futures. Empirical results show that futures trading increases the speed at which information is impounded into spot market prices, reduces the persistence of information and increases spot market volatility. The...

In a recent paper Dollar and Kraay come to sweeping conclusions about economic growth and the poor. On the basis of empirical work they assert that standard World Bank and IMF policy packages are good for the poor. This paper demonstrates that (i) the empirical work is based on theoretically...

This paper classifies formal stock markets in the Middle East into two categories and discuses the principal characteristics of the five markets covered in this study, those in Israel, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon and Oman. The hypothesis that a stock market price index follows a random walk is...

The degree of return predictability is measured for 40 Bulgarian stocks, two Bulgarian stock market indices and 13 other South East European stock market indices using three finite-sample variance ratio tests. Daily data corrected for infrequent trading are used in a fixed-length rolling window...

The martingale hypothesis is tested for two Bulgarian stock price indices and eight stock prices using finite-sample variance ratio tests in a rolling window. The data cover the period beginning in October 2000 and ending in August 2012 and are corrected to remove the effects of infrequent...

The martingale hypothesis is tested for 11 Middle Eastern stock markets using three finite sample variance ratio tests. For comparative purposes, the same tests are applied to data obtained for the US. The tests are carried out with both observed returns and returns corrected for thin trading,...

The importance of transport corridors for trade and development, including for some of the poorest countries in the world, is widely recognized in this book. A new consensus has also emerged that reducing trade costs and improving access to corridors is not just a matter of building...