The Internationalization of Equity Markets

The Internationalization of Equity Markets

Author: Jeffrey A. Frankel

Publisher: University of Chicago Press

Published: 2008-04-15

Total Pages: 428

ISBN-13: 0226260216

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This timely volume addresses three important recent trends in the internationalization of United States equity markets: extensive market integration through foreign investment and links among stock prices around the world; increasing securitization as countries such as Japan come to rely more than ever before on markets in equities and bonds at the expense of banks; and the opening of national financial systems of newly industrializing countries to international financial flows and institutions, as governments remove capital controls and other barriers. Eight essays examine such issues as the current extent of international market integration, gains to U.S. investors through international diversification, home-country bias in investing, the role of time and location around the world in stock trading, and the behavior of country funds. Other, long-standing questions about equity markets are also addressed, including market efficiency and the accuracy of models of expected returns, with a particular focus on variances, covariances, and the price of risk according to the Capital Asset Pricing Model.


Closed-End Funds, Exchange-Traded Funds, and Hedge Funds

Closed-End Funds, Exchange-Traded Funds, and Hedge Funds

Author: Seth Anderson

Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media

Published: 2009-09-29

Total Pages: 132

ISBN-13: 1441901671

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"Closed-End Funds, Exchange-Traded Funds, and Hedge Funds: Origins, Functions, and Literature is a concise and valuable book that will be of interest to individual investors, financial professionals, and academic researchers, alike. It provides a brief history and institutional discussion of these investment companies and also presents a summary of the research on these funds. Investment practitioners will find the book useful as a reference and as a quick refresher on the current state of knowledge regarding each fund type. Equally important, it provides academic researchers with an accurate institutional framework within which to cast their theoretical models, and a point of departure for expanding the empirical analysis for improving our understanding of these funds. All-in-all, this is a very valuable book; I highly recommend it." (John J. Jackson, Professor of Economics, Auburn University) "Professors Anderson, Born, and Schnusenberg provide a valuable service in this monograph. The practical significance of closed-end funds, exchange-traded funds, and hedge funds has increased dramatically in recent years, but all too many academics and investors know little about them. This text presents a carefully-focused and understandable description of these investment vehicles, highlighting the big, unresolved questions, while also including careful and fair accounts of the state of the literature. Nothing extraneous clutters the presentation, but, more importantly, nothing necessary is left out. Highly recommended." (T. Randolph Beard, Professor of Economics and Public Policy, Auburn University) "This book is both useful as a reference book and as an additive, educational overview of ETFs and hedge funds, as well as CEFs. In today’s tumultuous markets, much reference is made to these subjects without a clear understanding of the vehicles, their structure and their history. This is a very timely publication and should be viewed as an important read. The book contains definitive explanations and also includes an excellent summary of past works in this area. Readable, informative and highly useful as a reference source." (Kathleen A. Wayner, President and CEO, Bowling Portfolio Management)


International Capital Flows

International Capital Flows

Author: Martin Feldstein

Publisher: University of Chicago Press

Published: 2007-12-01

Total Pages: 500

ISBN-13: 0226241807

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Recent changes in technology, along with the opening up of many regions previously closed to investment, have led to explosive growth in the international movement of capital. Flows from foreign direct investment and debt and equity financing can bring countries substantial gains by augmenting local savings and by improving technology and incentives. Investing companies acquire market access, lower cost inputs, and opportunities for profitable introductions of production methods in the countries where they invest. But, as was underscored recently by the economic and financial crises in several Asian countries, capital flows can also bring risks. Although there is no simple explanation of the currency crisis in Asia, it is clear that fixed exchange rates and chronic deficits increased the likelihood of a breakdown. Similarly, during the 1970s, the United States and other industrial countries loaned OPEC surpluses to borrowers in Latin America. But when the U.S. Federal Reserve raised interest rates to control soaring inflation, the result was a widespread debt moratorium in Latin America as many countries throughout the region struggled to pay the high interest on their foreign loans. International Capital Flows contains recent work by eminent scholars and practitioners on the experience of capital flows to Latin America, Asia, and eastern Europe. These papers discuss the role of banks, equity markets, and foreign direct investment in international capital flows, and the risks that investors and others face with these transactions. By focusing on capital flows' productivity and determinants, and the policy issues they raise, this collection is a valuable resource for economists, policymakers, and financial market participants.


Closed-End Fund Pricing

Closed-End Fund Pricing

Author: Seth Anderson

Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media

Published: 2013-04-17

Total Pages: 106

ISBN-13: 1475736339

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Closed-End Investment Companies (CEICs) have experienced a significant revival of interest, both as investment vehicles and as the subject of academic research, over the past decade. This academic research has focused on the nature of closed-end funds' discounts and premiums and on the share price behavior of these firms. The first book by the authors, "Closed-End Investment Companies: Issues and Answers," addresses closed-end fund academic articles published prior to 1991. This second book addresses those articles that have appeared since that time. Closed-End Fund Pricing: Theories and Evidence is designed for the academic researcher interested in CEICs and the practitioner interested in using CEICs as an investment vehicle. The authors summarize the evolution of CEICs, present the factors thought to cause CEIC shares to trade at different levels from their net asset values, provide a complete survey of the recent academic literature on this topic, and summarize the current state of research on CEICs.


Handbook of Financial Engineering

Handbook of Financial Engineering

Author: Constantin Zopounidis

Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media

Published: 2010-07-25

Total Pages: 494

ISBN-13: 0387766820

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This comprehensive handbook discusses the most recent advances within the field of financial engineering, focusing not only on the description of the existing areas in financial engineering research, but also on the new methodologies that have been developed for modeling and addressing financial engineering problems. The book is intended for financial engineers, researchers, applied mathematicians, and graduate students interested in real-world applications to financial engineering.


Inefficient Markets

Inefficient Markets

Author: Andrei Shleifer

Publisher: OUP Oxford

Published: 2000-03-09

Total Pages: 295

ISBN-13: 0191606898

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The efficient markets hypothesis has been the central proposition in finance for nearly thirty years. It states that securities prices in financial markets must equal fundamental values, either because all investors are rational or because arbitrage eliminates pricing anomalies. This book describes an alternative approach to the study of financial markets: behavioral finance. This approach starts with an observation that the assumptions of investor rationality and perfect arbitrage are overwhelmingly contradicted by both psychological and institutional evidence. In actual financial markets, less than fully rational investors trade against arbitrageurs whose resources are limited by risk aversion, short horizons, and agency problems. The book presents and empirically evaluates models of such inefficient markets. Behavioral finance models both explain the available financial data better than does the efficient markets hypothesis and generate new empirical predictions. These models can account for such anomalies as the superior performance of value stocks, the closed end fund puzzle, the high returns on stocks included in market indices, the persistence of stock price bubbles, and even the collapse of several well-known hedge funds in 1998. By summarizing and expanding the research in behavioral finance, the book builds a new theoretical and empirical foundation for the economic analysis of real-world markets.