The Internationalization of Equity Markets

This timely volume addresses important recent trends in the internationalization of equity markets. These trends include increasing securitization as many countries come to rely more than ever before on markets in equities and bonds, extensive market integration through foreign investment and resulting links among stock prices around the world, 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, fundamental macroeconomic determinants of securities prices, home-country bias in investing, securities transactions taxes, 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, such as market efficiency and the accuracy of models of expected returns, including a particular focus on variances, covariances, and the price of risk, as in the Capital Asset Pricing Model. The Internationalization of Equity Markets will interest academic and business economists concerned with stock market behavior around the world.