Overall, our results suggest that stock markets in emerging economies may be
less useful as processors of economic information than stock markets in
advanced economies. The function of an e$cient stock market is to process
information, and thereby guide capital towards its best economic use. If stock
price movements in emerging economies are mainly due to either politically
driven shifts in property rights or noise trading, numb invisible hands in their
stock markets may allocate capital poorly, thereby retarding economic growth.
Consistent with this interpretation, Wurgler (2000) "nds a higher elasticity of
capital expenditure with respect to value added in countries whose stock returns
are less synchronous, as measured in this study.
Finally, we recognize that these interpretations, though supported to some
extent by our "ndings, remain conjectures. We invite alternative explanations of
our econometric "ndings.