6. The stock market
6.1. Macroeconomic measures
The dependent variable is the change in stock market value in dollar terms (as
measured by the International Finance Corporation's Investable Index) from
the end of 1996 to the lowest point of 1998 and to the end of 1998. A comparison
in dollars is appealing because this is how most international investors and the
IFC evaluate stock market performance. Obviously, the dollar value of markets
is heavily in#uenced by exchange rate movements. However, the correlation is
not one-to-one. Table 3 shows the values of this index.
Our regression analysis using macroeconomic variables shows very little
correlation with stock market performance (Table 6). We report results for four
variables that represent the key macroeconomic issues: the current account at
the end of 1996, the level of reserves at the end of 1996, the debt-to-GDP ratio at
the end of 1996, and the budget de"cit in 1996. None of the "rst three variables
are signi"cant in any speci"cation. Import coverage and other measures of debt