Abstract
The issues of international stock markets linkages had been investigated over the time. Since the Asian financial crisis
in 1997, many economists are concerned about the relationship between Asian stock markets and others in the world.
The main objective of this paper is to examine the linkages between ASEAN-5+3 namely Malaysia, Singapore, the
Philippines, Thailand, Indonesia, China, Japan and Korea and US stock markets. The data consists of weekly stock
indices data. The total samples are separated into three sub-periods. All the indices applied are expressed in local
currencies. In conclusion, we found that ASEAN-5+3 and US stock markets are interdependence during crisis and
post-crisis periods and the impact of US stock market is effective in ASEAN-5+3 stock markets only for pre- and
during-crisis periods.
Keywords: Stock markets, Cointegration, Granger-causality, ASEAN
1. Introduction
Until 1997, Asia attracted almost half of the total capital inflow to developing countries. The economies of Southeast
Asia in particular maintained high interest rate was attractive to foreign investors who look for a high rate of return. As
a result the region's economies received a large inflow of hot money and experienced a dramatic run-up in asset prices.
At the same time, the regional economies of Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, the Philippines, Singapore, and South
Korea experienced high growth rates at 8-12%, in the late 80s and early 90s. This achievement was broadly acclaimed
by economic institutions including the IMF and World Bank, and was known as part of the Asian economic miracle.
Regardless the disputed causes, the Asian crisis started in mid-1997 had affected the currencies, stock markets, and
other asset prices of several Southeast Asian economies. Triggered by events in Latin America, particularly after the
Mexican peso crisis of 1994, Western investors lost confidence in securities in South East Asia and began to pull money
out, creating a domino effect.
At the mid of 1997, Thailand was hit by currency speculators, resulting in great damages in the financial sectors of
country. What at first appeared to be local financial crisis in Thailand has escalated into a global financial crisis within
few months. Initially, spreading to other Asian countries – Indonesia, Korea, Malaysia and the Philippines – then far
afield to Russia and Latin America, especially Brazil. The Asian crisis, however, has turned out to be far more serious
than its two predecessors in terms of the extent of contagion and the severity of resultant economic and social costs.
Following the massive depreciations of local currencies, financial institutions and corporations with foreign currency
debts in the afflicted countries were driven to extreme financial distress and many were forced to default.
Several factors were responsible for the onset of Asian financial crisis: a weak domestic financial system, free
international capital flows, the contagion effects of changing market sentiment and inconsistent economic policies. In
recent years, both developing and developed countries were encouraged to liberalize their financial markets and allow
free flows of capital across countries. As Asian developing countries eagerly sourcing foreign capitals from US,Japanese and European investors, who were attracted to these fast growing emerging markets for extra returns for their
portfolios. Large inflows of private capital resulted in a credit boom in the Asian countries in the early and mid-1990s.
The credit boom was often directed to speculations in real estate and stock markets as well as to investments in
marginal industrial projects. Fixed or stable exchange rates also encouraged un-hedged financial transactions and
excessive risk-taking by both lenders and borrowers, who were not much concerned with exchange risk.
As asset prices declined (as happened in Thailand prior to the currency crisis) in part due to the government’s effort to
control the overheated economy, the quality of banks’ loan portfolios also declined as the same assets were held as
collateral for the loans. In addition, their lending decisions were often influenced by political considerations, likely
leading suboptimal allocation of resources. However, the so-called crony capitalism was not a new condition, and the
East Asian economies achieved an economic miracle under the same system. Meanwhile, the booming economies with
a fixed or stable nominal exchange rate inevitably brought about an appreciation of the currencies. This, in turn, resulted
in a market slowdown in export growth in these Asian countries like Thailand and Korea. If the Asian currencies had
been allowed to depreciate in real terms which were not possible because of the fixed nominal exchange rates, discrete
changes of the exchange rates as observed in 1997 might have been avoided. In Thailand, as the run on the Baht started,
the Thai central bank initially injected liquidity to the domestic financial system and tried to defend the currency by
drawing on its foreign exchange reserves. With its foreign reserves declining rapidly, the central bank eventually
decided to devalue the baht.
International money and capital markets have become more integrated in recent years. Many studies have been
undertaken to examine the integration of international stock markets. There are several reasons that contributed to the
stock market interdependences, e.g. increase in capital flows across national boundaries and potential benefits from
diversification of investment on international level. It is important for the investors to diversify international portfolio if
they have the knowledge on the structure of equity market linkages across countries. As a large number of investors
competing to earn high returns, stock prices in different countries should closely reflect the underlying economic
fundamentals. Consequently, common stochastic trends in stock markets of those countries potentially mirror their
economic fundamentals that are related significantly with one another (Phengpis and Apilado, 2004). According to
Kearney and Lucey (2004), with increasing integration of international equity markets, the diversification benefits will
tend to decline. Lack of cointegration between the stock markets may allow investors to minimise portfolio risk by
international diversification.
This study consider whether ASEAN-5+3 countries namely Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, Thailand the Philippines,
China, Korea, Japan and US are integrated with each other because of importance of their economic as trading partners
and in terms of investment flows. Both the multilateral and bilateral relationship between the individual ASEAN-5+3
and US stock market is examined through the cointegration and Granger-causality techniques. In addition, we are
interested to know whether US stock market has any effect on the ASEAN-5+3 stock indices before, during and after
Asian financial crisis.