The great majority of empirical studies have focused on asset markets in the US and other developed economies. The purpose of this research is to determine to what extent the findings of other researchers in relation to the characteristics of asset volatility in developed economies applies also to emerging markets. The important characteristics observed in asset volatility that we wish to identify and examine in emerging markets include clustering, (the tendency for periodic regimes of high or low volatility) long memory, asymmetry, and correlation with the underlying returns process. The extent to which such behaviors are present in emerging markets will serve to confirm or refute the conjecture that they are universal and not just the product of some factors specific to the intensely scrutinized, and widely traded developed markets.
The ten emerging markets we consider comprise equity markets in Australia, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Malaysia, New Zealand, Philippines, Singapore, South Korea, Sri Lanka and Taiwan focusing on the major market indices for those markets. After analyzing the characteristics of index volatility for these indices, the research goes on to develop single- and two-factor REGARCH models in the form by Alizadeh, Brandt and Diebold (2002).
Cluster Analysis of Volatility
Processes for Ten Emerging Market Indices
The research confirms the presence of a number of typical characteristics of volatility processes for emerging markets that have previously been identified in empirical research conducted in developed markets. These characteristics include volatility clustering, long memory, and asymmetry. There appears to be strong evidence of a region-wide regime shift in volatility processes during the Asian crises in 1997, and a less prevalent regime shift in September 2001. We find evidence from multivariate analysis that the sample separates into two distinct groups: a lower volatility group comprising the Australian and New Zealand indices and a higher volatility group comprising the majority of the other indices.
Models developed within the single- and two-factor REGARCH framework of Alizadeh, Brandt and Diebold (2002) provide a good fit for many of the volatility series and in many cases have performance characteristics that compare favorably with other classes of models with high R-squares, low MAPE and direction prediction accuracy of 70% or more. On the debit side, many of the models demonstrate considerable variation in explanatory power over time, often associated with regime shifts or major market events, and this is typically accompanied by some model parameter drift and/or instability.
Single equation ARFIMA-GARCH models appear to be a robust and reliable framework for modeling asset volatility processes, as they are capable of capturing both the short- and long-memory effects in the volatility processes, as well as GARCH effects in the kurtosis process. The available procedures for estimating the degree of fractional integration in the volatility processes produce estimates that appear to vary widely for processes which include both short- and long- memory effects, but the overall conclusion is that long memory effects are at least as important as they are for volatility processes in developed markets. Simple extensions to the single-equation models, which include regressor lags of related volatility series, add significant explanatory power to the models and suggest the existence of Granger-causality relationships between processes.
Extending the modeling procedures into the realm of models which incorporate systems of equations provides evidence of two-way Granger causality between certain of the volatility processes and suggests that are fractionally cointegrated, a finding shared with parallel studies of volatility processes in developed markets.
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