Integration of ASEAN5 equity markets, GDP and trade and their relationships with asset pricing

This thesis focuses on five of the founding nations of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). The countries are Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, Indonesia and the Philippines (ASEAN5). Asset pricing for the ASEAN5 equity markets is the main focus of this thesis, although we also develop vector error correction models (VECM) for GDP, trade and local equity market returns for the ASEAN5. While this allows further analysis of the robustness of asset pricing models, it also facilitates study of the fundamental links that exist within these economies. The traditional CAPM and the four factor-model that include market, size, value and momentum effects (Fama and French, 1993; Carhart, 1997) are employed in testing the variation in size/book-to-market equity (size-BTME) and industry portfolio returns for these markets for the period from January 1990 to March 2006. Three macro factors as well as world excess returns are then added to the basic four-factor asset pricing model. These macro factors include unexpected GDP, unexpected total trade and unexpected equity market returns, which are derived from VECM or VAR estimates for ASEAN5 GDP, total trade and equity market returns. This model is referred to as the macro-factor model. The results suggest that the explanatory power of the four-factor model consistently exceeds those of the one-factor CAPM in explaining size-BTME and industry portfolio returns. Further, the macro-factor model analysis suggests that collectively, this model does not substantially improve the explanatory power of the basic four-factor model, suggesting that the variation in portfolio returns is mostly captured by the four-factor model. There is some cross-country variation in these results. Regardless, these macro factors − taken as a group or individually − are statistically significant, particularly for Thailand and Malaysia. In addition, the cointegration test results document evidence of long-run linkages for the equity markets within the ASEAN5. This is also true for GDP within the ASEAN5. In both cases, closer links prevail in the post-crisis period. This is not the case for trade where there is little consistent evidence of close links between the countries. Mixed results are found for different ASEAN5 trade measures where the linkages for total trade, import and exports vary substantially according to the selected period of study, whether full period, pre-crisis or post-crisis period.