Essays in international finance and banking

Abstract

In this thesis financial movements are considered in terms of foreign direct investment (FDI) and a related way to international banking. In Chapter 2 FDI is analysed in terms of the major G7 economies. Then this is further handled in Chapter 3 in terms of bilateral FDI (BFDI) data related to a broader group of economies and a main mode of analysis the Gravity model. Gravity models are then used in Chapter 4 to analyse bilateral cross border lending in a similar way. While the exchange rate effect is handled in terms of volatility and measured using models of conditional variance. The analysis focused on the bilateral data pays attention to the breakdown of crises across the whole period. With further consideration made of the Euro zone in terms of the study of BFDI and cross border lending. The initial study looks at the determinants of the inflow and outflow of stocks of FDI in the G7 economies for the period 1980-2011. A number of factors, such as research and development (R&D), openness and relative costs are shown to be important, but the main focus is on the impact of the real and nominal effective exchange rate volatility. Where nominal and real exchange rate volatility are measured using a model of generalised autoregressive conditional heteroscedasticity (GARCH) to explain the variance. Although the impact of volatility is theoretically ambiguous inflows are generally negatively affected by increased volatility, whilst there is some evidence outflows increase when volatility rises. In Chapter 3, the effect of bilateral exchange rate volatility is analysed using BFDI stocks, from 14 high income countries to all the OECD countries over the period 1995-2012. This is done using annual panel data with a gravity model. The empirical analysis applies the generalised method of moments (GMM) estimator to a gravity model of BFDI stocks. The findings imply that exports, GDP and distance are key variables that follow from the Gravity model. This study considers the East Asian, global financial markets and systemic banking crises have exerted an impact on BFDI. These effects vary by the type and origin of the crisis, but are generally negative. A high degree of exchange rate volatility discourages BFDI. Chapter 4 considers the determinants of cross-border banking activity from 19 advanced countries to the European Union (EU) over the period 1999-2014. Bilateral country-level stock data on cross-border lending is examined. The data allows us to analyse the effect of financial crises – differentiated by type: systemic banking crises, the global financial crisis, the Euro debt crisis and the Lehman Brothers crisis on the geography of cross-border lending. The problem is analysed using quarterly panel data with a Gravity model. The empirical "Gravity" model conditioned on distance and size measured by GDP is a benchmark in explaining the volume of cross border banking activities. In addition to the investigation of the impact of crises further comparison is made by investigating the impact of European integration on cross-border banking activities between member states. These results are robust to various econometric methodologies, samples, and institutional characteristics.