Stock Markets

Other People's Money: The Real Business of Finance by John Kay; New York: Public Affairs, 2015; pp 352, $27.99 (hardcover).

We formulate a simultaneous equations model and with the data of a panel of 600 Indian firms for the period 1991-92 to 1997-98 test the hypothesis of finance constraint. The firms are classified by the dividend pay-out ratio into high-cost and low-cost groups; a high dividend pay-out ratio implies a low cost of information faced by the firms and vice versa. In the context of developed countries, earlier researchers found that the firms in the high-cost group shows evidence of finance constraints and severity of the constraint goes down with the decrease in the cost of information. In our study we found that the firms with medium dividend pay-out ratios are constrained in the loans market so far as investment in fixed capital is concerned. This is quite a surprising result that requires careful explanation.

This paper investigates the volatility of stock returns in some Asian emerging markets in terms of the volatility of domestic and external factors. We found that both domestic macroeconomic variables and international variables are found to have explanatory power for stock return volatility. The evidence strongly suggests the presence of a significant contagion effect and integration of capital markets in this region. We also document that the role of government in terms of fiscal and monetary policy in the smooth functioning of the stock market is crucial in this region.