Multinationals and the Gains from International Diversification

Multinationals and the Gains from International Diversification
Author: Patrick F. Rowland
Publisher:
Total Pages: 61
Release: 2002
Genre:
ISBN:

One possible explanation for home bias is that investors may obtain indirect international diversification benefits by investing in multinational firms rather than by investing directly in foreign markets. This paper employs mean-variance spanning tests to examine the diversification potential of multinational firms and foreign market indices for investors domiciled in Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom and the United States. We find that in most countries and most time periods, the portfolio of domestic stocks spans the risk and return opportunities of a portfolio that includes domestic and multinational stocks. However, there is weak evidence that U.S. multinationals provided global diversification benefits in the full 1984-92 sample and in the post-1987 subsample. We also find that the addition of foreign market indices to a domestic portfolio - inclusive of multinationals - provides diversification benefits. The economic importance of the shift of the portfolio frontier - measured as the utility gain from diversification - varies considerably from market to market and often reflects the benefits of large short positions in certain markets.

Multinationals and the Gains from International Diversification

Multinationals and the Gains from International Diversification
Author: Patrick F. Rowland
Publisher:
Total Pages: 74
Release: 1998
Genre: Diversification in industry
ISBN:

One possible explanation for home bias is that investors may obtain indirect international diversification benefits by investing in multinational firms rather than by investing directly in foreign markets. This paper employs mean-variance spanning tests to examine the diversification potential of multinational firms and foreign market indices for investors domiciled in Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom and the United States. We find that in most countries and most time periods, the portfolio of domestic stocks spans the risk and return opportunities of a portfolio that includes domestic and multinational stocks. However, there is weak evidence that U.S. multinationals provided global diversification benefits in the full 1984-92 sample and in the post-1987 subsample. We also find that the addition of foreign market indices to a domestic portfolio - inclusive of multinationals - provides diversification benefits. The economic importance of the shift of the portfolio frontier - measured as the utility gain from diversification - varies considerably from market to market and often reflects the benefits of large short positions in certain markets.

Are the Gains from Foreign Diversification Diminishing?

Are the Gains from Foreign Diversification Diminishing?
Author: Karen K. Lewis
Publisher:
Total Pages: 47
Release: 2012
Genre: Economics
ISBN:

How important is foreign diversification? In this paper, we re-examine this question motivated by findings from the literature about foreign companies that are listed on US exchanges. Specifically, domestic portfolios including cross-listed stocks can provide the same diversification as foreign market returns without the need for US investors to go abroad. At the same time, the betas of these foreign stock returns against the US market increase after cross-listing, suggesting diversification worsens over time. In this paper, we assess the impact of these changes on foreign diversification for a US investor. We test for and estimate breaks in the sensitivity of individual foreign stocks listed on US exchanges. We find that roughly half of the changes in betas arise from greater integration between the U.S. and the companies' home markets, not in the companies betas themselves. Moreover, the gains from diversifying into these stocks has declined over time -- National Bureau of Economic Research web site.

International Diversification at Home and Abroad

International Diversification at Home and Abroad
Author: Fang Cai
Publisher:
Total Pages: 38
Release: 2007
Genre:
ISBN:

It is an established fact that investors favor the familiar%u2014be it domestic securities or, within a country, the securities of nearby firms%u2014and avoid investments that would provide the greatest diversification benefits. While we do not rule out familiarity as an important driver of portfolio allocations, we provide new evidence of investors%u2019 international diversification motive. In particular, our analysis of the security-level U.S. equity holdings of foreign and domestic institutional investors indicates that institutional investors reveal a preference for domestic multinationals (MNCs), even after controlling for familiarity factors. We attribute this revealed preference to the desire to obtain %u201Csafe%u201D international diversification. We then show that holdings of domestic MNCs are substantial and, after accounting for this home-grown foreign exposure, that the share of %u201Cforeign%u201D equities in investors%u2019 portfolios roughly doubles, reducing (but not eliminating) the observed home bias.

New Perspectives on the International Diversification of Multinational Enterprises

New Perspectives on the International Diversification of Multinational Enterprises
Author: Yi Li
Publisher:
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2015
Genre:
ISBN:

Pursuit of international markets and resources from foreign sources has increased dramatically across the globe during the past three decades, and the academic study of international diversification has increased concurrently. Although scholars have studied several areas of international diversification research, there are still some unsolved problems, and new theoretical perspectives are needed to advance the field. In this thesis, I derive comprehensive models of international diversification by examining these variables through new perspectives. Based on positive organisational scholarship, configurational and institutional perspectives, I build new theoretical frameworks to fill gaps in international diversification research. This dissertation comprises three studies. Each of the studies examines different angles of international diversification, and the three individual research papers are intertwined to provide a coherent and integrated framework for this thesis. In Study 1, I elaborate a theoretical framework advancing the generalisation of international diversification research in emerging economies. Previous studies mainly focus on international diversification of multinational enterprises (MNEs) from well-developed countries, but largely ignored international diversification of emerging economy MNEs. To fill this research gap, Study 1 captures how Top Management Teams' (TMT) industrial and institutional factors influence mixed foreign direct investment (FDI), an important type of international diversification especially for emerging economy firms. Following the positive organisational scholarship perspective, I examine the positive influence of TMT functional diversity on emerging economy firms' likelihood of conducting mixed FDI. Furthermore, the effect of TMT functional diversity on mixed FDI is contingent on the social context of the TMT, competitive condition of the industry, and institutional development of firm locality. As an extension to Study 1, Study 2 evaluates the impact of various international diversification strategies on firms' internationalisation performance in the context of emerging economies. Within the configurational perspective, Study 2 investigates equifinal paths for emerging economy firms to achieve strategic fit (in the form of desired internationalisation performance) through configurations of the TMT's structure, international diversification strategy, and environmental condition. Within fuzzy-set analysis, the empirical results support my proposition about configurations of strategic fit in an emerging economy firm's international diversification, and multiple equifinal strategic-fit paths have been found. In Study 3, I extend the literature by developing arguments for performance benefits of institutional diversification strategies of MNEs. Existing studies have largely overlooked host-country institutional differences when considering the effects of different foreign countries on the MNE performance. I seek to fill this research gap by teasing out the effects of institutional diversification, and building theory on the relationship between different types of institutional diversification and MNE performance. Based on new institutional economics and comparative institutionalism, I divide institutional diversification into two main types: vertical institutional diversification and horizontal institutional diversification. I propose that the degree of vertical institutional diversification will have a negative effect on the MNE performance, while the scope of this diversification will serve to strengthen this negative effect. For horizontal institutional diversification, I propose that the MNE's degree of this diversification will have a positive effect on its performance, and its scope weakens this positive effect.