International Portfolio Diversification and Labor/leisure Choice

International Portfolio Diversification and Labor/leisure Choice
Author: Urban J. Jermann
Publisher:
Total Pages: 40
Release: 1998
Genre: Consumption (Economics)
ISBN:

When marginal utility of consumption depends on leisure, investors will take this into account when allocating their wealth among different assets. This paper presents a multi-country general equilibrium model driven by productivity shocks, where labor-leisure and consumption are chosen endogenously. We use this framework to study the effect of leisure for optimal international diversification. We find that in the symmetric case the model's ability to help explain home-bias depends crucially on the level of substitutability between consumption and leisure.

Is the International Diversification Potential Diminishing? Foreign Equity Inside and Outside the Us

Is the International Diversification Potential Diminishing? Foreign Equity Inside and Outside the Us
Author: Karen K. Lewis
Publisher:
Total Pages: 74
Release: 2010
Genre:
ISBN:

Over the past two decades international markets have become more open, leading to a common perception that global capital markets have become more integrated. In this paper, I ask what this integration and its resulting higher correlation would imply about the diversification potential across countries. For this purpose, I examine two basic groups of international returns: (1) foreign market indices and (2) foreign stocks that are listed and traded in the US. I examine the first group since this is the standard approach in the international diversification literature, while I study the second group since some have argued that US-listed foreign stocks are the more natural diversification vehicle (Errunza et al (1999)). In order to consider the possibility of shifts in the covariance of returns over time, I extend the break-date estimation approach of Bai and Perron (1998) to test for and estimate possible break dates across returns along with their confidence intervals. I find that the covariances among country stock markets have indeed shifted over time for a majority of the countries. But in contrast to the common perception that markets have become significantly more integrated over time, the covariance between foreign markets and the US market have increased only slightly from the beginning to the end of the last twenty years. At the same time, the foreign stocks in the US markets have become significantly more correlated with the US market. To consider the economic significance of these parameter changes, I use the estimates to examine the implications for a simple portfolio decision model in which a US investor could choose between US and foreign portfolios. When restricted to holding foreign assets in the form of market indices, I find that the optimal allocation in foreign market indices actually increases over time. However, the optimal allocation into foreign stocks decreases when the investor is allowed to hold foreign stocks that are traded in the US. Also, the minimum variance attainable by the foreign portfolios has increased over time. These results suggest that the benefits to diversification have declined both for stocks inside and outside the US.

International Diversification with Factor Funds

International Diversification with Factor Funds
Author: Cheol S. Eun
Publisher:
Total Pages: 34
Release: 2015
Genre:
ISBN:

We propose a new investment strategy employing “factor funds” to systematically enhance the mean-variance efficiency of international diversification. Our approach is motivated by the increasing evidence that size (SMB), book-to-market (HML), and momentum (MOM) factors, along with the market factor, adequately describe international stock returns, and by the direct link between investors' portfolio choice problems and international asset pricing theories and tests. Using data from ten developed countries during the period 1981-2008, we show that the “augmented” optimal portfolio involving local factor funds substantially outperforms the “benchmark” optimal portfolio comprising country market indices only as measured by their portfolio Sharpe ratios. This strongly rejects the intersection hypothesis which posits that the local factor funds do not span investment opportunities beyond what country market indices do. Among the three classes of factor funds, HML funds contribute most to the efficiency gains. In addition, the local version of factor funds outperforms the global factor funds. The added gains from local factor diversification are significant for both in- and out-of-sample periods, and for a realistic range of additional investment costs for factor funds, and remain robust over time.

The International Diversification Puzzle when Goods Prices Are Sticky

The International Diversification Puzzle when Goods Prices Are Sticky
Author: Mr.Charles Engel
Publisher: International Monetary Fund
Total Pages: 49
Release: 2009-01-01
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1451871597

This paper develops a two-country monetary DSGE model in which households choose a portfolio of home and foreign equities, and a forward position in foreign exchange. Some nominal goods prices are sticky. Trade in these assets achieves the same allocations as trade in a complete set of nominal state-contingent claims in our linearized model. When there is a high degree of price stickiness, we show that not much equity diversification is required to replicate the complete-markets equilibrium when agents are able to hedge foreign exchange risk sufficiently. Moreover, temporarily sticky nominal goods prices can have large effects on equity portfolios even when dividend processes are very persistent.

Is the International Diversification Potential Diminishing?

Is the International Diversification Potential Diminishing?
Author: Karen K. Lewis
Publisher:
Total Pages: 73
Release: 2006
Genre: Capital market
ISBN:

Over the past two decades international markets have become more open, leading to a common perception that global capital markets have become more integrated. In this paper, I ask what this integration and its resulting higher correlation would imply about the diversification potential across countries. For this purpose, I examine two basic groups of international returns: (1) foreign market indices and (2) foreign stocks that are listed and traded in the US. I examine the first group since this is the standard approach in the international diversification literature, while I study the second group since some have argued that US-listed foreign stocks are the more natural diversification vehicle (Errunza et al (1999)). In order to consider the possibility of shifts in the covariance of returns over time, I extend the break-date estimation approach of Bai and Perron (1998) to test for and estimate possible break dates across returns along with their confidence intervals. I find that the covariances among country stock markets have indeed shifted over time for a majority of the countries. But in contrast to the common perception that markets have become significantly more integrated over time, the covariance between foreign markets and the US market have increased only slightly from the beginning to the end of the last twenty years. At the same time, the foreign stocks in the US markets have become significantly more correlated with the US market. To consider the economic significance of these parameter changes, I use the estimates to examine the implications for a simple portfolio decision model in which a US investor could choose between US and foreign portfolios. When restricted to holding foreign assets in the form of market indices, I find that the optimal allocation in foreign market indices actually increases over time. However, the optimal allocation into foreign stocks decreases when the investor is allowed to hold foreign stocks that are traded in the US. Also, the minimum variance atta

Long-Term Investing and International Diversification

Long-Term Investing and International Diversification
Author: Mattias Persson
Publisher:
Total Pages: 22
Release: 2002
Genre:
ISBN:

The gains from international diversification are a well-established fact. In this study a non-parametric moving block bootstrap is used to investigate if investors with long investment horizons should tilt their portfolio weights towards the international stock markets. Through this approach we are able to study the impact of estimation risk on the optimal weights in the assets, and over the investment horizons. The analysis shows that the investors gain more from internationally diversified portfolios if the investment horizon is longer, that is, the weight in the international assets are significantly higher for long investment horizons compared to the one-year horizon.

Sector Integration and the Benefits of Global Diversification

Sector Integration and the Benefits of Global Diversification
Author: Mitchell Ratner
Publisher:
Total Pages: 33
Release: 2016
Genre:
ISBN:

One of the main reasons that investment advisors recommend international investments is that foreign stocks are not highly correlated with U.S. stocks. As world economies become increasingly interrelated, it may become more difficult for investors to achieve effective diversification. This research investigates international stock market correlation, and assesses whether global diversification on a sector basis is beneficial to U.S. investors. This analysis includes 38 developed and emerging stock markets from 1981-2000. In addition to demonstrating a potential loss of diversification benefits, this paper utilizes an optimal global asset allocation model to illustrate the effects of sector diversification on portfolio performance over time.