In Korea, Thailand, Mexico, Chile and a host of other nations, stock markets previously shunned as illiquid, or simply too exotic, are evolving at a terrific rate, and drawing in ever more participants. Consider these facts:. The emerging markets' share of world market capitalization will grow from approximately 7 percent to 15-20 percent - a pace more than twice that of the industrialized nations.

Emerging markets have received a particular attention of academic researchers and practitioners since they decided to open their domestic capital markets to foreign participants about three decades ago. At the same time, we remark that theoretical and empirical research in emerging stock markets has been particularly challenged by their fast changes in nature and size under the effects of financial liberalization and reforms. This evolving feature has particularly led to a commensurate increase in sophistication of modeling techniques used for understanding financial markets. In this spirit, the book aims at providing the audience a comprehensive understanding of emerging stock markets in various aspects using modern financial econometric methods. It addresses the empirical techniques needed by economic agents to analyze the dynamics of these markets and illustrates how they can be applied to the actual data. On the other hand, it presents and discusses new research findings and their implications.

Since the mid-1980s, there has been a very substantial increase in stock market activity in many developing countries. This paper first examines the main characteristics of the emerging stock markets, and illustrates the evolution of equity prices in these markets over the last decade. It then discusses the reasons for the markets’ growth and assesses the extent to which domestic policies, as well as external factors, have played a role. This is followed by a discussion of the likely benefits of these markets; the effects which any abrupt correction in stock prices could have for the economy; and the ways in which these markets can be made more efficient.

Emerging Stock Markets: Risk, Return, and Performance is a compendium of historical data currently available about the performance of securities in emerging markets. As a result, it will be an invaluable aid to the investor or investment manager trying to make informed decisions about investing in emerging market assets. The authors provide monthly stock return data for more than two dozen countries in the Emerging Markets Data Base maintained by the International Finance Corporation. Without such data, analysis of this fascinating asset class has been frustrated.

Cracking the Emerging Markets Enigma outlines a rigorous, comprehensive, and practical framework for evaluating the opportunities and, more importantly, the risks of investing in emerging markets. Built on a foundation of sound research on foreign direct and portfolio capital flows, Andrew Karolyi's proposed system of evaluation incorporates multiple dimensions of the potential risks faced by prospective investors in an empirically coherent framework.