We develop a new global asset pricing model to study how illiquidity interacts with market segmentation and investability constraints in 42 markets. Noninvestable stocks that can only be held by foreign investors earn higher expected returns compared to freely investable stocks due to limited risk sharing and higher illiquidity. In addition to the world market premium, on average, developed and emerging market noninvestables earn an annual unspanned local market risk premium of 1.17% and 9.04%, and a liquidity level premium of 1.06% and 2.39%, respectively. These results obtained in a conditional setup are robust to the choice of liquidity measure.

Market liberalization may not result in full market integration if implicit barriers are important. We test this proposition for investable and non-investable segments of twenty-two emerging markets (EMs). We also measure the degree of integration for six major developed markets (DMs) as a meaningful benchmark. We find that while the DMs are close to fully integrated, both EM segments are not effectively integrated with the global economy. We quantify the importance of implicit barriers and show that better institutions, stronger corporate governance, and more transparent markets in EMs would jointly contribute to a higher degree of integration by about 20% to 30%. The Author 2013. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of The Society for Financial Studies. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please e-mail: [email protected]., Oxford University Press.

[Market liberalization may not result in full market integration if implicit barriers are important. We test this proposition for investable and non-investable segments of twenty-two emerging markets (EMs). We also measure the degree of integration for six major developed markets (DMs) as a meaningful benchmark. We find that while the DMs are close to fully integrated, both EM segments are not effectively integrated with the global economy. We quantify the importance of implicit barriers and show that better institutions, stronger corporate governance, and more transparent markets in EMs would jointly contribute to a higher degree of integration by about 20% to 30%.]

We find that the degree and dynamics of sovereign bond market integration across 21 developed and 18 emerging countries is significantly heterogeneous. We show that better spanning can significantly enhance market integration through dissipating local risk premiums. Integration of the sovereign bond markets increases by about 10% on average, when a country moves from the 25th to the 75th percentile as a result of higher political stability and credit quality, lower inflation and inflation risk, and lower illiquidity. The 10% increase in integration leads to, on average, a decrease in the sovereign cost of funding of about 1% per annum.

[International equity markets are characterized by nonlinear dependence and asymmetries. We propose a new dynamic asymmetric copula model to capture long-run and short-run dependence, multivariate nonnormality, and asymmetries in large cross-sections. We find that correlations have increased markedly in both developed markets (DMs) and emerging markets (EMs), but they are much lower in EMs than in DMs. Tail dependence has also increased, but its level is still relatively low in EMs. We propose new measures of dynamic diversification benefits that take into account higher-order moments and nonlinear dependence. The benefits from international diversification have reduced over time, drastically so for DMs. EMs still offer significant diversification benefits, especially during large market downturns.]

International equity markets are characterized by nonlinear dependence and asymmetries. We propose a new dynamic asymmetric copula model to capture long-run and short-run dependence, multivariate nonnormality, and asymmetries in large cross-sections. We find that correlations have increased markedly in both developed markets (DMs) and emerging markets (EMs), but they are much lower in EMs than in DMs. Tail dependence has also increased, but its level is still relatively low in EMs. We propose new measures of dynamic diversification benefits that take into account higher-order moments and nonlinear dependence. The benefits from international diversification have reduced over time, drastically so for DMs. EMs still offer significant diversification benefits, especially during large market downturns.