East Asian Equity Markets, Financial Crises, and the Japanese Currency

The paper studies the interactions between the U.S. and four East Asian markets. The focus is on the change in the information structure/flow between these markets triggered by the 1997 Asian financial crisis. It is shown that the information structure during the crisis period was different from that in the non-crisis periods. While the U.S. market led the four East Asian markets before, during, and after the crisis, it was Granger-caused by these markets during the financial crisis period but not in the post-crisis sample. Further, in accordance with concerns reported in the market, the Japanese currency is found to have affected these equity markets during the crisis period. The Japanese yen effect, however, disappeared in the post-crisis sample. The Japanese currency effect is quite robust as it is found from both local currency and U.S. dollar return data and in the presence of Japanese stock returns. JEL Classification: F31, G11 and G1