Global Shock and Regional Spillovers

Abstract

When global crisis struck at a time of great global and regional interdependence, contagion occurs; it can work via capital flows or through spillovers of the returns/yields on financial assets. The analysis in the paper deals with the latter. Focusing on the shocks in the United States and Eurozone bonds market, and using multivariate GARCH models with conditional variance-covariance matrix being positive definite, it is shown that the shock and volatility spillovers in some emerging Asian countries are quite significant. They spread throughout different asset classes, threatening the region’s financial stability, and making it more difficult for the policy response to focus on a particular market. Although local bonds volatilities are more determined by their own respective shocks and volatilities, in some markets the direct shock and volatility spillovers remain significant; so does the indirect spillovers within domestic asset markets and across economies. Absent of policy coordination within and across countries. Such undesirable spillovers due to other country’s unilateral policy can be damaging. Growing financial nationalism in the midst of a crisis is likely to spark strong reactions from affected countries, potentially creating a conflict situation.