Russian equity market linkages before and after the 1998 crisis: Evidence from stochastic and regime-switching cointegration tests

Abstract

This paper examines the relationships between Russian and other equity markets over the period of 1995–2004. To account for potential instability in the market relationships we apply a number of cointegration approaches: Gregory–Hansen [1996. Residual-based tests for cointegration in models with regime shifts. Journal of Econometrics 70, 99–126] test, which allows for a structural break in the relationships, a stochastic cointegration framework by McCabe [2003. Testing for Stochastic Cointegration and Evidence for Present Value Models. Working Paper], the non-parametric test by Breitung [2002. Nonparametric tests for unit roots and cointegration. Journal of Econometrics 108(2), 343–363] and a regime-switching cointegration model in the spirit of Ho [1999. Financial liberalization and international capital mobility of Taiwan: a regime-switching approach. Asian Economic Journal 13(4), 407–417]. The tests point to a significant agreement that the Russian equity market remained isolated from the influence by international markets in the long run and that while a structural break might have occurred in August 1998 this did not alter the nature of long-run relationships.