DP5955 International Stock Return Comovements

Author(s): Geert Bekaert , Robert J Hodrick , Xiaoyan Zhang

Publication Date: November 2006

Keyword(s): international diversification , correlation dynamics , country debate , factor models , comovements

JEL(s): C52 , G11 , G12

Programme Areas: Financial Economics

Link to this Page: www.cepr.org/pubs/dps/DP5955.asp.asp

We examine international stock return comovements using country-industry and country-style portfolios. We first establish that parsimonious risk-based factor models capture the covariance structure of the data better than the popular Heston-Rouwenhorst (1994) model. We then establish the following stylized facts regarding stock return comovements. First, we do not find evidence for an upward trend in return correlations, excpet for the European stock markets. Second, the increasing imporatnce of industry factors relative to country factors was a short-lived, temporary phenomenon. Third, we find no evidence for a trend in idiosyncratic risk in any of the countries we examine.