Political conflict and foreign portfolio investment: Evidence from North Korean attacks

Jeffrey R. Gerlach and Youngsuk Yook

Pacific-Basin Finance Journal, 2016, vol. 39, issue C, 178-196

Abstract: We examine the response of foreign investors to escalating political conflict and its impact on the South Korean stock market surrounding 13 North Korean military attacks between 1999 and 2010. Using domestic institutions and domestic individuals as benchmarks, we evaluate the trading behavior and performance of foreign investors. Following attacks, foreigners increase their holdings of Korean stocks and buy more shares of risky stocks. Performance results show foreigners maintain their pre-attack level of performance while domestic individuals, who make the overwhelming majority of domestic trades, perform worse. In addition, domestic institutions improve their performance. Overall, the results are consistent with the predictions based on the benefits of international diversification. Unlike domestic individuals, foreigners trade more shares than usual and deviate from their general strategy of positive feedback trading.

Keywords: Political conflict; International equity investment; North Korean attacks (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: G10 G15 H56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2016
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (12)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0927538X16300543
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:pacfin:v:39:y:2016:i:c:p:178-196

DOI: 10.1016/j.pacfin.2016.05.009

Access Statistics for this article

Pacific-Basin Finance Journal is currently edited by K. Chan and S. Ghon Rhee

More articles in Pacific-Basin Finance Journal from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().