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This study uses the powerful nonparametric cointegration test to examine whether nonlinear cointegration exists between prices of used houses and corresponding stock markets in China and the four Asian Tigers. Then, it uses the smooth transition vector error-correction model (STVECM) to explore the adjustment efficiencies of the short-run house and corresponding stockreturn dynamics when there is disequilibrium between house and stock prices. The empirical results indicate that there is a nonlinear cointegration between the house prices and corresponding stock prices in China, South Korea, Singapore, and Taiwan, and that the speed of price adjustment to equilibrium is always greater for houses than stocks when there are large positive and negative deviations. Moreover, the short-run speed of adjustment of the large negative and positive deviations is equal in China, South Korea, and Taiwan, but unequal in Singapore. With the exception of South Korea, the results of the Granger causality test indicate that stock prices clearly lead used house prices, which means a wealth effect exists in most Asian countries. Our study confirms that the STVECM can be used to analyze the short-run adjustment efficiency of house and stock return dynamics in China, South Korea, Singapore, and Taiwan; thus, supporting models of interaction between noise and arbitrage traders.

This study applied a quantile analysis to test the relationship between analyst coverage and overinvestment in Chinese firms and further sought to demonstrate the mediating effect of corporate governance on overinvestment. The empirical results show that analyst coverage causes overinvestment across all quantiles; however, corporate governance can diminish the effect of firm overinvestment in the higher quantile analysis. Additionally, the difference-in-differences method was used to explore the effectiveness of the Chinese government's 2013 corporate governance reform, with the results confirming that that governance reform has been effective in inhibiting a firm's overinvestment. The findings of this study indicate that analysts act as market supervisors in the Chinese capital market, improving corporate governance; however, their coverage does not appear to benefit firms or shareholders. This research highlights the need to review the role of analysts in the market to ensure they can reduce information asymmetry between managers and shareholders without causing overinvestment behavior. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines whether UK fund managers engage in herding behaviour in the stock market using the dynamic herding measure, whether their herding behaviour is different during bullish and bearish periods, whether most of their herding is informational, which types of informational reasons act as the main drivers of their herding and whether there are non-informational drivers of their herding. Our results reveal that UK fund managers engage in significant herding behaviour and that this behaviour does not differ significantly from bullish to bearish stock markets. Moreover, we confirm that there are weak positive correlations between fund managers’ herding and stock returns within the subsequent year, which indicates that their herding is mainly informational. To improve portfolio performance, other investors could follow UK fund managers and purchase stocks overbought by them with at least 15 traders quarterly in the following one-year period, particularly for growth-type, sectorspecific and international-type funds. Moreover, because they are more likely to herd in large-capitalisation securities, the informational reasons driving managers’ herding behaviour are mainly related to investigative herding. We also find that growth-type and international-type funds are more likely to herd with similar- type funds. This finding may result from reputational and characteristic herding, which illustrates that non-informational reasons for managers’ herding still exist.

This study uses a panel KSS test by Nuri Ucar and Tolga Omay (2009), with a Fourier function based on the sequential panel selection method (SPSM) procedure proposed by Georgios Chortareas and George Kapetanios (2009) to test the efficiency of REIT markets in 16 countries from 28 March 2008 to 27 June 2011. A Fourier approximation often captures the behavior of an unknown break, and testing for a unit root increases its power to do so. Moreover, SPSM can determine the mix of I(0) and I(1) series in a panel setting to clarify how many and which are random walk processes. Our empirical results demonstrate that REIT markets are efficient in all sampled countries except the UK. Our results imply that investors in countries with efficient REIT markets can adopt more passive portfolio strategies.