The full-text may be used and/or reproduced, and given to third parties in any format or medium, without prior permission or charge, for personal research or study, educational, or not-for-prot purposes provided that:• a full bibliographic reference is made to the original source • a link is made to the metadata record in DRO • the full-text is not changed in any way The full-text must not be sold in any format or medium without the formal permission of the copyright holders.Please consult the full DRO policy for further details. AbstractThe paper contributes to the capital structure literature by investigating the determinants of capital structure of firms operating in the Asia Pacific region, in four countries with different legal, financial and institutional environments, namely Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore and Australia. The results suggest that the capital structure decision of firms is influenced by the environment in which they operate, as well as firm-specific factors identified in the extant literature. The financial crisis of 1997 is also found to have had a significant but diverse impact on firm's capital structure decision across the region. IntroductionThe prediction of the Modigliani and Miller model that in a perfect capital market the value of the firm is independent of its capital structure, and hence debt and equity are perfect substitutes for each other, is widely accepted. However, once the assumption of perfect capital markets is relaxed, the choice of capital structure becomes an important valuedetermining factor. This paved the way for the development of alternative theories of capital structure decision and their empirical analysis. Although it is now recognized that the choice between debt and equity depends on firm-specific characteristics, the empirical evidence is mixed and often difficult to interpret. Moreover, still very little is understood about the determinants of the firm's financing mix outside the US and other major developed markets,with only a few papers analysing international data (Rajan and Zingales, 1995;Booth et al., 2001;and Antoniou et al., 2002). Certainly, there is not enough evidence on how theories formulated for firms operating in major developed markets can be applied to firms outside these markets, and in countries with different institutional and legal environments. For example, given the economic importance of the Asia Pacific region and the diversity of countries in this region, it is surprising that so little research has been so far conducted 1 .In addition, very little is known about the possible effects of the East Asian financial crisis of 1997 on corporate decision-making. The 1997 crisis, which originated in Thailand, affected the region's capital markets severely, with outflows of foreign investments as international investors became concerned with the higher risk in the affected countries.Raising capital in these countries became more costly because of higher risk premia, (Grenville, 1999;and Cha and Oh, 2000).The paper is organised as follows....

The full-text may be used and/or reproduced, and given to third parties in any format or medium, without prior permission or charge, for personal research or study, educational, or not-for-pro t purposes provided that:• a full bibliographic reference is made to the original source • a link is made to the metadata record in DRO • the full-text is not changed in any way The full-text must not be sold in any format or medium without the formal permission of the copyright holders.Please consult the full DRO policy for further details. AbstractThis paper examines the impact of political uncertainty (caused by the civil uprisings in the Arab World i.e., "Arab Spring") on the volatility of major stock markets in the MENA region.Our main findings are as follows. First, by distinguishing between conventional and Islamic stock market indices, we find that these two groups of investments react heterogeneously to the recent political turmoil. Specifically, we document a significant increase in the volatility of Islamic indices during the period of political unrests whereas the uprisings have had little or no significant effect on the volatility in conventional markets. Such difference is confirmed by further analysis in a multivariate GARCH model. Second, regardless of its impact on volatility, there is little evidence to suggest that MENA markets have become more integrated with international markets after the political revolution. Third, similar results are not found for the benchmark indices which indicate that the changes are the result of political tensions.In general, these results are robust to model specification and consistent with the notion that political uncertainty contributes to financial volatility. Overall, the findings are important in understanding the role of political uncertainty on stock market stability and are of great significance to investors and market regulators.

NOTICE: this is the author's version of a work that was accepted for publication in International Review of Financial Analysis. Changes resulting from the publishing process, such as peer review, editing, corrections, structural formatting, and other quality control mechanisms may not be reected in this document. Changes may have been made to this work since it was submitted for publication. A denitive version was subsequently published in International Review of Financial Analysis, 20, 5, October 2011, 10.1016/j.irfa.2011.06.006. Additional information:Use policyThe full-text may be used and/or reproduced, and given to third parties in any format or medium, without prior permission or charge, for personal research or study, educational, or not-for-prot purposes provided that:• a full bibliographic reference is made to the original source • a link is made to the metadata record in DRO • the full-text is not changed in any way The full-text must not be sold in any format or medium without the formal permission of the copyright holders.Please consult the full DRO policy for further details. This paper extends the standard feedback trading model of Sentana and Wadhwani (1992) by allowing the demand for shares by feedback traders to depend on sentiment.Our empirical analysis of three largest Exchange-Traded Fund (ETF) contracts in the U.S. suggests that there is a significant positive feedback trading in these markets and the intensity of which is generally linked to investor sentiment. Specifically, the level of feedback trading tends to increase when investors are optimistic. In addition, we find that the influence of sentiment on feedback trading varies across market regimes.These results are consistent with the view that feedback trading activity is largely caused by the presence of sentiment-driven noise trading. Overall, the findings are important in understanding the role of sentiment in investment behaviour and market dynamics and are of direct relevance to the regulators and investors in ETF markets.JEL classification: G14; C22

The full-text may be used and/or reproduced, and given to third parties in any format or medium, without prior permission or charge, for personal research or study, educational, or not-for-prot purposes provided that:• a full bibliographic reference is made to the original source • a link is made to the metadata record in DRO • the full-text is not changed in any way The full-text must not be sold in any format or medium without the formal permission of the copyright holders.Please consult the full DRO policy for further details. Debt Maturity Structure and the 1997 Asian Financial Crisis AbstractThe paper investigates the effects of firm-specific and country-specific characteristics, and the 1997Asian financial crisis on the debt maturity structure of firms in the Asia Pacific region. Given that the economies of the sample countries were at different stages of development and were affected by the 1997 Asian financial crisis by different degrees, the paper explores the effects of the crisis on debt maturity structure by grouping the sample countries according to the severity of the crisis. The results indicate that firms adjust their debt maturity structure to target level very quickly; the maturity structure decision of a firm is the product of both its own characteristics and the economic and institutional environment in which it operates. They also reveal that the crisis had significant effects on firm's debt maturity structure and their determinants. JEL Classification: G32

The full-text may be used and/or reproduced, and given to third parties in any format or medium, without prior permission or charge, for personal research or study, educational, or not-for-prot purposes provided that:• a full bibliographic reference is made to the original source • a link is made to the metadata record in DRO • the full-text is not changed in any way The full-text must not be sold in any format or medium without the formal permission of the copyright holders.Please consult the full DRO policy for further details. Debt Maturity Structure and the 1997 Asian Financial Crisis AbstractThe paper investigates the effects of firm-specific and country-specific characteristics, and the 1997Asian financial crisis on the debt maturity structure of firms in the Asia Pacific region. Given that the economies of the sample countries were at different stages of development and were affected by the 1997 Asian financial crisis by different degrees, the paper explores the effects of the crisis on debt maturity structure by grouping the sample countries according to the severity of the crisis. The results indicate that firms adjust their debt maturity structure to target level very quickly; the maturity structure decision of a firm is the product of both its own characteristics and the economic and institutional environment in which it operates. They also reveal that the crisis had significant effects on firm's debt maturity structure and their determinants. JEL Classification: G32

We examine the role sentiment plays and its manifestation in the trading behavior of investors in the U.S. stock market. Our findings support the notion that sentiment-induced buying and selling is an important determinant of stock price variation. While 'classical' asset pricing categorizes investors who trade in ways not consistent with mean-variance optimization as 'irrational,' we show that this traditional view should not hastily be evoked to characterize sentiment-driven investing. We instead show that sentiment-driven investors can trade against the herd and sell when prices are overinflated as a result of over-bullishness and vice versa. The asset pricing implications of this paper are that sentiment is linked to shifts in risk tolerance and this triggers contrarian-type behavior. In sum, we uncover the following regarding the behavior of sentimentdriven investors; firstly, they are more apt to trade on survey-based indicators rather than marketbased indicators. Secondly, they trade on the basis of information extracted from individual, rather than institutional, investor surveys. Thirdly, they respond asymmetrically to shifts in sentiment and trade more aggressively during periods of declining sentiment. Finally, there is asymmetry in the role of sentiment with respect to business conditions whereby such buying and selling is more pronounced during bear markets.

The full-text may be used and/or reproduced, and given to third parties in any format or medium, without prior permission or charge, for personal research or study, educational, or not-for-pro t purposes provided that:• a full bibliographic reference is made to the original source • a link is made to the metadata record in DRO • the full-text is not changed in any way The full-text must not be sold in any format or medium without the formal permission of the copyright holders.Please consult the full DRO policy for further details. AbstractThis paper develops an indicator of financial stress transmission, called Financial Stress Spillover Index (FSSI), to monitor the condition of financial system and to identify periods of excessive spillover that may lead to financial instability. Specifically, using the "spillover index" approach of Diebold and Yilmaz (2012), we modify and extend the financial stress indices proposed by Oet et al. (2011) to track both total and directional stress spillovers across the U.S. equity, debt, banking, and foreign exchange markets. Unlike other previous studies, the important linkages among these four major financial sectors in an interconnected world are directly taken into account by considering the average and time-varying connectedness of each individual market. The evidence suggests that there are important stress episodes and fluctuations across markets; the total cross-market stress spillovers were rather limited until the onsets of financial crises. As the crises intensified, so too did the financial stress spillovers; with significant stress carrying over from debt and equity markets to the others. In addition, our results indicate that FSSI has a significant predictive power for the economic activity and provides useful information for dating financial crisis. JEL classification: G01; C03

The full-text may be used and/or reproduced, and given to third parties in any format or medium, without prior permission or charge, for personal research or study, educational, or not-for-prot purposes provided that:• a full bibliographic reference is made to the original source • a link is made to the metadata record in DRO • the full-text is not changed in any way The full-text must not be sold in any format or medium without the formal permission of the copyright holders.Please consult the full DRO policy for further details. AbstractUsing the business cycle indicators and the aggregate stock market data, this paper examines the degree of positive feedback trading in the G-7 economies and the extent to which such behaviour varies across business cycle. The evidence suggests that there is a significant positive feedback trading in the major stock exchanges of G-7 countries and its intensity is linked to the overall macroeconomic conditions. Specifically, our investigation reveals that in expansions there is more active positive feedback trading than in recessions. Overall, our results yield an important insight into the effect of business cycle on investors' behaviour and market dynamics and bear important implications for the investment professions and market regulators.JEL classification: G14, C22