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Compares stock market returns behaviour for six stock markets in order to find out whether nonlinearities are a result of conditional heteroscedasticity or of previous performance. Uses LeBaron’s exponential generalized autoregressive conditional heteroscedasticity model to link conditional variance with first order correlation. Applies it to daily stock market indexes from 1986 to 1991 in Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and the United Kingdom. Finds that the links exist in all the markets, with high autocorrelation during stable periods, and none under high volatility, for daily but not weekly returns. Concludes that nonsynchronous trading leads to an inverse relationship between volatility and autocorrelation.

This paper investigates the performance characteristics of Turkish private and state‐owned commercial banks for the 1986– 1990 period. The link between interest margins and maturity structures of bank asset and liabilities is specified. Empirical evidence indicates that banks with longer positions experienced lower interest margins, a finding consistent with the presence of a downward sloping yield curve during most of this period. The results document that bank margins suffered after the financial reforms of 1988. Further, compared to private banks, state‐owned banks exhibited lower interest margins and longer maturities, which is a direct consequence of portfolio constraints and management style of banks.

This study uses a two‐step GARCH‐M procedure to observe mean‐return and volatility transmissions between Latin American markets and to Latin America from external markets during the period 1993–2000. The results indicate that mean‐return transmissions are common both within region and from external markets. The volatility transmission results are consistent with contagion theory and indicate that traders use both domestic news events as well as information contained by volatility in other markets in their information set.

Compares the trading efficiency of electronic and open outcry futures markets. Argues that the difference between the German DAX (floor) and FDAX (electronic) markets is due to asset type, not to information processing speed. Describes the German trading environment, comparing trading data from 1992 to 1994. Shows that the returns for DAX are positively skewed and for FDAX negatively skewed and more volatile. From regression and Granger causality tests establishes a feedback relationship between the two markets, in which the spot market is slower to digest information than the futures market. Points out that the dominant DAX stocks are also traded electronically, so the means of trade is not the cause of the difference.

This study employs a multivariate GARCH model to investigate the relative sensitivities of the first and the second moment of bank stock return distribution to the short‐term and long‐term interest rates and their respective volatilities. Three portfolios are formed representing the money center banks, large banks, and small banks, respectively. Estimation and testing of hypotheses are carried out for each of the three portfolios separately. The sample includes daily data over the 1988‐2000 period. Several hypotheses are tested within the multivariate GARCH specification. These include the hypotheses of: (i) insensitivity of bank stock return to the changes in the short‐term and long‐term interest rates, (ii) insensitivity of bank stock returns to the changes in the volatilities of short‐term and long‐term interest rates, and (iii) insensitivity of bank stock return volatility to the changes in the short‐term and long‐term interest rate volatilities. The findings indicate that short‐term and long‐term interest rates and their volatilities do exert significant and differential impacts on the return generation process of the three bank portfolios. The magnitudes and the direction of the effect are model‐specific namely that they depend on whether the short‐term or the long‐term interest rate level is included in the mean return equation. These findings have implications on bank hedging strategies against the interest rate risk, regulatory decisions concerning risk‐based capital requirement, and investor’s choice of a portfolio mix.

This paper aims to investigate who causes post‐announcement drift and whether this drift is observed for various types of news announcements.

Using Finnish share ownership data, the authors examine the trading behavior of foreign and domestic investors during the post‐announcement periods of scheduled earnings and unscheduled non‐earnings announcements.

The results show that the post‐announcement drift exists for both types of news, but only if the news is negative. As a group, foreign investors react first by selling shares of firms reporting negative information. Domestic investors act in the opposite manner.

The results imply that the post‐announcement drift is a special case of a more general post‐disclosure phenomenon and that investor differences (most likely information processing skills) is one likely explanation for its pervasiveness.

The present paper is intended to form an introduction to the ideas of machine translation; it is in no sense a complete account of the work which has been carried out at Birkbeck College and elsewhere and which interested readers can study in more detail in a book which is in course of publication.

Aarhus Kommunes Biblioteker (Teknisk Bibliotek), Ingerslevs Plads 7, Aarhus, Denmark. Representative: V. NEDERGAARD PEDERSEN (Librarian).

WE have recently published one or two articles in which a contributor with a considerable knowledge of the Chinese economy has described some of that country's industrial activities. The articles have been scrupulously factual and impartial in revealing the ingenuity which has enabled a people desperately short of the technological resources of the industrialised nations to secure for themselves some of life's essentials.

Mr Geoffrey Pitt, M.B.E., has been appointed Traffic Director of the British Airports Authority. From 1946 to 1961, Mr Pitt was with the Eagle Group of Companies and became Sales Director, and after‐wards was General Manager (Britain) for Aer Lingus.