Three essays on international mutual fund flows

Abstract

In this dissertation, I investigate the comprehensive relationship of international mutual fund flows among markets. While my first essay presents the unprecedent findings of commonality in mutual fund flows and global market integration, my second essay focuses on answering the classic question in financial market: is there any contagion in the market for asset management? In the third essay, I examine the intransitivity puzzle presented in the first essay. In the first essay, I examine global integration in the market for asset management, as indicated by the correlation of mutual fund flows across domiciles. I observe no leading role for the US relative to flows in other domiciles. I do observe a strong global factor in MF flows, and global integration is linked to a market’s business environment, safety from conflict, and political stability. In regional analysis, Europe represents an integrated market for asset management, led by Luxembourg, where asset managers face common flow risks across domiciles. The Asia-Pacific region displays no coherent patterns of correlations across domiciles. In the second essay, I examine the evolution of contagion over time and across conditions in the market for asset management. First, I examine the time trend in cross-domicile mutual fund flow correlations during recent decades. Second, I model contagion in fund flows during different conditions of market stress. Last, I investigate changes in cross-domicile flow correlations during and after the financial crisis of 2006-2008. Results indicate that there was a peak in market contagion during the financial crisis period, and correlations decreased in the following periods. In the third essay, I examine how international mutual fund (MF) flows are largely uncorrelated with the United States’ (US) MF flows, although non-US MF flows are associated with non-US MF returns, non-US MF returns are strongly associated with US MF returns, and US MF returns are associated with US MF flows. I refer to this puzzle as the intransitivity of international MF flows. To explain the intransitivity of international MF flows, I decompose domicile-level MF returns into a component that is associated with US returns and an idiosyncratic domicile-level return component. I then decompose US MF flows into an expected component based on US MF returns and an unexpected component. I explain the intransitivity puzzle by showing that domicile fixed-effects, macro-economic control variables, and the aggregation of fund-level data to domicile-level flows reconcile the apparent inconsistencies in the international MF flow and performance associations.