Are South East Europe stock markets integrated with regional and global stock markets?

This paper analyses whether stock markets of South East Europe (SEE) have become more integrated with regional and global stock markets during 2000s. Using a variety of co integration methodologies we show that SEE stock markets have no long-run relationship with their mature counterparts. This means that SEE markets might be immunized to external shocks. We also model time varying correlations among these markets by using Multivariate Generalised Autoregressive Conditional Heteroschedastic (MGARCH) models as well as the Exponential Weighted Moving Average (EWMA) methodology. Results show that the correlations of UK and US equity markets with South East Europe market change over time. These changes in correlations between our benchmark markets and individual SEE market pairs are not uniform although evidence of increasing convergence among South East Europe and developed stock market is evident. Also examined in this paper whether the structure of correlations between returns of indices in different markets changed in different phases of the 2007-2009 global financial crisis. Overall our results show that diversification benefits are still possible for investors wishing to diversify their portfolio between developed and emerging SEE stock markets.