IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/finana/v38y2015icp1-14.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Why stay-at-home investing makes sense

Author

Listed:
  • O'Hagan-Luff, Martha
  • Berrill, Jenny

Abstract

Despite the benefits of international diversification investors continue to display a preference for home based investments. Given this preference we investigate whether it is possible to mimic the benefits of international diversification via domestically traded products. We test this from the perspective of US investors for 37 countries between 1996 and 2011. We seek to replicate the equity index of each country with domestically traded US products such as industry indices, Multinational Corporations, American Depository Receipts, single country iShares ETFs and Closed-End Country Funds to investigate whether the benefits of international diversification can be exhausted domestically. While the benefits of investing overseas vary significantly across sub-periods, portfolios of US-traded products can replicate 36 of the 37 foreign country indices. These findings are robust to variance in the performance and volatility of the US market relative to other markets. US investors do not need to invest overseas to reap the benefits of international diversification.

Suggested Citation

  • O'Hagan-Luff, Martha & Berrill, Jenny, 2015. "Why stay-at-home investing makes sense," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 38(C), pages 1-14.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:finana:v:38:y:2015:i:c:p:1-14
    DOI: 10.1016/j.irfa.2015.01.002
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1057521915000125
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.irfa.2015.01.002?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Eun, Cheol S & Resnick, Bruce G, 1984. "Estimating the Correlation Structure of International Share Prices," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 39(5), pages 1311-1324, December.
    2. Gagnon, Louis & Andrew Karolyi, G., 2010. "Multi-market trading and arbitrage," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 97(1), pages 53-80, July.
    3. Chanwit Phengpis & Peggy E. Swanson, 2009. "iShares and the US Market Risk Exposure," Journal of Business Finance & Accounting, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 36(7‐8), pages 972-986, September.
    4. Moerman, Gerard A., 2008. "Diversification in euro area stock markets: Country versus industry," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 27(7), pages 1122-1134, November.
    5. Baxter, Marianne & Kouparitsas, Michael A., 2005. "Determinants of business cycle comovement: a robust analysis," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 52(1), pages 113-157, January.
    6. Suh, Jungwon, 2005. "Home bias among institutional investors: a study of the Economist Quarterly Portfolio Poll," Journal of the Japanese and International Economies, Elsevier, vol. 19(1), pages 72-95, March.
    7. Chanwit Phengpis & Peggy E. Swanson, 2009. "iShares and the US Market Risk Exposure," Journal of Business Finance & Accounting, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 36(7-8), pages 972-986.
    8. Geert Bekaert & Robert J. Hodrick & Xiaoyan Zhang, 2009. "International Stock Return Comovements," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 64(6), pages 2591-2626, December.
    9. Roll, Richard, 1992. "Industrial Structure and the Comparative Behavior of International Stock Market Indices," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 47(1), pages 3-41, March.
    10. Chang, Eric & Eun, Cheol S. & Kolodny, Richard, 1995. "International diversification through closed-end country funds," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 19(7), pages 1237-1263, October.
    11. Salehizadeh, Mehdi, 2003. "U.S. multinationals and the home bias puzzle: an empirical analysis," Global Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 14(3), pages 303-318, December.
    12. Raymond Kan & Guofu Zhou, 2012. "Tests of Mean-Variance Spanning," Annals of Economics and Finance, Society for AEF, vol. 13(1), pages 139-187, May.
    13. De Moor, Lieven & Sercu, Piet, 2011. "Country versus sector factors in equity returns: The roles of non-unit exposures," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 18(1), pages 64-77, January.
    14. Phylaktis, Kate & Xia, Lichuan, 2006. "Sources of firms' industry and country effects in emerging markets," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 25(3), pages 459-475, April.
    15. Baxter, Marianne & Jermann, Urban J, 1997. "The International Diversification Puzzle Is Worse Than You Think," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 87(1), pages 170-180, March.
    16. Flavin, Thomas J., 2004. "The effect of the Euro on country versus industry portfolio diversification," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 23(7-8), pages 1137-1158.
    17. Stanley Peterburgsky & Yini Yang, 2013. "Diversification potential of ADRs, country funds and underlying stocks across economic conditions," Applied Financial Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 23(3), pages 199-219, February.
    18. Huberman, Gur & Kandel, Shmuel, 1987. "Mean-Variance Spanning," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 42(4), pages 873-888, September.
    19. Aggarwal, Raj & Berrill, Jenny & Hutson, Elaine & Kearney, Colm, 2011. "What is a multinational corporation? Classifying the degree of firm-level multinationality," International Business Review, Elsevier, vol. 20(5), pages 557-577, October.
    20. Anita K. Pennathur & Natalya Delcoure & Dwight Anderson, 2002. "Diversification Benefits of iShares and Closed‐End Country Funds," Journal of Financial Research, Southern Finance Association;Southwestern Finance Association, vol. 25(4), pages 541-557, December.
    21. You, Leyuan & Daigler, Robert T., 2010. "Is international diversification really beneficial?," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 34(1), pages 163-173, January.
    22. Patrick F. Rowland & Linda L. Tesar, 2004. "Multinationals and the Gains from International Diversification," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 7(4), pages 789-826, October.
    23. Allen Michel & Israel Shaked, 1986. "Multinational Corporations vs Domestic Corporations: Financial Performance and Characteristics," Journal of International Business Studies, Palgrave Macmillan;Academy of International Business, vol. 17(3), pages 89-100, September.
    24. Andrea Buraschi & Paolo Porchia & Fabio Trojani, 2010. "Correlation Risk and Optimal Portfolio Choice," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 65(1), pages 393-420, February.
    25. Ahearne, Alan G. & Griever, William L. & Warnock, Francis E., 2004. "Information costs and home bias: an analysis of US holdings of foreign equities," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 62(2), pages 313-336, March.
    26. Chen, Honghui & Morse, Joel N. & Nguyen, Hoang Huy, 2009. "Changes in the liquidity of closed-end country funds after the introduction of World Equity Benchmarks," The Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 49(3), pages 1081-1094, August.
    27. Meng-Horng Lee & Chee-Wooi Hooy, 2013. "Country Versus Industry Diversification in ASEAN-5," Emerging Markets Finance and Trade, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 49(2), pages 44-63, March.
    28. Cai, Fang & Warnock, Francis E., 2012. "Foreign exposure through domestic equities," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 9(1), pages 8-20.
    29. Levy, Haim & Sarnat, Marshall, 1970. "International Diversification of Investment Portfolios," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 60(4), pages 668-675, September.
    30. Azmi D Mikhail & Hany A Shawky, 1979. "Investment Performance of U.S Based Multinational Corporations," Journal of International Business Studies, Palgrave Macmillan;Academy of International Business, vol. 10(1), pages 53-66, March.
    31. Fang, Hsing & Loo, Jean C. H., 2002. "Pricing of American Depositary Receipts under Market Segmentation," Global Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 13(2), pages 237-252.
    32. Kalok Chan & Vicentiu Covrig & Lilian Ng, 2005. "What Determines the Domestic Bias and Foreign Bias? Evidence from Mutual Fund Equity Allocations Worldwide," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 60(3), pages 1495-1534, June.
    33. Maosen Zhong & Hui Yang, 2005. "Risk Exposures and International Diversification: Evidence from iShares," Journal of Business Finance & Accounting, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 32(3‐4), pages 737-772, April.
    34. Bekaert, Geert & Urias, Michael S, 1996. "Diversification, Integration and Emerging Market Closed-End Funds," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 51(3), pages 835-869, July.
    35. Kumar Patro, Dilip, 2000. "Return behavior and pricing of American depositary receipts," Journal of International Financial Markets, Institutions and Money, Elsevier, vol. 10(1), pages 43-67, January.
    36. Berrill, Jenny & Kearney, Colm, 2010. "Firm-level internationalisation and the home bias puzzle," Journal of Economics and Business, Elsevier, vol. 62(4), pages 235-256, July.
    37. Christine X. Jiang, 1998. "Diversification with American Depository Receipts: The Dynamics and the Pricing Factors," Journal of Business Finance & Accounting, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 25(5&6), pages 683-699.
    38. Brewer, H. L., 1981. "Investor Benefits from Corporate International Diversification," Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 16(1), pages 113-126, March.
    39. Bodurtha, James N, Jr & Kim, Dong-Soon & Lee, Charles M C, 1995. "Closed-End Country Funds and U.S. Market Sentiment," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 8(3), pages 879-918.
    40. Marcelo, José Luis Miralles & Quirós, José Luis Miralles & Martins, José Luís, 2013. "The role of country and industry factors during volatile times," Journal of International Financial Markets, Institutions and Money, Elsevier, vol. 26(C), pages 273-290.
    41. Andreas Charitou & Andreas Makris & George P. Nishiotis, 2006. "Closed-End Country Funds and International Diversification," Multinational Finance Journal, Multinational Finance Journal, vol. 10(3-4), pages 251-276, September.
    42. Maosen Zhong & Hui Yang, 2005. "Risk Exposures and International Diversification: Evidence from iShares," Journal of Business Finance & Accounting, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 32(3-4), pages 737-772.
    43. Chien-Chiang Lee & Mei-Ping Chen & Chun-An Li & Chi-Hung Chang, 2011. "Determinants of ADR Returns before and after Domestic Stock Seasoned Equity Offerings: Evidence from Asian and Latin American Emerging Markets," Journal of Business Economics and Management, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 12(2), pages 248-277, February.
    44. Driessen, Joost & Laeven, Luc, 2007. "International portfolio diversification benefits: Cross-country evidence from a local perspective," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 31(6), pages 1693-1712, June.
    45. Agmon, Tamir & Lessard, Donald R, 1977. "Investor Recognition of Corporate International Diversification," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 32(4), pages 1049-1055, September.
    46. Thomas S. Coe, 2002. "International Portfolio Diversification: A Comparison of ADRs and Closed-End Country Funds," Journal of Emerging Market Finance, Institute for Financial Management and Research, vol. 1(1), pages 31-46, May.
    47. Lessard, Donald R, 1974. "World, National, and Industry Factors in Equity Returns," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 29(2), pages 379-391, May.
    48. Nijman, T.E. & de Roon, F.A., 2001. "Testing for mean-variance spanning : A survey," Other publications TiSEM 0159f80a-c61b-4519-b004-a, Tilburg University, School of Economics and Management.
    49. Vihang Errunza & Ked Hogan & Mao‐Wei Hung, 1999. "Can the Gains from International Diversification Be Achieved without Trading Abroad?," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 54(6), pages 2075-2107, December.
    50. Miguel Almeida Ferreira & Miguel Ângelo Ferreira, 2006. "The Importance of Industry and Country Effects in the EMU Equity Markets," European Financial Management, European Financial Management Association, vol. 12(3), pages 341-373, June.
    51. Kabir, M. Humayun & Hassan, M. Kabir & Maroney, Neal, 2011. "International diversification with American Depository Receipts (ADRs)," Pacific-Basin Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 19(1), pages 98-114, January.
    52. M. Barari & Brian Lucey & S. Voronkova, 2008. "Reassessing co-movements among G7 equity markets: evidence from iShares," Applied Financial Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 18(11), pages 863-877.
    53. Sanning, Lee W. & Skiba, Alexandre & Skiba, Hilla, 2013. "Short sale restrictions, differences of opinion, and single-country, closed-end fund discount," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 29(C), pages 44-50.
    54. DeRoon, Frans A. & Nijman, Theo E., 2001. "Testing for mean-variance spanning: a survey," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 8(2), pages 111-155, May.
    55. Patro, Dilip Kumar, 2001. "Measuring performance of international closed-end funds," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 25(9), pages 1741-1767, September.
    56. Harper, Joel T. & Madura, Jeff & Schnusenberg, Oliver, 2006. "Performance comparison between exchange-traded funds and closed-end country funds," Journal of International Financial Markets, Institutions and Money, Elsevier, vol. 16(2), pages 104-122, April.
    57. Christine X. Jiang, 1998. "Diversification with American Depository Receipts: The Dynamics and the Pricing Factors," Journal of Business Finance & Accounting, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 25(5‐6), pages 683-699, June.
    58. Choi, Yoon K. & Kim, Dong-soon, 2000. "Determinants of American Depositary Receipts and their underlying stock returns: Implications for international diversification," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 9(4), pages 351-368.
    59. Serra, Ana Paula, 2000. "Country and industry factors in returns: evidence from emerging markets' stocks," Emerging Markets Review, Elsevier, vol. 1(2), pages 127-151, September.
    60. Antonios Antoniou & Olasupo Olusi & Krishna Paudyal, 2010. "Equity Home†Bias: A Suboptimal Choice for UK investors?," European Financial Management, European Financial Management Association, vol. 16(3), pages 449-479, June.
    61. Huang, Mei-Yueh & Lin, Jun-Biao, 2011. "Do ETFs provide effective international diversification?," Research in International Business and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 25(3), pages 335-344, September.
    62. Morse, Adair & Shive, Sophie, 2011. "Patriotism in your portfolio," Journal of Financial Markets, Elsevier, vol. 14(2), pages 411-440, May.
    63. Joëlle Miffre, 2007. "Country-specific ETFs: An efficient approach to global asset allocation," Journal of Asset Management, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 8(2), pages 112-122, July.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Alomari, Mohammed & Selmi, Refk & Mensi, Walid & Ko, Hee-Un & Kang, Sang Hoon, 2024. "Dynamic spillovers in higher moments and jumps across ETFs and economic and financial uncertainty factors in the context of successive shocks," The Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 93(C), pages 210-228.
    2. Yousefi, Hamed & Najand, Mohammad, 2022. "Geographical diversification using ETFs: Multinational evidence from COVID-19 pandemic," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 83(C).
    3. S. Veeramani & Abha Shukla & Mariam Jamaleh, 2020. "Financial theories of foreign direct investment: a review of literature," Economia e Politica Industriale: Journal of Industrial and Business Economics, Springer;Associazione Amici di Economia e Politica Industriale, vol. 47(2), pages 185-217, June.
    4. McDowell, Shaun & Lee, John B. & Marsden, Alastair, 2020. "The potential effect of taxes on the equity home bias in New Zealand PIEs," Pacific-Basin Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 62(C).
    5. Lu, Qinye & Vivian, Andrew, 2020. "Domestically formed international diversification," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 103(C).
    6. Keith Fitzgerald & Jacopo Bedogni, 2019. "Examining the Volatility of Ireland’s Tax Base in the Paradigm of Modern Portfolio Theory," The Economic and Social Review, Economic and Social Studies, vol. 50(3), pages 429-458.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Jenny Berrill & Shengkai Sun, 2018. "An Investigation into the Benefits of Investing in Chinese Multinational Companies," Journal of Emerging Market Finance, Institute for Financial Management and Research, vol. 17(2), pages 186-209, August.
    2. Naka, Atsuyuki & Noman, Abdullah, 2017. "Diversification of risk exposure through country mutual funds under alternative investment opportunities," The Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 64(C), pages 215-227.
    3. Berrill, Jenny & Kearney, Colm, 2010. "Firm-level internationalisation and the home bias puzzle," Journal of Economics and Business, Elsevier, vol. 62(4), pages 235-256, July.
    4. Lu, Qinye & Vivian, Andrew, 2020. "Domestically formed international diversification," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 103(C).
    5. Stanley Peterburgsky & Yini Yang, 2013. "Diversification potential of ADRs, country funds and underlying stocks across economic conditions," Applied Financial Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 23(3), pages 199-219, February.
    6. Do, Hung X. & Nguyen, Nhut H. & Nguyen, Quan M.P., 2022. "Multinationals and stock return comovement," Global Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 52(C).
    7. Fletcher, Jonathan, 2018. "An empirical examination of the diversification benefits of U.K. international equity closed-end funds," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 55(C), pages 23-34.
    8. Conlon, Thomas & Cotter, John & Ropotos, Ioannis, 2024. "Diversification with globally integrated US stocks," Journal of International Financial Markets, Institutions and Money, Elsevier, vol. 90(C).
    9. Irem Demirci & Miguel A Ferreira & Pedro Matos & Clemens Sialm, 2022. "How Global Is Your Mutual Fund? International Diversification from Multinationals," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 35(7), pages 3337-3372.
    10. Cheol S. Eun & Sandy Lai & Frans A. de Roon & Zhe Zhang, 2010. "International Diversification with Factor Funds," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 56(9), pages 1500-1518, September.
    11. Pieterse-Bloem, Mary & Mahieu, Ronald J., 2013. "Factor decomposition and diversification in European corporate bond markets," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 32(C), pages 194-213.
    12. Chou, Hsin-I & Zhao, Jing & Suardi, Sandy, 2014. "Factor reversal in the euro zone stock returns: Evidence from the crisis period," Journal of International Financial Markets, Institutions and Money, Elsevier, vol. 33(C), pages 28-55.
    13. José G. Dias & Sofia B. Ramos, 2015. "An Analysis of Industry Regimes Synchronization in the Eurozone," Journal of Common Market Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 53(2), pages 255-273, March.
    14. Aggarwal, Raj & Berrill, Jenny & Hutson, Elaine & Kearney, Colm, 2011. "What is a multinational corporation? Classifying the degree of firm-level multinationality," International Business Review, Elsevier, vol. 20(5), pages 557-577, October.
    15. Kroencke, Tim A. & Schindler, Felix, 2012. "International diversification with securitized real estate and the veiling glare from currency risk," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 31(7), pages 1851-1866.
    16. Peñaranda, Francisco & Sentana, Enrique, 2012. "Spanning tests in return and stochastic discount factor mean–variance frontiers: A unifying approach," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 170(2), pages 303-324.
    17. Nicolas Coeurdacier & Hélène Rey, 2013. "Home Bias in Open Economy Financial Macroeconomics," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 51(1), pages 63-115, March.
    18. Glabadanidis, Paskalis, 2009. "Measuring the economic significance of mean-variance spanning," The Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 49(2), pages 596-616, May.
    19. Fang Cai & Francis E. Warnock, 2004. "International diversification at home and abroad," International Finance Discussion Papers 793, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    20. Paul Karehnke & Frans de Roon, 2020. "Spanning Tests for Assets with Option-Like Payoffs: The Case of Hedge Funds," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 66(12), pages 5969-5989, December.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    iShares; ADRs; MNCs; Indirect international diversification; Home bias;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • F21 - International Economics - - International Factor Movements and International Business - - - International Investment; Long-Term Capital Movements
    • F23 - International Economics - - International Factor Movements and International Business - - - Multinational Firms; International Business
    • G11 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Portfolio Choice; Investment Decisions
    • G15 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - International Financial Markets

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:finana:v:38:y:2015:i:c:p:1-14. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/inca/620166 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.