Publishers as Partners

Open Science is integral to the Royal Society of Chemistry’s organisational mission: to support the chemical science community to make the world a better place. It is essential to address global issues (such as current and future pandemics, and climate change) at a quicker pace than ever before, and in fundamentally more collaborative ways. We believe that science which is carried out in a more open and transparent manner has the promise to increase the quality, robustness, longevity, trustworthiness and global impact of the work and its outcomes. We recognise that publishers have not always been considered fellow-travellers in the Open movement, but as a not-for-profit publisher we believe we have an important role to play, learning from all of the stakeholders in the scientific ecosystem, from researchers to librarians and research funders, and providing leadership among our fellow publishers, large and small. As we seek to continually increase the proportion of our articles that are published as Open Access, we face a number of challenges, not least of which are the need for Open Science to be properly funded, with clear, common codes of practice and globally suitable solutions that go beyond equality to a position of international equity. In this talk we will present the thinking and rationale around our recent and forthcoming developments, including the introduction of Data Availability Statements, transparent peer review, author contribution statements (following the CRediT taxonomy), Open Access books, and our support for engendering a more Open research culture across our community. We want this to be the beginning of a genuinely collaborative and open conversation about the concrete actions that publishers such as ourselves can perform or support in order to further our shared goals.

Asset Growth and Future Stock Returns: Insight from International Equity Markets

The main purpose of this research is to examine the cross-sectional connection between asset growth and stock returns in the international equity market during 2016-2020. Firms in international equity markets, subsequently experience lower stock returns with higher asset growth rates, consistent with the United States evidence. If capital markets are well-developed stocks efficiently priced then the negative AG effect on returns is likely to be stronger, but different to country characteristics representing accounting quality, investor protection, and limits to arbitrage. The research is to examine the cross-sectional connection between the asset growth and stock return in the international equity market is likely due to optimal investment effect than due to market timing, overinvestment, or other forms of mispricing. The evidence suggests that the cross-sectional association between the AG effect and stock return is more likely due to an optimal investment effect than due to overinvestment, mispricing or market timing. The findings of the research support Copper et al (2008) however, the weakening of the accounting quality decreases the AG effect magnitude which contradicts the mispricing-based arguments.

Oil Market Factors as a Source of Commonality in Liquidity in International Equity Markets

When stock markets are less liquid or illiquid, investors are expected to require compensation for taking the risk of not being able to sell quickly. Many studies have documented the existence of the co-movements (commonality) of market liquidity in equity markets as a priced factor. The primary objective of this paper is to introduce the oil market as a potential source of commonality in liquidity. We hypothesize that conditions specific to the oil market can contribute to commonality in liquidity affecting both supply-side and demand-side factors because of its importance to the global economy in general. To this aim, a sample of firms is drawn from 50 countries spanning the period from January 1995 to December 2015. We examine two channels that transmit the effect of oil market movements to the liquidity commonality in international equity markets, namely, oil price returns and oil price volatility. Seemingly unrelated regressions (SUR) are utilized to estimate the effect of oil factors on commonality in liquidity. We find that the returns and volatility of oil prices explain the commonality in liquidity in countries with higher integration with oil markets. In addition, we show that the effect of oil volatility is more pronounced for net oil exporters as opposed to net oil importers after controlling for oil sensitivity. These results are robust to controlling for possible sources of commonality in liquidity as found in the literature and alternative estimation specifications.

Exploring the diversification benefits of US international equity closed-end funds

I use the simulation approach of Jobson and Korkie (J Portfolio Manag 7:70–74, 1981), combined with Michaud optimization (Michaud and Michaud, Efficient asset management: a practical guide to stock portfolio optimization and asset allocation, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2008), to evaluate whether US international equity closed-end funds (CEF) provide out-of-sample diversification benefits. My study finds that international CEF do not provide diversification benefits across the whole sample period. However, the out-of-sample diversification benefits of international CEF do vary across economic states. I find that there are significant diversification benefits when the lagged one-month US Treasury Bill return is lower than normal, and when higher than normal, regardless of the benchmark investment universe used.

EQUITY MARKETS RISKS AND RETURNS: IMPLICATIONS FOR GLOBAL PORTFOLIO CAPITAL FLOWS DURING PANDEMIC AND CRISIS PERIODS

The paper is devoted to the study of risk and return tradeoff in the global equity market as well as particular market groups: developed, emerging and frontier markets. Impact of this tradeoff on international equity portfolio liabilities is explored. The study confirms the hypothesis that there are some specific patterns of risk and return tradeoff during crisis periods and periods of markets regular regime that substantially differ from each other and define global portfolio equity flows and liabilities in a specific way. The paper thus carries out its main objective that implies revealing these patterns with respective qualitative features and quantitative markers, specifying their implications for equity portfolio flows to markets of different types. Risks and returns for different market groups and global market as a whole are calculated for the period between 2002 and 2020 using standard methodology of contemporary portfolio theory and MSCI indices monthly values. The data for international equity portfolio liabilities as well as the share of particular market group in the global market are used as dependent variables. The latter are regressed by calculated risks and returns. Using the model results and some analytical developments, two patterns of risk/return tradeoff are discovered. The pattern attributable to regular market regimes is characterized by positive returns which is 1.51 % in average for the global market, 1.48 % for developed markets and 2.03 % for emerging markets. Risks in regular pattern are relatively small or moderate at the average level of 3.05 for the global market and are all below the median (3.48). Respective risks for developed and emerging markets are 3.02 and 4.54. The Sharpe ratios in regular pattern are positive at the average level of 0.60 for the global market, 0.57 and 0.45 for developed and emerging market groups respectively. The crisis pattern implies negative returns at the mean of -1.04 for the global market, -0.97 for the developed group and -1.35 for the emerging markets. High risks are all above the median and in average compile 5.5 for the global market, 5.47 for the developed markets and 6.68 for the emerging group. Sharpe ratios for this pattern are negative being equal to -0.19 in the mean. The average value is -0.18 for developed markets and it is -0.24 for emerging markets. Specific pattern of 2020 crisis should be settled out. Its main feature that substantially distinguishes it from other crises is the combination of highest risk level and the positive returns at the same time. Elaborated regression model confirms the direct impact of return and indirect impact of risk on global portfolio liabilities. The influence of risk for regular and crisis patterns does not differ substantially while the impact of return is much stronger during periods of increased volatility (respective model parameters are 3793.76 and 447.24). However, the discovered impact is much more reliable in crisis pattern that is supported by much higher determination ratio. Developed markets experience similar effects.