Liquidity and Expected Returns: Lessons from Emerging Markets

• Published in: The Review of financial studies Vol. 20; no. 6; pp. 1783 - 1831
• Main Authors: Bekaert, Geert, Harvey, Campbell R., Christian Lundblad
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Oxford Oxford University Press 01-11-2007; Oxford Publishing Limited (England)
• Subjects: Asset pricing; Capital returns; Correlation analysis; Costs; Dividends; Economic forecasts; Economic models; Emerging markets; Equity; Expected returns; Financial economics; Financial research; Impact analysis; Institutional investments; Liberalization; Liquidity; Liquidity risk; Market prices; Predictability; Predictions; Rates of return; Stock markets; Studies; Time series; Transaction costs; G12; F30; G15
• ISSN: 0893-9454; 1465-7368
• DOI: 10.1093/rfs/hhm030

Given the cross-sectional and temporal variation in their liquidity, emerging equity markets provide an ideal setting to examine the impact of liquidity on expected returns. Our main liquidity measure is a transformation of the proportion of zero daily firm returns, averaged over the month. We find that it significantly predicts future returns, whereas alternative measures such as turnover do not. Consistent with liquidity being a priced factor, unexpected liquidity shocks are positively correlated with contemporaneous return shocks and negatively correlated with shocks to the dividend yield. We consider a simple asset-pricing model with liquidity and the market portfolio as risk factors and transaction costs that are proportional to liquidity. The model differentiates between integrated and segmented countries and time periods. Our results suggest that local market liquidity is an important driver of expected returns in emerging markets, and that the liberalization process has not fully eliminated its impact.