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Local currency bond markets in emerging Asian economies have expanded dramatically since governments took steps to end the currency and maturity mismatches that savaged borrowers in the region's financial crisis nearly 20 years ago. Encouraged in part by regional cooperation programs such as the Asian Bond Markets Initiative, the value of local currency government and corporate bond sales has grown fourfold in the past decade, helping to fund much-needed infrastructure development and protect businesses from global financial shocks. However, much more needs to be done to strengthen market infrastructure and institutions, address inconsistent policies and regulations, and enhance corporate governance. This paper presents evidence that better macroeconomic performance and stronger institutions help develop larger local currency bond markets and also create conditions for the growth in local currency sales of corporate debt and bonds with longer maturities. Regional integration can be stepped up to support the key determinants for developing efficient local currency bond markets in emerging Asia.

With increasing financial integration and improving regulatory quality, we expect equity home bias to decline. Drawing on the supportive evidence for such trends in advanced economies, this paper investigates the links between financial integration and regulatory quality; and equity home bias in emerging Asia. To test the significance, a pooled OLS estimation was used. The results show that greater global and regional financial integration and better regulatory quality significantly lower equity home bias against global and regional stocks. The estimates also find that the lag value of the home bias significantly lowers equity home bias against global and regional equities; while bank assets and stock market capitalization increase the said bias against global and regional equities. Interestingly, volatility of foreign exchange rate significantly increases equity home bias against regional stocks, but not for the home bias against global stocks. The results suggest that if ongoing financial regulatory reforms lead to less information asymmetry and lower transaction and information costs in emerging Asia, equity home bias will continue to decline, allowing for greater portfolio diversification and more efficient allocation of capital resources.

Using both quantity- and price-based measures of financial integration, this paper shows an increasing degree of financial openness and integration in emerging Asian markets. This paper also assesses the impact of a regional shock relative to a global shock on local equity and bond markets. The findings of this paper suggest that the region’s equity markets are integrated more globally than regionally, although the degrees of both regional and global integration have increased significantly since the 1997/98 Asian financial crisis. However, emerging Asia’s local currency bond markets remain generally segmented, being neither regionally nor globally integrated. A case can be made for the benefits of increased regional integration of financial markets. Financial integration at the regional level allows for the region’s economies to benefit from allocation efficiency and risk diversification. The findings of this paper suggest that policymakers in the region must strike the right balance between maximizing the net benefits from regional and global financial openness, and minimizing the potential costs of financial contagion and crisis.