Risk exposures and international diversification: Evidence from iShares

We examine the newly developed international diversification instruments–iShares traded on the American Stock Exchange. Given the fact that iShares can be created and redeemed at will, the daily price of an iShare is expected to be equal to the daily portfolio value of the underlying assets in the home-country market. Therefore, theoretically, iShare pricing should be influenced by the risk from the iShare's home-country market and not the risk from the US market, per se. We evaluate the risk exposure of iShare prices to the US market (non-fundamental effect) as well as the home-country market (the fundamental effect). We find that most iShare returns are significantly influenced by and sensitive to the US market risk. Moreover, the US market appears to be the key permanent driving factor and the home-country market is a pronounced transitory driving force for iShare prices. These findings indicate the presence of limits of international arbitrage for iShares. As a result, the international diversification benefits of iShares become questionable.

Securing international society: Towards an English School discourse of security

English School approaches to international politics, which focus on the idea of an international society of states bound together by shared rules and norms, have not paid significant explicit attention to the study of security in international relations. This is curious given the centrality of security to the study of world politics and the recent resurgence of English School scholarship in general. This article attempts to redress this gap by locating and explicating an English School discourse of security. We argue here that there is indeed an English School discourse of security, although an important internal distinction exists here between pluralist and solidarist accounts, which focus on questions of order and justice in international society respectively. In making this argument, we also seek to explore the extent to which emerging solidarist accounts of security serve to redress the insecurity of security in international relations: the tendency of traditional security praxes to privilege the state in ways that renders individuals insecure.

Conditional performance evaluation and the relevance of money flows for Australian international equity funds

This paper assesses the importance of fund flows in the performance evaluation of Australian international equity funds. Two concepts of fund flows are considered in the context of a conditional asset pricing model. The first measure is net fund flow relative to fund size and the second is net fund flow relative to sector flows. We find that incorporating a fund flow measure relative to the sector flow results in a reduction of measured perverse market timing. The results indicate that, at the individual fund level, cash flows are relevant in assessing management outcomes.

From the sublime to the subliminal: Fear, awe and wonder in international politics

Key events in international politics, such as terrorist attacks, can be characterised as sublime: our minds clash with phenomena that supersede our cognitive abilities, triggering a range of powerful emotions, such as pain, fear and awe. Encounters with the sublime allow us an important glimpse into the contingent and often manipulative nature of representation. For centuries, philosophers have sought to learn from these experiences, but in political practice the ensuing insights are all too quickly suppressed and forgotten. The prevailing tendency is to react to the elements of fear and awe by reimposing control and order. We emphasise an alternative reaction to the sublime, one that explores new moral and political opportunities in the face of disorientation. But we also stress that we do not need to be dislocated by dramatic events to begin to wonder about the world. Moving from the sublime to the subliminal, we explore how it is possible to acquire the same type of insight into questions of representation and contingency by engaging more everyday practices of politics.

Globalisation and connectedness: A network approach to international business

There have been recent calls for the field of International Business to retool its routines by becoming genuinely interdisciplinary. This paper takes such an approach by using recent advances in the fields of evolutionary economics and applying them to IB. Evolutionary economists are now viewing the economy as an actual network. Consequently, one the key analytical tools in this approach is network analysis. Some of the basic methods in network analysis are reviewed. The paper then looks at how using these tools might be of use in IB studies. In particular, it outlines fruitful research paths in the areas of globalisation and regionalisation, and the measurement of performance in multi-national firms and alliances. In each case, propositions are put forward which can be analytically tested with the use of network analysis. The paper concludes with a brief outline of a research agenda which utilises this approach in International Business studies.