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Geographic Versus Industry Diversification: Contraints Matter

Author

Listed:
  • Paul EHLING

    (Penn State University, Smeal College)

  • Sofia B. RAMOS

    (ISCTE Business School)

Abstract
This research addresses whether geographic diversification provides benefits over industry diversification in a sample of European country and industry indexes. The methodology allows performance comparisons with short-selling constraints, upper and lower bounds, and many benchmarks. In the absence of constraints, no empirical evidence is found to support the argument that country diversification is a superior approach. In the case of realistic weights on portfolios such as short-selling, and lower or upper bonds, geographic diversification performs (sig-nificantly) better. The contrary results appear to be attributable to the fact that industry portfolios are better suited to eliminate the single dominant factor risk in stock returns. Further out-of-sample analysis shows that geographic diversification performs better, although the tests do not show statistical significance.

Suggested Citation

  • Paul EHLING & Sofia B. RAMOS, 2004. "Geographic Versus Industry Diversification: Contraints Matter," FAME Research Paper Series rp113, International Center for Financial Asset Management and Engineering.
    • Handle: RePEc:fam:rpseri:rp113
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    Cited by:

    1. Bastien Drut, 2010. "Sovereign Bonds and Socially Responsible Investment," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 92(1), pages 131-145, April.
    2. Sulaiman Al-Jassar & Imad A. Moosa, 2020. "Country Effects, Industry Effects and the Effectiveness of International Diversification Within the GCC Region," Review of Pacific Basin Financial Markets and Policies (RPBFMP), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 22(04), pages 1-18, January.
    3. Lieven Moor & Piet Sercu, 2010. "Country v sector effects in equity returns and the roles of geographical and firm-size coverage," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 35(4), pages 433-448, November.
    4. Kpate ADJAOUTE & Jean-Pierre DANTHINE, 2004. "Equity Returns and Integration: Is Europe Changing?," FAME Research Paper Series rp117, International Center for Financial Asset Management and Engineering.
    5. 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.
    6. Larsen, Ryan A. & Mjelde, James W. & Klinefelter, Danny A. & Wolfley, Jared L., 2009. "Geographical Diversification in Agriculture: An Applied Case to Western U.S. Wheat Growers," 2009 Annual Meeting, January 31-February 3, 2009, Atlanta, Georgia 46819, Southern Agricultural Economics Association.
    7. Marie Brière & Bastien Drut & Valérie Mignon & Kim Oosterlinck & Ariane Szafarz, 2013. "Is the Market Portfolio Efficient? A New Test of Mean-Variance Efficiency when all Assets are Risky," Finance, Presses universitaires de Grenoble, vol. 34(1), pages 7-41.
    8. Bessler, Wolfgang & Taushanov, Georgi & Wolff, Dominik, 2021. "Optimal asset allocation strategies for international equity portfolios: A comparison of country versus industry optimization," Journal of International Financial Markets, Institutions and Money, Elsevier, vol. 72(C).
    9. 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.
    10. Larsen, Ryan A. & Leatham, David J. & Mjelde, James W. & Wolfley, Jared L., 2008. "Geographical Diversification: An Application of Copula Based CVaR," 2008 Agricultural and Rural Finance Markets in Transition, September 25-26, 2008, Kansas City, Missouri 119533, Regional Research Committee NC-1014: Agricultural and Rural Finance Markets in Transition.
    11. Jonathan Fletcher, 2017. "An Empirical Examination of the Incremental Contribution of Stock Characteristics in UK Stock Returns," IJFS, MDPI, vol. 5(4), pages 1-19, October.
    12. 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.
    13. repec:dau:papers:123456789/9297 is not listed on IDEAS
    14. Faias, José A. & Ferreira, Miguel A., 2017. "Does institutional ownership matter for international stock return comovement?," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 78(C), pages 64-83.
    15. Fedenia, Mark & Shafer, Sherrill & Skiba, Hilla, 2013. "Information immobility, industry concentration, and institutional investors’ performance," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 37(6), pages 2140-2159.
    16. Marie Brière & Bastien Drut & Valérie Mignon & Kim Oosterlinck & Ariane Szafarz, 2011. "Is the Market Portfolio Efficient? A New Test to Revisit the Roll (1977) versus Levy and Roll (2010) Controversy," EconomiX Working Papers 2011-20, University of Paris Nanterre, EconomiX.
    17. Marie Brière & Ariane Szafarz, 2021. "When it rains, it pours: Multifactor asset management in good and bad times," Journal of Financial Research, Southern Finance Association;Southwestern Finance Association, vol. 44(3), pages 641-669, September.
    18. Umutlu, Mehmet & Yargı, Seher Gören & Zaremba, Adam, 2023. "Market segmentation and international diversification across country and industry portfolios," Research in International Business and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 65(C).
    19. Łukasz Dopierała & Magdalena Mosionek-Schweda & Daria Ilczuk, 2020. "Does the Asset Allocation Policy Affect the Performance of Climate-Themed Funds? Empirical Evidence from the Scandinavian Mutual Funds Market," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(2), pages 1-23, January.
    20. Marie Briere & Ariane Szafarz, 2018. "Factors and Sectors in Asset Allocation: Stronger Together?," Working Papers CEB 18-016, ULB -- Universite Libre de Bruxelles.
    21. Eiling, Esther & Gerard, Bruno & Hillion, Pierre & de Roon, Frans A., 2012. "International portfolio diversification: Currency, industry and country effects revisited," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 31(5), pages 1249-1278.
    22. Jonathan Fletcher & Elizabeth Littlejohn & Andrew Marshall, 2023. "Exploring the performance of US international bond mutual funds," The Financial Review, Eastern Finance Association, vol. 58(4), pages 765-782, November.
    23. Hakim, Idwan & Masih, Mansur, 2014. "Portfolio diversification strategy for Malaysia: International and sectoral perspectives," MPRA Paper 58909, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    24. Larsen, Ryan A. & Vedenov, Dmitry V. & Leatham, David J., 2009. "Enterprise-level risk assessment of geographically diversified commercial farms: a copula approach," 2009 Annual Meeting, January 31-February 3, 2009, Atlanta, Georgia 46763, Southern Agricultural Economics Association.
    25. Mark Fedenia & Sherrill Shaffer & Hilla Skiba, 2012. "Information immobility, industry concentration, and institutional investors' performance," CAMA Working Papers 2012-24, Centre for Applied Macroeconomic Analysis, Crawford School of Public Policy, The Australian National University.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Diversification gains; EMU; Geographic diversification; Industry diversification;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • G11 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Portfolio Choice; Investment Decisions
    • G15 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - International Financial Markets

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