Empirical analysis of the impact of financial liberalization on emerging equity markets.

Summary One of the most striking changes in the international financial scene over the past three decades has been the rapid development and maturation of emerging markets around the world. For most finance researchers, the recent development of these markets could never have been achieved without the financial liberalization policies undertaken by the governments of emerging countries since the mid-1980s. However, a good number of authors have still blamed the de��stabilizing role of financial liberalization by demonstrating that the latter can induce financial instability, increased stock market volatility and consequently an eventual collapse of financial markets in countries newly opened to globalized finance. In this context, assessing the benefits and risks of financial liberalization in emerging countries becomes an indisputable necessity. Our PhD thesis attempts to provide a better understanding of emerging equity markets and to shed new light on the impact of financial liberalization on these markets. Although our empirical results show rather positive impacts of financial liberalization in the majority of the emerging markets studied, the success of a liberalization policy seems to be conditional since there are cases where the expected impact of financial liberalization cannot be confirmed.