Contagion effect in financial markets after the South-East Asia Tsunami

Powerful earthquakes may cause heavy damage to the financial markets of individual countries (regions), and may even spillover to other countries (regions). Using 26 international stock indexes and exchange rates, this study examines whether any contagion effect occurred across financial markets after the strong earthquake in South-East Asia on December 26, 2004. Using heteroscedasticity biases based on correlation coefficients to examine the existence of the contagion effect, this study shows that no individual country stock market suffered from the contagion effect, but that the foreign exchange markets of some countries (namely India, Philippines and Hong Kong) did suffer from the contagion effect. (C) 2006 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.