Singapore's Role for ASEAN's Portfolio Investment

Abstract

We investigate the elasticity of portfolio investment of ASEAN and OECD members to geographical distance in a gravity model utilizing a bilateral panel of 86 reporting and 241 counterparty countries/territories for 2007-2017. We find that the elasticity is more negative for ASEAN than OECD members. The difference is larger if we exclude Singapore. This indicates that Singapore's behavior is distinct from other ASEAN members. While Singapore tends to invest in distant OECD countries, other ASEAN members tend to invest in nearby countries. Our study sheds light on the role of a regional financial center in global finance.