Cointegration analysis of stock market index and exchange rate: The case of Serbian economy

Since the late 90's, the existence and direction of causality between the capital market and foreign exchange market have attracted significant attention of theoretical and empirical researchers. This is because both of these financial variables have an indisputable role in the development of each country's economy. In this paper we use Johansen procedure and Granger causality test to examine the existence and direction of short-run and long-run dynamics between the leading stock market index BELEX15 and RSD/EUR exchange rate in Serbia. Using ADF test we find that both series are integrated of order one, and since the value of Johansen trace statistics confirmed the existence of cointegration, we have proceeded with estimation of the VECM model. According to our VECM model, the BELEX15 index adjusts to the long-run equilibrium relationship at a rate of 11.72% in each period, while the exchange rate adjusts to the long-run equilibrium relationship at a rate of 2.73%. We also find that there is unidirectional causality and that the market index influences the exchange rate movements in the short-run in terms of Granger.