The causal relationship between coefficient of elasticity of trading and market return in an African emerging market

Purpose The study aims to examine the appropriateness of the coefficient of elasticity of trading (CET) as a measure of liquidity using Nigerian stock market data. Given that liquidity is multidimensional, the CET is complemented with the popular measure of liquidity, turnover ratio to explore the causal relationship among the CET, turnover ratio and market return to determine their relevance in security valuation. In other words, an attempt is made to examine if either of these two measures of liquidity is a relevant factor in explaining stock market return. Design/methodology/approach The Toda-Yamamoto version of Granger causality test is applied to two sets of data on the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE). The available monthly time series data are from 2008 to 2019 while the annual data are from 1986 to 2018. The Toda-Yamamoto test is preferred because it is more robust to integration and cointegration of the variables. Findings The results of the Toda-Yamamoto version of the Granger causality test on monthly data reveal no causal relationship between CET and market return, turnover and market return and CET with turnover and market return. These results are consistent with those for several frontier countries reported by Rubio et al. (2005), Hartian and Sitorus (2015), Batten and Vo (2019) and Sterenczak et al. (2020). The results support the conclusion that the Nigerian economy is not fully integrated with the global economy. Market inefficiency due to order imbalances given the nature of the trading system can also explain the reported results. However, the results from annual data do not tally with the monthly results. There is causality running from CET to market return. There is also causality running from turnover to market return. Therefore, both CET and turnover are statistically significant causal predictors of market return. The results from annual data are consistent with those reported by Marozva (2019). Research limitations/implications The key limitation is availability of high-frequency transaction-level data to researchers to consider many measures of liquidity that have been employed in developed countries. The research implication is that more researchers will be encouraged to conduct more studies on liquidity and how the study results can drive policy recommendations. The standard asymptotic distribution of underlying the Toda-Yamamoto approach has been found to lead to overrejection. Originality/value This study is the first to apply Toda-Yamamoto model on data from Nigeria to investigate the causal relationship between stock market return and liquidity proxied by the CET given the nature of the automated trading system (ATS) in use. The CET is also complemented with the turnover ratio to explore the multidimensional nature of liquidity and its causal relationship with market return. The study is also interpreted as a determination of the integration of Nigeria's economy with the global economy with its implication on investment diversification.