De internationale verspreiding van de Efficient Market Hypothesis en de rol van insitutionele context

First coined by Nobel prize winning financial economist Eugene Fama in 1965, the EMH remains a fundamental theory in financial economics. This study researches the international dissemination of the Efficient Market Hypothesis (EMH) using a combination of exploratory and explanatory methods. A temporal and geographical analysis of citations in academic publications of the seminal articles (1965; 1970; 1991) regarding the EMH, following Wojcik, Kreston and McGill (2013), reveals that there is widespread internationalization, but this only took off after the year 2000. It is found that the United States still appears to be a dominant force in the field. Furthermore, supporting the propositions of Fourcade (2009) and institutional theory, institutional context seems to be a structuring factor for economists. Using panel GLS regression analysis, it is found that the institutional context of a country, characterized by the Liberal Market Economy (LME) – Coordinated Market Economy (LME) distinction of Hall and Gingerich (2009) is a significant factor in the international diffusion of the EMH. The EMH, interwoven with the Chicago School’s laissez-faire principles, is more likely to spread to countries characterized by an institutional context that resembles a LME. A convincing longitudinal effect of changes in institutional context on the citation pattern is not found. Further research should evaluate whether this relationship is structurally altered since the development of the internet as the exploratory results seem to suggest.