Purchasing power parity in transition countries: Old wine with new bottle

This study questions whether the long-run purchasing power parity (PPP) holds in the transition economies (Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romanian, and Russia) for the period from January 1995 to October 2011. We employ the Sequential Panel Selection Method (SPSM) procedure using the Panel KSS unit root test with a Fourier function, a novel approach to panel unit root testing. The SPSM approach classifies the whole panel into a group of stationary and non-stationary series and is able to account for structural breaks, nonlinearity, and cross-section dependence. The results indicate that the PPP holds true for more than half of these transition countries studied, with the exception of Hungarian, the Czech Republic and the Russia. The findings have important policy implications for the transition countries.     

The Wealth-Health Nexus: New Global Evidence

Using a world sample of countries, this paper re-examines the U-shaped relationship between per capita GDP (wealth) and life expectancy at birth (health). Since cross-sectional dependence across countries is detected, second-generation panel unit root and cointegration tests are employed. All the variables are found to be integrated in one order as well as cointegrated. Various quadratic specifications are also employed and the hypothesis is confirmed.     

Testing purchasing power parity for Japan and the US: A structural-break approach

In this work we empirically assess the weak and strong forms of purchasing power parity (PPP) hypothesis for the economies of Japan and US. Monthly data for the, traded-goods price indices and the JPY/USD exchange rate are employed for the, period from January 2000 to October 2012. This period includes large shocks, such as, the US subprime crisis and the 2011 Tsunami in Japan. We take into account possible, structural shifts and breaks by employing the class of Lee and Strazicich, 2003, Lee and Strazicich, 2004 unit, root tests. Empirical analysis suggests that a break corresponding to the start of the US subprime crisis is not rejected. Furthermore, utilizing the Gregory and Hansen (1996) and, Hatemi (2008) cointegration methodologies, the weak form of PPP is not rejected. We, also test the strong PPP hypothesis by using Dynamic Ordinary Least Squares, (DOLS). The empirical evidence rejects the strong form of PPP for the period, preceding the US subprime crisis in contrast to the period after.     

PURCHASING POWER PARITY IN AFRICAN COUNTRIES: EVIDENCE FROM PANEL SURADF TEST

This study reexamines the validity of long-run purchasing power parity (PPP) hypothesis using a battery of panel unit root tests for 11 developing countries in Africa over the period 1980-2007. Based on the conventional panel unit root tests, we found evidence that the monthly real exchange rates in these countries were mean reverting. By contrast, the series-specific unit root test proposed by Breuer et al. (SURADF) reveals that only six of the 11 RERs series were stationary using the US dollar as reference currency. Additionally, our results reveal that there is stronger evidence of the parity condition with the Rand-based rates than in the other currency-based rates like the US dollar or Euro. We conclude that PPP holds in some, but not all, of the African countries according to the SURADF tests.     

Purchasing Power Parity in Developing Countries: Multi-Period Evidence Under the Current Float

Using panel unit root tests, we examine purchasing power parity (PPP) for US dollar real exchange rates of developing countries during the current floating rate period. Since evidence of PPP may vary from period to period, we examine the data for moving 10-year periods from 1976–85 up to 1990–99. We organize panels based on country characteristics influencing the validity of PPP. Those characteristics include openness, inflation, and the level and growth rate of per capita GDP. Although we find stronger evidence of PPP after 1980, our examination of panel data over 15 10-year periods yields only limited support for PPP.     

Financial integration in East Asia: Evidence from panel unit root and panel cointegration tests

The aim of this paper is to investigate the degree of financial integration for selected East Asian countries from 1988 to 2006 using the recently developed panel unit root and panel cointegration techniques. Investment and savings rates are found to be nonstationary and not to be cointegrated in panels. We estimate modified Feldstein–Horioka equations and our results reveal a high degree of financial integration. When we homogenize our data, results show that high-income countries have stronger financial integration than middle-income countries. Finally, we proceed to stability tests in order to test if there is a crisis effect and we find that financial integration is stronger in the post-crisis period.     

Purchasing Power Parity in High-Inflation Countries: A Cointegration Analysis of Integrated Variables with Trend Breaks

This paper examines the long-run validity of purchasing power parity (PPP) for four high-inflation countries. The method of Zivot and Andrews (1992) is employed to detect the time-series behavior of the exchange rates and consumer price indices of these countries. We find that these variables are integrated with some trend breaks. We then utilize these data to test PPP using Johansen's (1988) multivariate cointegration technique. The cointegration tests are conducted with the correction of the finite sample bias and the adjustment for trend breaks. The results are consistent with the argument that, during the recent floating exchange-rate period, PPP holds well, at least in a weak form, in high-inflation countries where the general price level movement overshadows the factors causing deviations from PPP.     

What do we really know about fiscal sustainability in the EU? A panel data diagnostic

We assess the sustainability of public finances in the EU-15 over the period 1970–2006 using stationarity and cointegration analysis. Specifically, we use panel unit root tests of the first and second generation allowing in some cases for structural breaks. We also apply modern panel cointegration techniques developed by Pedroni (Oxf Bull Econ Stat 61(1):653–670, 1999; Econom Theory 20(3):597–625, 2004), generalized by Banerjee and Carrion-i-Silvestre (Cointegration in panel data with breaks and cross-section dependence, European Central Bank, Working Paper 591, 2006) and Westerlund and Edgerton (Econ Lett 97(3):185–190, 2007), to a structural long-run equation between general government expenditures and revenues. While estimations point to fiscal sustainability being an issue in some countries, fiscal policy was sustainable both for the EU-15 panel set, and within sub-periods (1970–1991 and 1992–2006).     

PURCHASING POWER PARITY IN AFRICAN COUNTRIES: FURTHER EVIDENCE FROM FOURIER UNIT ROOT TESTS BASED ON LINEAR AND NONLINEAR MODELS

This paper examines the validity of purchasing power parity hypothesis for 33 African countries using recently developed Fourier unit root tests by Christopoulos and León‐Ledesma that account for the existence of multiple breaks in the real exchange rates. The results support the evidence of the PPP in 20 countries, showing that most of the real exchange rates in the selected countries are characterised by linear or nonlinear stationary around multiple temporary mean changes.     

Estimating the export and import demand for manufactured goods: The role of FDI

In this paper we estimate the demand for exports and imports of manufactured goods for a panel containing the majority of the EU countries as well as the United States and Japan. The model includes as explanatory factors both the traditional determinants of trade and also the stock of foreign direct investment (FDI). We apply panel unit root and cointegration tests allowing for heterogeneity. Whereas there is no evidence of cointegration when using just the traditional formulation, the results are favorable to the existence of long-run relationships linking the variables of the augmented model. Moreover, the results point mainly to a complementary relationship between trade and FDI.     

Long-Run Purchasing Power Parity with Asymmetric Adjustment

Tests of purchasing power parity (PPP) that use panel data are more supportive of the theory than are bilateral tests. The article uses threshold cointegration to explore long-run PPP. Using data from the post-Bretton Woods period, we show that cointegration with threshold adjustment holds for a number of European countries on a bilateral basis. Focusing on France and Germany as base countries, we show that the error-correction model has important nonlinear characteristics in that prices and the exchange rate have markedly different adjustment patterns for positive gaps from PPP than negative gaps.     

Estimating the export and import demand for manufactured goods: The role of FDI

In this paper we estimate the demand for exports and imports of manufactured goods for a panel containing the majority of the EU countries as well as the United States and Japan. The model includes as explanatory factors both the traditional determinants of trade and also the stock of foreign direct investment (FDI). We apply panel unit root and cointegration tests allowing for heterogeneity. Whereas there is no evidence of cointegration when using just the traditional formulation, the results are favorable to the existence of long-run relationships linking the variables of the augmented model. Moreover, the results point mainly to a complementary relationship between trade and FDI.     

Purchasing Power Parity during Currency Crises: A Panel Unit Root Test under Structural Breaks

We investigate the stationarity of real exchange rates using a panel of Asian and South and Latin American countries by applying a new panel unit root test that is robust to structural breaks due to currency crises. It turns out that the long-run PPP relationship is relevant for the Asian countries, which experienced a flexible exchange rate, whereas for the South and Latin American countries, for which the exchange rate has been pegged to the U.S. dollar for a long time, the PPP relationship breaks down. In Asian countries PPP appears to hold before the 1997 crisis, which is not the case for the South and Latin American countries. This suggests that the Asian flu corresponds to a second-generation type of crises, whereas the 1995 Mexican tequila fits the first-generation models better. JEL no. C13, C33, E41     

Purchasing Power Parity under Regime Shifts: An Application to Asian Countries*

This paper re‐examines the long‐run purchasing power parity (PPP) relationship for nine Asian countries relative to the USA and Japan during a period containing significant structural breaks. The relevance of considering structural breaks in PPP tests is demonstrated by utilizing the Johansen et al. (2000) procedure that allows for up to two pre‐determined structural breaks. Using conventional tests without considering breaks, one is able to reject the null of no cointegration for only four countries. The Johansen et al. procedure clearly demonstrates the importance of allowing for structural breaks and provides strong support for long‐run PPP for all the countries, regardless of the base country, except in the case of the Philippines vis‐à‐vis Japan. The Hansen–Johansen parameter constancy test indicates stability for all the countries except the Philippines relative to the USA and Malaysia relative to Japan.     

Real exchange rates and unit root tests

Real Exchange Rates and Unit Root Tests. — This paper examines monthly OECD exchange rate data (1979–1997) using univariate and panel data unit root tests. Some of these tests support the hypothesis of a unit root. But tests of cointegration reveal the existence of weak purchasing power parity relationships between bilateral nominal exchange rates and relative prices. We suggest that researchers need not conduct unit root tests on real exchange rate data when a modified version of PPP is used; or if there is a long enough time series. Given the definition of real exchange rates, the indicator should be stationary and should have intrinsic mean reverting behaviour.     

金融危机背景下再论金融发展与经济增长——基于发达经济体与新兴市场国家的实证检验

20世纪90年代以来,全球金融危机频发,引发对金融发展、政策与经济增长关系的重新思考。本文收集了39个国家和地区1994～2007年间的年度数据,利用面板数据计量经济分析方法,针对发达经济体与新兴市场和发展中国家的不同,通过面板数据的单位根检验、协整分析和构建误差修正模型,检验金融发展、政策与经济增长的长期均衡关系及短期因果关系。     

PPP: <Emphasis Type="Italic">Delusion</Emphasis> or <Emphasis Type="Italic">Reality</Emphasis>? Evidence from a Nonlinear Analysis

In this paper we analyze the validity of the purchasing power parity (PPP) in a nonlinear framework using data for 18 bilateral US dollar exchange rates. Following Enders and Ludlow (2002), we use unit root and cointegration tests that do not assume a specific nonlinear adjustment. We find evidence of non-linear mean reversion in deviations from the PPP equilibrium in 11 out of 18 currencies. Additionally, to disentangle the respective contribution of exchange rate and prices to the adjustment toward the long run equilibrium, we estimate a Vector Error Correction Model. According to our empirical analysis, there exists a nonlinear mechanism to correct for deviation from the PPP equilibrium that comes mainly from the exchange rates. This is consistent with theoretical arguments on international goods markets under transaction costs as well as with an emerging strand of empirical literature. These results highlight the importance of neglecting the possibility of nonlinearity in the debate about the PPP and provide empirical evidence that supports the scenario of the PPP hypothesis as a reality.     

Investigating the relationship between health and economic growth: Empirical evidence from a panel of 5 Asian countries

In this paper, we investigate the relationship between health and economic growth through including investment, exports, imports, and research and development (R&D), for 5 Asian countries using panel unit root, panel cointegration with structural breaks and panel long-run estimator for the period 1974–2007. We model this relationship within the production function framework, and unravel two important results. First, we find that in all four variants of the growth model, variables share a long-run relationship; that is, they are cointegrated. Second, we find that in the long-run, while health, investment, exports, EDRD (the interaction term between education and R&D), and R&D have contributed positively to economic growth, imports have had a statistically significant negative effect while education has had an insignificant effect. We draw important policy implications from these findings.     

The Interactions of Stock Prices and Exchange Rates in the ASEAN-5 Countries: New Evidence Using a Bootstrap Panel Granger Causality Approach

Abstract

Using a data-set from the ASEAN-5 countries over the January 2000–August 2013 period, this paper revisits the Granger causal nexus between the equity and foreign exchange markets by employing the bootstrap panel Granger causality approach developed by Kònya, which allows for both cross-sectional dependency and heterogeneity across countries. The results indicate a unidirectional causality from stock prices to exchange rates in Malaysia, the Philippines and Thailand and from exchange rates to stock prices in Indonesia. These findings have important implications for policy-makers and institutional investors who should rigidly monitor the dynamic linkages between stock price and exchange rate movements across the ASEAN-5 financial markets when making policy decisions and investing in these countries.     

Globalization,Real Output and Multiple Structural Breaks

Abstract

This paper adopts an advanced panel cointegration method which incorporates multiple structural breaks to examine the long-run relationship between real output (RGDP) and the Konjunkturforschungsstelle (KOF) index of globalization (overall and its three main sub-indices), employing annual data of G7 countries from 1970 to 2006. Our empirical findings provide strong evidence that overall globalization and its social dimension are cointegrated with RGDP, and most of the structural break points are discovered during the period of the oil crisis (the mid-1970s) and the process of European Union integration. In addition, in evaluating whether or not the structural breaks affect the RGDP through globalization, we discover that both the overall globalization index and the social globalization index have a directly positive impact on RGDP but indirectly exhibit negative impacts on real output via the channel of social globalization.