Money, Income and Inflation in Equilibrium – The Case of Greece

The specification of the linear long-run relationship among money, income and the opportunity cost of holding money has been a popular study in economic literature. In the specific case of Greece, numerous articles investigated this relationship using quarterly data, mainly of the period after 1960. The objective of this article is to investigate the same long-run relationship using annual data and covering the historical period between 1858 and 1938. The results of the used cointegration analysis are presented along with the findings of other authors who covered the post war era of the Greek Economy.

Financial intermediation and growth: causality and causes without outliers

In a seminal paper, Levine et al. (J Monet Econ 46:31–77, 2000) provide cross-sectional evidence showing that financial development has positive average impact on long-run growth, using a sample of 71 countries. We argue that the evidence is sensitive to the presence of outliers.

The prices of silver and exchange rates in a metallic monetary system—the cases of India and Iran

Using the notion of co-integration theory and a vector error correction modelling approach, this paper examines in retrospect the long-run relationship between the exchange rate of silver-based currencies and the intrinsic value of silver in India and Iran in a bivariate model. The results based on unit root and co-integration tests indicate a reliable long-run relationship between the price of silver and the exchange rate of silver-based currencies. Our findings also suggest a bi-directional relationship between the price of silver and exchange rate of pound per rupee in the case of India and a feedback relationship between the intrinsic value of qiran and the exchange rate of pound per qiran in the case of Iran.

Population and economic growth with human and physical capital investments

We present a two-sector endogenous growth model with human and physical capital accumulation to analyze the long-run relationship between population growth and real per capita income growth. Formal education and investment in physical capital are assumed to be two separate components of human capital production. Along the balanced growth path equilibrium, population change may have a positive, negative, or else neutral effect on economic growth depending on whether physical and human capital are complementary/substitutes for each other in the formation of new human capital and on their degree of complementarity.

The short and long-run interdependencies between the Eurozone and the USA

We estimate quarterly cointegrating vector autoregressive models for the Eurozone and the USA based on long-run restrictions derived from a dynamic open economy model. Three long-run relations between the Eurozone and the USA emerge: relative purchasing power parity, international interest parity and a stationary output gap between the two economies. Generalized impulse response functions show differences in the dynamic adjustment of the two economies. Due to the I(1)-characteristic of both output series and the stability conditions imposed by the long-run equilibrium relationships, shocks to the model produce level effects only, while growth rates converge to their long-run averages.

The role of the financial sector in economic development: the Malaysian case

In this paper, we empirically examine the finance-economic development relations for the case of Malaysia. Using a battery of time series econometric techniques, we document robust evidence suggesting favorable output effects of financial market development. Likewise, there are consistent results showing the adverse real effects of financial volatility. The results of the development of financial intermediaries, however, are fragile. Moreover, the development of the financial markets hinges crucially on macro-economic performance and financial stability of the country. However, the process of financial market development is likely to be accompanied by financial volatility, leaving Malaysia with the trade-off between financial development and financial volatility. Lastly, we obtain limited evidence indicating the complementarity between financial market and banking sector developments.

Sources of German unemployment: a structural vector error correction analysis

In this paper we analyze the sources of German unemployment within a structural vector error correction model (SVECM) framework. For this purpose we estimate a VECM model using data for unified Germany. The cointegration analysis reveals a long-run relationship between real wages, productivity and unemployment which is interpreted as a wage setting relation. Based on a reduced form subset VECM we identify structural shocks and assess their importance for unemployment by impulse response analysis, forecast error variance and historical decompositions. In contrast to previous studies for West Germany, we find that productivity, labor supply and labor demand shocks are important sources of unemployment in the long-run.

Export variety and the economic performance of countries

We explore the relationship between export variety and economic development, using data on OECD countries between 1964 and 2003. We show that structural change in the world economy has a particular arrow of time leading to a growing variety of exports. Distinguishing between related variety (within sectors) and unrelated variety (variety between sectors), we also show that related variety stimulates growth instantaneously, while unrelated variety only promotes growth with a considerable time lag. This finding is in line with the evolutionary notions that economic development and international trade patterns are path dependent.

Fertility,income and welfare in an OLG model with regulated wages

We analyse the effects of the regulation of wages in a standard one-sector OLG model of neoclassical growth extended to account for endogenous fertility decisions of households and unemployment benefit policies financed at balanced budget. In contrast with the prevailing literature, which has failed to pay due attention to inter-temporal contexts, our conclusion is that minimum wages may be introduced not only for equity reasons, that is, to increase the income of low-paid workers, but under suitable conditions—i.e., if production is sufficiently capital oriented and the unemployment benefits are high enough—minimum wage legislation might be considered as a source of increased economic performance despite unemployment, i.e. a regulated-wage economy performs better than a market-wage economy. As a consequence, since higher minimum wages raise per capita income together with increasing unemployment, our results imply that a positive correlation between unemployment and long-run income per-capita may exist. Further, the lifetime welfare of the representative generation may be increased as well. Finally, the wage rate may also be treated as a policy instrument for the control of population growth.

Evolution of market shares with repeated purchases and heterogeneous network externalities

We investigate how market shares change when a new, superior technology exhibiting network externalities is introduced in a market initially dominated by an old technology. This is done under the assumption that consumers are heterogeneous in their valuation of technology quality and network externalities and that goods are not (perfectly) durable and thus have to be bought repeatedly. When both technologies are unsponsored, the old technology dominates when the quality difference is small, and it disappears when the quality difference is large. When the new technology is sponsored, the relationship between the quality difference and the long-run market share of the new technology is non-monotonic and the old technology always continues to exist.

Cournot competition and endogenous firm size

The paper studies the dynamics of firm size in a repeated Cournot game with unknown demand function. We model the firm as a type of artificial neural network. Each period it must learn to map environmental signals to both a demand parameter and its rival’s output choice. However, this learning game is in the background, as we focus on the endogenous adjustment of network size. We investigate the long-run evolution of firm/network size as a function of profits, rival’s size, and the type of adjustment rules used.

Testing the permanent-income hypothesis: new evidence from West-German states (Länder)

This paper investigates whether time-series data from 11 West-German states (L?nder) provide evidence in accord with the implication of the permanent-income hypothesis (PIH) for the stochastic relationship between consumption and income innovations. The empirical results do not support this hypothesis, in the sense that the response of consumption to income innovations is found to be much weaker than is predicted by the PIH. Moreover, for each individual state as well as for Germany as a whole, the response was found to be asymmetric, being stronger for negative than positive income innovations. This evidence of asymmetry is consistent with a model in which consumers are liquidity constrained.

Which Elasticity? Estimating the Responsiveness of Taxpayer Reporting Decisions

In this paper we present estimates of the responses of individuals to marginal tax rates in their reporting of income, using data from individual tax returns for the year 1995. One estimation method is ordinary least squares regression. A second method uses quantile regression, which provides evidence on behavioral responses at different points (or quantiles) in the distribution of income and so is relevant to the question of whether the responses of, say, the rich differ from those at other points in the income distribution. Our results clearly indicate that marginal tax rates affect the reporting decisions of individuals. However, there are significant differences in the marginal tax rate reporting responses for the various types of reported income, there are major differences across income classes, and there are notable differences in the estimated responses across estimation methods.

International crises,instability periods and contagion: the case of the ERM

In this article we propose a two step procedure for modeling the propagation of financial shocks. The first step consists in the estimation, by means of SWARCH models, of the conditional probability of being in a period of high volatility, while in the second step such indicators are included in a structural simultaneous equations models for interdependences among different countries. The results show that episodes of financial crisis effectively happened during periods of high volatility and that such measures of instability are important in explaining the propagation of devaluation expectations between six European Countries during the ERM period.

The macroeconomics of the labor market: three fundamental views

We distinguish and assess three fundamental views of the labor market regarding the movements in unemployment: (1) the frictionless equilibrium view; (2) the chain reaction theory, or prolonged adjustment view; and (3) the hysteresis view. While the frictionless view implies a clear compartmentalization between the short- and long-run, the hysteresis view implies that all the short-run fluctuations automatically turn into long-run changes in the unemployment rate. We assert the problems faced by these conceptions in explaining the diversity of labor market experiences across the OECD labor markets. We argue that the prolonged adjustment view can overcome these problems since it implies that the short, medium, and long-runs are interrelated, merging with one another along an intertemporal continuum.

Money velocity and asset prices in the euro area

Monetary growth in the euro area has exceeded its target since several years. At the same time, the money demand function seems to be increasingly unstable if more recent data are used. If the link between money balances and the macroeconomy is fragile, the rationale of monetary aggregates in the ECB strategy has to be doubted. In fact, a rise in the income elasticity after 2001 can be observed, and may reflect the exclusion of real and financial wealth in conventional specifications of money demand. This presumption is explored by means of a cointegration analysis. To separate income from wealth effects, the specification in terms of money velocity is preferred. Evidence for the presence of wealth in the long run relationship is provided. In particular, both stock and house prices have exerted a negative impact on velocity after 2001 and lead to almost identical equilibrium errors. The extended error correction model is stable over the entire sample period and survive a battery of specification tests.

Testing for unit and fractional orders of integration in the trend and seasonal components of US monetary aggregates

Monthly seasonally unadjusted data can exhibit roots with possibly fractional orders of integration, corresponding to the monthly but also to the quarterly and to the long-run or trending components of the series. In this paper we use a procedure which is suitable to test simultaneously for the order of integration of each of these components and apply it to several US monetary aggregates.

Value at Risk and Economic Growth

The improvement of data statistics as well as the econometrician methods have facilitated the introduction the new variables and factors I the economic growth analysis. In this sense, real variables have mainly been considered in the economic growth studies, but not financial or risk management aspects. In this sense, it is interesting to analyze the relationship between economic growth and value at risk and the feed-back process. The goal of the paper is to analyze the relationship between economic growth and risk management and the feed-back process. We will consider economic variables, including economic growth, rule of law, human capital, fiscal policy and monetary policy, among others, in our analysis. We will analyze the theoretical relationships between these variables and risk and the effects of risk on economic growth. We will also develop an empirical analysis considering the case of 15 European Union countries.

Reemployment wages and UI liquidity effect: a regression discontinuity approach

This paper puts together the non-distortionary liquidity effect of unemployment insurance and job match quality. We identify a big impact on subsidized unemployment duration and a small impact on wages on the job that follows the unemployment spell. Wage gains are heterogeneous and concentrated on individuals at the bottom of the pre-unemployment income distribution. The non-distortionary nature of the liquidity effect reduces the pressure on low-income workers to accept lower productivity jobs.

The Austrian income tax tariff, 1955–2006

Using official statistics and tax laws, we outline and discuss the evolution of the personal income tax in Austria since the beginning of the Second Republic in 1955. Focusing on the tax tariff and its progressivity properties, we identify a period of high (and increasing) progressivity before 1989, followed by a period of diminished progressivity since 1989. While still being a powerful revenue instrument, the Austrian income tax seems to have lost both redistributive impact and political allure.