On the tourism-led growth hypothesis in the UAE: a bootstrap approach with leveraged adjustments

The emerging market of the UAE has chosen attracting international tourism as one of the main strategies during the recent decades in order to diversify its economy. The main goal has been to achieve sustainable growth without overreliance on the volatile oil sector. This article investigates the impact of tourism on economic performance in the UAE by using bootstrapped causality tests with leverage adjustments. The results show that the tourism-led growth hypothesis can be supported empirically. Thus, the conducted policy by the UAE government to promote international tourism for achieving economic growth might be considered as a sustainable strategy.     

An examination of the equity market price linkage between Australia and the European Union using leveraged bootstrap method

The paper examines the equity market price interaction between Australia and the European Union – represented by the UK, Germany and France – based on the Toda–Yamamoto causality test, which is bootstrapped with leveraged adjustments. A new information criterion is used to choose the optimal lag order. Weekly MSCI data covering the period 1988 to 2001 is used, divided into two subperiods to allow for a structural break arising from the ERM crisis of 1992. Results show that, during the period before the ERM crisis, no significant causal links exist between Australia and any of three EU countries. During the period after the ERM crisis, Australia also had no causal links with Germany and France but it had with the UK, with causality running from the UK to Australia but not vice-versa. Thus, Australian investors may find the German and French, but not the UK, equity markets, attractive venues for their international diversification. German and French, but not British, investors may also obtain the same benefit from the Australian equity market.     

The effect of exchange rate changes on trade balances in the short and long run

Using generalized impulse response functions, this study tests for the trade J‐curve for three transitional central European countries – the Czech Republic, Hungary, and Poland – in their bilateral trade with respect to Germany. Our findings suggest that for each country there are some characteristics associated with a J‐curve effect: after a (real or nominal) depreciation the export‐to‐import ratio briefly drops to below its initial value within a few months and then rises to a long run equilibrium value higher than the initial one.     

An extension of the asymmetric causality tests for dealing with deterministic trend components

This article extends the asymmetric causality tests, as developed by Hatemi-J (2012), for dealing with deterministic trend parts. It is shown how integrated variables up to three degrees with deterministic trend parts can be transformed into positive and negative cumulative partial components. These cumulative components can be used for implementing the asymmetric causality tests based on a Wald test statistic that is shown to follow a chi-square distribution asymptotically. Each solution is expressed as a proposition and a mathematic proof is provided for each underlying proposition. This issue is important because most economic or financial variables seem to be characterized by both stochastic as well as deterministic trend parts. An empirical application is provided in order to show how the oil prices and the exchange rates as integrated variables with drift and trend can be transformed into cumulative partial sums of positive and negative components. The conducted causality tests reveal that allowing for asymmetry has important repercussions for the underlying causal inference between these two variables.     

Is the causal nexus of energy utilization and economic growth asymmetric in the US?

This paper re-examines the causal nexus of energy utilization and GDP per capita in the US. The novelty of the paper is to allow for asymmetry in causality by using a new test introduced by Hatemi-J (forthcoming). A bootstrap procedure is used with leveraged corrections that perform more accurately when the statistical assumptions for validity of asymptotic distributions are not fulfilled. This is especially the case for sample sizes as in the current paper. The estimation results reveal strongly that a negative energy consumption shock will cause a negative shock in the output per capita. That is, if the energy utilization per capita decreases then the output per capita will also decrease. Surprisingly, such a causal impact for positive shocks is not found. These empirical results might indicate that there is an optimal quantity of energy in the US that needs to be consumed as otherwise the economic growth will suffer. However, the consumption of energy beyond that optimal quantity will not necessarily result in an enhanced rate of economic growth.     

Time-series evidence for Balassa’s export-led growth hypothesis

This paper investigates Balassa’s export-led growth hypothesis for Greece, Ireland, Mexico, Portugal and Turkey by constructing a vector autoregression (VAR) model. On the basis of the Granger non-causality procedure developed by Toda and Yamamoto (1995), the results show that export and output are causally related in the long run for Ireland, Mexico and Portugal. Our findings cannot offer support for the causality link between export and output for Greece and Turkey. Granger-causality is uni-directional, running from export growth to economic growth in Ireland and Mexico, and running from economic growth to export growth in Portugal.     

Estimating the optimal hedge ratio in the presence of potential unknown structural breaks

We propose a new approach in the estimation of the optimal hedge ratio that allows the hedge ratio to vary over time but without the necessity of frequently rebalancing the portfolio. We apply this in the context of the US and UK equity markets using weekly spot share prices and future share prices during the period 5 January 1999 to 29 September 2009. Our method is to test for cointegration in the presence of two potentially unknown structural breaks by determining the timing of each via the underlying data. The empirical findings reveal that the spot and future prices are strongly cointegrated in each market. The estimated parameters disclose that the optimal hedge ratio is not constant in case of the US and the UK. We find one negative and one positive shift in the optimal hedge ratio in the US. However, we find only one significant and positive shift in the optimal hedge ratio in the UK. The implication of these findings from the perspective of both investors as well as policy-makers is elaborated on in the main text.     

Asymmetric causality tests with an application

This article argues that there are several logical reasons for the existence of asymmetric causal effects that need to be taken into account but usually are neglected in the literature. It suggests allowing for asymmetry in the causality testing by using the cumulative sums of positive and negative shocks. A bootstrap simulation approach with leverage adjustment is used to generate critical values that are robust to non-normality and time-varying volatility. An application to the efficient market hypothesis in the UAE is provided. The results show that the equity market is informationally efficient with regard to the oil shocks regardless if these shocks are positive or negative.     

The causal interaction between financial development and human development in Bangladesh

This note investigates the causal relationship between financial development measured as the domestic credit to private sector (% of GDP) and human development measured by the Barro–Lee index in Bangladesh. The bootstrap causality tests with leverage adjustments are implemented in order to avoid any distributional assumption. It is found that human development is causing financial development. However, there is no significant causality running from financial development on human development. The policy implication of these empirical findings is also elaborated.     

A re-examination of international portfolio diversification based on evidence from leveraged bootstrap methods

This article investigates the issue of international portfolio diversification with respect to the three largest financial markets in the world—namely the US, Japan and the UK. In addition to making use of traditional portfolio analysis, we also suggest a procedure to calculate bootstrap correlation coefficients that can take into account the dynamic structure between the markets as measured by bootstrapped causality tests. Weekly data is used. The results from the first approach are supporting international diversification. The bootstrapped causality tests provide additional empirical support for this conclusion since the size of the causal effects is negligible and the bootstrap correlations are similar as the standard ones.