Tail dependence between gold and sectorial stocks in China: perspectives for portfolio diversification

This article analyzes the relationship between gold quoted on the Shanghai Gold Exchange and Chinese sectorial stocks from 2009 to 2015. Using different copulas, our results show that there is weak but significant tail dependence between gold and Chinese sectorial stock returns. This means that the dependence between extreme movements of the two assets is not pronounced and confirms the role of gold as a safe haven asset. Based on analyzing the efficient frontier, CCC-GARCH optimal weights, hedge ratios and hedging effectiveness, we further show that adding gold into Chinese stock portfolios can help to reduce their risk. Gold appears to be the most efficient diversifier for stocks of the materials sector and the less efficient for the utilities sector. As a robustness check, we also compare gold to oil and indicate that gold is more efficient than oil in the diversification of Chinese stock portfolios.

     

P-star in times of crisis – Forecasting inflation for the euro area

In this paper we present three empirically testable versions of the common p-star model and evaluate their forecasting performance using conventional techniques. We try to answer the question if the p-star approach is preferable to achieve a reliable short-run inflation forecast and with regard to the latter we incur the need for a stable demand for money function. Our findings indicate the recurrence of the relevance of the monetary pillar of the ECB's two-pillar framework. In addition, we check for the effects of the current financial and economic crisis that started in 2007 on the forecasting performance, using two sub-sample periods, one excluding and one including the latter, and analyze the impact of the applied filter technique to compute the required equilibrium values.     

International parity relationships between Germany and the USA revisited: evidence from the post-DM period

In this study, we show the interrelation of the purchasing power parity and the uncovered interest rate parity between the US and Germany for the recent period running from 1999:01 to 2014:04. This study extends the literature by testing both hypotheses simultaneously in a multivariate ECM. This has the advantage that interactions between capital and goods markets can be considered simultaneously. Our finding of two long-run relationships between the variables shows that a disequilibrium in one of the two markets leads to a disequilibrium in the other. While analysing the reaction to cumulative shocks, we show that US variables have a greater impact on German variables than vice versa. Therefore, the rising importance of the euro and the increased integration of the European Union in the recent decade have not changed this relation.     

Net Foreign Asset Positions,Capital Flows and GDP Spillovers

Open Economies Review - This paper sheds light on global GDP spillovers in the context of external imbalances. We adopt a Bayesian time-varying panel vector autoregression framework to analyze the...     

Oil and gold price dynamics in a multivariate cointegration framework

This study delivers further insights into oil and gold price dynamics and their relation to U.S. prices and the dollar exchange rate. Previous studies have frequently analyzed this issue regarding the price either of gold or of oil; however, the role of both quantities has not been analyzed simultaneously in a broader context. To tackle this caveat, we use monthly data for the nominal effective dollar exchange rate, oil, gold and U.S. prices from 1976:01 to 2011:11. We carefully analyze the long-run as well as the short-run dynamics and the long-run impact in terms of shocks, applying a cointegrated VAR model. The main conclusion we reach is that although gold and oil are both important commodities, their economic impact in terms of their shocks differs significantly. In the long-run, both quantities seem to be positively related and shocks to the gold price drive the system. In addition, the gold-oil spread is positively related to U.S. consumer prices, which implies a stronger relationship of consumer prices to the former.     

Productivity Shocks and Real Effective Exchange Rates

This paper provides new insights into the relationship between exchange rates and productivity developments for European Economies. We focus on the question whether productivity changes have a long‐run impact on real effective exchange rates for a large number of European economies. Focusing on a sample period running from 1995 until 2013, we adopt a cointegrated vector autoregressive approach and distinguish between long‐run equilibrium, short‐run dynamics and long‐run impact of shocks. Our findings show that for several industrialized economies, real effective exchange rates and labor productivity are not related over the long‐run. A possible explanation for this result is that wage developments do not reflect increases in labor productivity to a large degree, which prevents a transmission to the real effective exchange rate through the price channel. The results for Central and Eastern European Countries are more encouraging since a positive impact of labor productivity on real effective exchange rate is frequently observed.     

The Importance of Global Shocks for National Policymakers – Rising Challenges for Sustainable Monetary Policies

This paper analyses the importance of global shocks for the global economic developments and national policymakers from a novel perspective. On the one hand, we examine whether global factors convey additional information about monetary conditions not summarised by national aggregates. More specifically, we keep an eye on the question whether domestic monetary policies have become less effective in the wake of financial globalisation. We adopt a FAVAR framework to derive structural shocks on a worldwide level and their impact on other global and also national variables. We estimate our macromodel using quarterly data from Q1 1984 to Q4 2012 for the G7 countries plus the euro area. According to our results, global liquidity shocks significantly influence the global economy at the commodity price level. However, some other common shocks originating from house prices and GDP play a role at the global level as well.     

The forward pricing function of industrial metal futures – evidence from cointegration and smooth transition regression analysis

The prices of internationally traded metals have experienced wild swings and increased volatility in recent years. The relationship between spot and futures prices is an important topic in this context, as the current period’s price of a futures contract should be an unbiased estimator of next period’s spot price under the joint assumption of risk neutrality and rationality. Taking as a basis data from the Dow Jones UBS Commodity Index, which uses metals traded on the London Metal Exchange and US exchanges, this study adopts nonlinear smooth transition models to analyze whether the forward spread is a leading indicator of future spot price movements. Our findings suggest that such a price discovery function can in most cases only be identified in periods of low volatility or small previous spreads. Moreover, the underlying dynamics are captured best by the use of a logistic transition function.