Bohn's Test of Fiscal Sustainability of the American State Governments

The dramatic fall in state revenues during the Great Recession and the resultant large budget deficits accentuated concerns about state fiscal sustainability. I employ a model‐based approach proposed by 1998 to test for sustainability. In this approach, a positive and significant reaction of the ratio of primary surplus ratio (s) to lagged debt constitutes a sufficient condition for sustainability. Based on a panel of 48 contiguous states (1961–2008) and several model specifications, I find robust evidence in favor of sustainability. Further analysis suggests that the adjustment of the components of s to debt is asymmetric with the revenue side bearing a heavier burden than the spending side. The response of s is also found to be asymmetric with respect to the level of debt. Finally, the magnitude of the response is larger in states with a higher degree of fiscal stringency in general and “own‐revenue” and “no‐deficit‐carryover” provisions in particular.     

Public expenditures and the unemployment rate in the American states: panel evidence

We reexamine the Unemployment Rate (UR) – government expenditure nexus in a panel of 50 State and Local Governments (SLGs) over the period 1977–2006 to provide new pre-recession empirical evidence that helps put the expectations on the effects of the federal relief to SLGs in a broader context. We found that: (1) per capita real public spending (total and capital, assistance and subsidies, wages and salaries, and social insurance categories) was part of a cointegrating relationship with UR and real per capita state personal income. (2) With the exception of social insurance, other spending variables, when statistically significant, actually had a depressing effect on UR. The magnitude of this effect, however, was generally small. UR was most sensitive to increases in wages and salaries. (3) Long-term causality analysis based on panel error-correction coefficients provided consistent evidence of a causal effect from spending to UR, but less consistent evidence of such effect in the opposite direction. Social insurance, however, drove UR. (4) The size of the error-correction coefficients suggested a slow response of UR to deviations from the cointegrating relationship. (5) The marginal effect of spending on UR increased with the amount of the federal grants received. Our results suggest that public spending may not serve as a quick fix in relation to UR. They also seem to favour allocation of the federal funds to wage and salaries and assistance and subsidies, but not to capital and social insurance expenditures to lower UR.     

Empirics of currency crises: A duration analysis approach

This paper empirically analyzes the origins of currency crises for a group of OECD economies from 1970 through 1998. We apply duration analysis to examine how the probability of a currency crisis depends on the length of non‐crisis periods, contagion channels, and macroeconomic fundamentals. Our findings confirm the negative duration dependence of a currency crisis—the likelihood of speculative attack sharply increases at the beginning of non‐crisis periods and then declines over time until it abruptly rises again. The results also indicate the hazard of a crisis increase with high values of the volatility of unemployment rates, inflation rates, contagion factors—which mostly work through trade channels, unemployment rates, real effective exchange rate, trade openness, and size of economy. To address concerns regarding validity of the identified crisis episodes, we exploit crisis episodes that are identified by a more objective approach based on the extreme value theory. Our results are robust under various specifications including two different crisis event sets that are identified on monthly and quarterly basis.     

Predicament of identity in Iran: a qualitative meta-analysis of theoretical and empirical studies on identity

Identity is regarded as a theoretical and practical problematic issue constituting a large range of literature in social planning, political activities and cultural policy-making in the last decades. Thus, this study is to Meta-analyze three sorts of studies on identity in a distinctive perspective. These are: universal theories of identity, theoretical studies of identity in Iran and research studies on Iranian identity in Iranian academic sphere. The findings demonstrate that the sociological theories are more effective to discuss identity than other scientific fields. While the theoretical studies focused mainly on national level of identity, the empirical ones highlighted the sub-nation and global dimensions of identity. Most of studied researches employed constructivist approach. According to literature review of identity studies in Iran, the main sources of identity are the Persian language, Shiite religion, Islam, Oriental Culture, Oriental Mysticism, Modernity and National History. Generally, the sources of identity are diverse. The results indicate that the constitution of Iranian identity portrays a hybrid and synthetic texture in all levels.     

Are state–local government expenditures converging? New evidence based on sequential unit root tests

Large and persistent gaps in subnational public expenditure have important implications regarding growth, equity, and migration. In this context, we revisit the question of expenditure convergence across the American states to provide more nuanced evidence than found by a small number of previous studies. We employ a methodology due to Smeekes (Bootstrap sequential tests to determine the stationary units in a panel, 2011) that sequentially tests for unit roots in pairwise (real per capita) expenditure gaps based on user specified fractions. In a panel of 48 combined state–local government units (1957–2008), we found that expenditures on highways, sanitation, utility, and education were far more convergent than expenditures on health and hospitals, police and fire protection, and public welfare. There was little evidence of “club convergence” based on the proportion of intraregional convergent pairs. Several historically high-grant receiving states showed relatively strong evidence of convergence. Our results bode well for future output convergence and opportunities for Tiebout-type migration across jurisdictions. They also imply a diminished role for public infrastructure and education spending in business location choices over time and a mixed role for federal grants in inducing convergence.     

The exchange value of the dollar and the U.S. trade balance: An empirical investigation based on cointegradon and Granger causality tests

This article performs tests of Granger causality in the relationships between the nominal ad real exchange rates of the dollar and the U.S. trade balance as well as its price and quantity components over the period 1973:IIQ–1989:IIIQ. Our results suggest: (i) weak statistical evidence of unidirectional causality running from the nominal exchange rate to import prices and nominal trade balance (ii) no statistical support for the proposition that the real exchange rate simply “accommodates” changes in the real trade balance, and (iii) strong (no) causal links between the nominal and real exchange rates and export (import) volume. We tentatively conclude that movements in the exchange rate have a rather limited effect on the trade balance and that this effect is more likely to materialize on the export side of the trade balance.     

The effects of external trade,foreign resources,and domestic Policies on Domestic Savings in some developing Countries: a regression analysis

Summary This paper examines the impacts of some external and domestic factors on two measures of domestic savings (DS) in a sample of developing countries over the period 1980-82. No strong statistical evidence is found to support the hypothesis that external resources (i.e., official aid and borrowed capital) inhibit DS by substituting for them. On the other hand, favorable trade conditions (as represented by the rate of growth of the external terms of trade) are consistently found to be positively and significantly correlated with DS. These results are suggested to support the old slogan trade not aid, if it is interpreted to mean that aid should not be considered as an alternative to profitable trade opportunities.