The effects of oil shocks on government expenditures and government revenues nexus (with an application to Iran's sanctions)

The main purpose of this study is to investigate the dynamic relationship between government revenues and government expenditures in Iran as a developing oil export based economy. Moreover, I want to know how oil price (revenue) shocks can affect this relationship. The results of the impulse response functions and variance decomposition analysis indicate that the contribution of oil revenue shocks in explaining the government expenditures is stronger than the contribution of oil price shocks. Moreover the results of the vector autoregression (VAR) and vector error correction (VEC) models show that the strong causality is running from government revenues to government expenditures (both current and capital) in Iranian economy while the evidence for the reverse causality is very weak. Overall the results support the revenue–spending hypothesis for Iran. My results imply that those sanctions aiming to restrict the Iranian government's oil export revenues, potentially can affect the government total expenditures as an important engine for developing the Iranian economy.     

我国货币—产出非对称影响关系的实证研究

货币与产出之间的非对称影响关系研究,近年来在宏观经济学领域受到了广泛的关注。本文运用平滑迁移向量误差修正(STVECM)模型,对1989—2007年我国货币与产出之间是否存在非对称影响关系展开实证分析。引入年产出增长率、年货币增长率以及年通货膨胀率的年度变化作为转移变量,线性检验表明我国货币、产出和价格系统存在显著的非线性;通过模型估计识别了我国货币—产出关系的经济和/或政策状态相依性;运用非线性Granger因果关系检验进一步证明了两者之间是一种非对称关系。概括来说,我国货币对产出的影响关系具有明显的非对称性,其依赖于经济周期的高速增长和低速增长阶段、货币供给的高速增长和低速增长阶段以及通货膨胀率的加速和减速阶段。     

Discrimination and job search theories for black British young men

The paper examines empirically the relationship between government revenues and expenditures in four European countries: Greece, Spain, Ireland, and Portugal. In relative terms all four may be considered as the poorest members of the European Union. Yet, they present a fairly diverse picture as far as their macroeconomic performance and fiscal position is concerned. The empirical findings from cointegration and causality tests that are reported here indicate that in the case of Greece and Ireland tax and spending decisions are taken simultaneously by the fiscal authority, the tax-and-spend hypothesis is supported in the case of Spain, while absence of any causal ordering between government expenditure and tax revenues has been established for Portugal.     

政府、居民消费与中国经济增长的因果关系

本文运用协整、格兰杰因果检验和向量自回归模型,利用1978—2006年的年度经济数据对我国政府消费、居民消费和经济增长的关系进行层次递进的实证分析,实证结果表明：我国居民消费、政府消费和经济增长之间存在长期均衡关系,居民消费增长是经济增长的因果原因,政府消费增长是居民消费增长的因果原因。     

A multivariate cointegrated model testing for temporal causality between exports and outward foreign investment: the Spanish case

Historically, outward foreign direct investment has been contemplated as an alternative way of firms' internationalization. In this line, a relational substitution between exports and foreign direct investment would be expected. However, this seems to contrast with recent developments in the ‘new trade theory’ which show that the volume of trade and the emergence of multinational firms may be positively related one to the other. This paper investigates if some empirical evidence exists either supporting a substitution or a complementary relationship between both forms of internationalization. With this aim, an aggregate time series approach was adopted using quarterly aggregate data (seasonal adjusted) from the Spanish economy covering the period 1970.I–1992.III. A vector autoregressive model was employed for both multivariate cointegration analysis and Granger temporal causality testing. The strength and direction of causal relationships are shown through the dynamic variance decomposition and the impulse response technique. Once controlling for relative market size and prices, the results provide evidence of a positive long-term Granger causality going from foreign direct investment to exports, although not in the opposite direction.     

Financial Development and Economic Growth: Empirical Evidence from Six MENA Countries

This paper examines the causal relationship between financial development and economic growth for six Middle Eastern and North African countries (Algeria, Egypt, Israel, Morocco, Syria, and Tunisia), within a quadvariate vector autoregressive framework. We employ four different measures of financial development and apply the augmented vector autoregression vector (VAR) methodology of Toda and Yamamoto to test for Granger causality. Our empirical results strongly support the hypothesis that finance leads to growth in five out of the six countries. Only in Israel could weak support be found for causality running from economic growth to financial development but no causality in the other direction. These findings suggest the need to accelerate the financial reforms that have been launched since the mid 1980s and to improve the efficiency of these countries’ financial systems to stimulate saving/investment and, consequently, long‐term economic growth.     

信贷资金配置的市场化程度分析

尽管政府取消了对银行贷款规模的直接控制,改成了对银行的贷款进行窗口指导管理,但在实际操作中,政府对信贷资金的分配仍然有十分强大的控制权.为了考察当前我国信贷市场资金分配的市场化程度,本文以最近五年的宏观金融统计数据,采用了协整检验、向量误差修正模型、Granger因果检验等计量方法验证了我国贷款资金分配的市场化程度.结论表明,当前我国信贷资金分配的市场化程度较低,非市场因素在影响信贷资金的分配中仍占主导作用.     

The dynamics of wage determination in Romania

This article examines wage developments in Romania over the last 20 years, discusses the evolving role of government wage policy and structural labour market changes, and analyses the dynamics of the wage determination process. It finds that government wage policy has had a significant demonstration effect on private sector wages, driven mainly by policy decisions over the past few years. The article also finds strong causality from private sector wages to wages in state‐owned enterprises (SOEs) and government. No causality was found for changes in government wages to wages in SOEs or from SOE wages to private sector wages.     

Energy consumption, carbon emissions, and economic growth in China

This paper investigates the existence and direction of Granger causality between economic growth, energy consumption, and carbon emissions in China, applying a multivariate model of economic growth, energy use, carbon emissions, capital and urban population. Empirical results for China over the period 1960-2007 suggest a unidirectional Granger causality running from GDP to energy consumption, and a unidirectional Granger causality running from energy consumption to carbon emissions in the long run. Evidence shows that neither carbon emissions nor energy consumption leads economic growth. Therefore, the government of China can purse conservative energy policy and carbon emissions reduction policy in the long run without impeding economic growth.     

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.     

重庆FDI、国际贸易及经济增长相关性研究——基于VAR模型的经验实证

本文利用重庆1987—2008年的经济数据进行实证检验,根据VAR模型建立向量误差修正模型。实证结果表明重庆FDI、国际贸易与经济增长间具有长期均衡关系,且FDI和出口对经济增长影响明显,重庆市经济是典型的出口导向型经济模式,出口是导致进口增长的原因,FDI和出口之间存在双向因果关系。     

Reconsidering the modernization hypothesis: The role of diversified production and interest‐group competition

The modernization hypothesis attributes democracy to higher incomes. The hypothesis has been controversial with claims of no relationship or opposite causality. Using data on a large sample of countries over the period from 1995 to 2015, we show empirically that the hypothesis is valid by studying the role of diversified production and interest-group competition. Increases in income associated with production diversification foster the emergence of competing organized interest groups representing the different diversified sectors. The interest-group competition underlies democracy by restraining rent seeking for benefits that would otherwise be sought through single-decision-maker authoritarian government.     

Defence spending,economic growth and temporal causality: evidence from Taiwan and mainland China, 1952-1995

This paper uses a cointegration analysis and a vector autoregressive model (VAR) to examine the causal relationship between defence spending and economic growth for Taiwan and Mainland China over the period 1952–1995. It is found that these two variables are not cointegrated for both countries studied. The results of the Granger causality tests suggest bidirectional Granger causality (feedback) between defence spending and economic growth for Taiwan, unidirectional Granger causality running from economic growth to defence spending for Mainland China, and unidirectional Granger causality running from Taiwan's defence spending to Mainland China's defence spending for cross-country studied. These results further indicate that there exists no arms race between two countries from both sides of Taiwan strait. Furthermore, impulse responses and variance decompositions are incorporated into the analysis. The results from the impulse responses and variance decompositions tell a similar story.     

Public Expenditure and Revenue in Italy, 1862–1993

This study examines the long‐run equilibrium relationship between government expenditure and revenue in Italy from 1862 to 1993, using cointegration and causality techniques in the long as well as in the short‐run, through integrating the Error Correction Model (ECM) into the traditional Granger causality test. A Granger non‐causality test (due to Toda and Yamamoto) is also performed. Unit root tests have been applied in order to investigate the stationarity properties of the series. Moreover, three more homogeneous sub‐period (1862–1913; 1914–1946; 1947–1993) have been analysed. The nexus between public expenditure and revenue has been discussed also by Forecast Error Variance Decompositions (FEVDs). Empirical findings show that, for each sub‐period, the policy adopted reflects the prevailing paradigm of public finance. In fact, the ‘Tax‐and‐Spend' argument, received empirical support from the liberal period data. In contrast, the interwar years are in line with the ‘Spend‐and‐Tax' hypothesis. Finally, the “Fiscal Synchronization” hypothesis emerges in the republican ages.     

Ricardian equivalence,expansionary fiscal contraction and the stock market: a VECM approach

The effect of government taxation on future consumption has been explained in three ways: the Keynesian approach, the Ricardian Equivalence proposition and the German view of Expansionary Fiscal Contraction (EFC). This paper reports empirical evidence on the validity of these explanations by examining the impact of a shock in government taxation upon private consumption, once the effect of the stock market is removed. A vector error-correction model is estimated for the USA, Japan, Germany, France, the UK, Italy and Canada for 1950–1997 and the impulse response functions of a shock in taxation and in expenditure are examined. The responses to an increase in government taxation appear to lend support to the EFC, while the responses to an increase in government expenditure upon consumption suggest that the reaction of private consumption is more in line with the traditional Keynesian approach.     

Sovereign default risk and state-owned bank fragility in emerging markets: evidence from China and Russia

In this paper we investigate the interdependence of the sovereign default risk and banking system fragility in two major emerging markets, China and Russia, using credit default swaps as a proxy for default risk. Both countries’ banking industries have strong ties with their governments and public sector, even after a series of significant reforms in the last two decades. Our analysis is built on the case studies of each country’s two biggest banks. We employ a bivariate vector autoregressive (VAR) and vector error correction (VECM) framework to analyse the short- and long-run dynamics of the chosen CDS prices. We use Granger causality to describe the direction of the discovered dynamics. We find evidence of a stable long-run relationship between sovereign and bank CDS spreads in the chosen time period. The more stable relationship is found in cases where the biggest state-owned universal banks in emerging markets are closely managed by the government. But the fragility of those banks does not directly affect the state of public finances. However, in cases where state-owned banks directly participate in large governmental projects, banking fragility may result in the deterioration of state funds, while raising the risk of sovereign default.     

US federal redistributive income policies

The purpose of this paper is to present a statiscial model of inequality that allows us to analyse simultaneously the impact of several major redistributive expenditure policies, as well as analysing the impact of income taxation on inequality. The paper includes multivariate exogeeity tests to determine whether the policies have ‘caused’ the observed income distribution or if there is feedback, i.e. inequality in the distribution has lead to enhanced (or diminished) redistributive policies. The direction of causality for these policies has not, to ourr knowledge, been previously examined. This paper examines the usual redistributive vehicles of transfer payments, Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, as well as analysing the impact of the personal income tax system on inequality. Using time series analysis we can allow for lagged effects of these policies as well as current period effects. This lagged effects specification may be sugggestive of behavioural responses to policy changes.     

贸易开放、人口规模与中国地方政府规模：驱动还是补偿*

针对贸易开放、人口规模和中国地方政府规模之间联系究竟是驱动促成还是补偿所致的争论，本文基于中国29个省份1978—2013年三个维度样本数据，首先考察三者之间的关系，研究发现贸易开放对地方政府规模具有正向影响，人口规模对地方政府规模的影响不确定，人口规模对贸易开放存在正向影响。采用多种内生性处理方法的估计表明，贸易开放对地方政府规模的正向影响是因果性的。上述结论在不同的估计方法、数据类型、模型设定下均十分稳健。人口规模并未在贸易开放与中国地方政府规模的正向联系中起到居间驱动作用，贸易开放基于风险补偿机制直接推动了中国地方政府规模的不断膨胀。因此，伴随“一带一路”的有序推进，适度提高地方政府在民生领域的支出规模可能势在必行。     

The role of fiscal policy in the St. Louis model: Nonparametric estimates for a small open economy

This paper reevaluates the efficacy of monetary and fiscal policies and bidirectional causality between income and each of the policy instruments used in the St. Louis model for aggregate demand using nonparametric (or infinite parametric) spectral methods. We proceed by estimating the strength of the correlations (or partial coherences) between income and each of the policy instruments over various frequencies. Then we obtain the corresponding band regression and Hannan's efficient estimates of both the lead and lag coefficients in the St. Louis model. The analysis is carried out with seasonally adjusted quarterly data and is divided into the flexible, fixed, and managed flexible exchange rate regimes. We find that while estimates from parametric regressions yield the standard conclusions for the St. Louis model, results from the nonparametric analysis are quite different. Specifically, the results of our analysis reveal that (i) both monetary and fiscal instruments are strongly correlated with income over cycles of 10 quarters or longer for the most recent period of the managed flexible exchange rate regime, and (ii) bidirectional causality exists between income and the fiscal policy instrument. These results suggest that both monetary and fiscal policy have a long-lasting effect on aggregate demand and that bidirectional causality exists between income and policy instruments. An explanation for the existence of bidirectional causality might be that the Canadian government generally pursued a purposeful discretionary fiscal policy during the post-World War II period. Furthermore, it appears that discretionary policy action may have been anticipated by rational, farsighted, and forward-looking economic agents. Finally, our results for the flexible exchange rate and fixed rate regimes are in agreement with the Mundell-Fleming view of the role of monetary fiscal policy in an open economy.     

Energy consumption,employment, output,and temporal causality: evidence from Taiwan based on cointegration and error-correction modelling techniques

In this study, a cointegration analysis and a vector autoregressive model (VAR) are used to examine the causal relationships among energy consumption, employment, and output for Taiwan over the period January 1982 to November 1997. Johansen (1988) and Johansen and Juselius (1990) cointegration test result indicates these three variables are cointegrated with one cointegrating vector. The results from Granger causality tests based on vector error-correction models (VECM) suggest bidirectional Grange causality for employment-output and employment-energy consumption, but only unidirectional causality running from energy consumption to output. Furthermore, the impulse responses and variance decompositions are also incorporated into the analysis. The results from impulsive response and variance decomposition analysis tell similar stories. Energy consumption appears to have led to output growth in Taiwan over this period. The policy implication of this finding is that energy conservation will restrain the output growth in Taiwan.