Asymmetric generalized impulse responses with an application in finance

Since the seminal work by Sims (1980), the impulse response functions are regularly applied to capture the propagation mechanism of a shock across time. This paper suggests a new approach for allowing asymmetry in the impulse response functions. This is an issue that has been neglected in the existing literature on the estimation of impulses. In the current paper it is shown how the underlying variables can be transformed into cumulative positive and negative changes in order to estimate the impulses to an asymmetric innovation. An application is provided to demonstrate how the propagation mechanism of an asymmetric impulse operates.     

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.     

Crude oil and BRICS stock markets under extreme shocks: New evidence

In this paper, we propose an extreme Granger causality analysis model to uncover the causal links between crude oil and BRICS stock markets. Instead of analyzing the average causal relationship, as is usually done, we first decompose the data into three cumulative components and investigate the causality between different combinations of extreme positive, extreme negative and normal shocks. These types of combinations can describe all facets of the interactions between crude oil and BRICS stock markets, especially under extreme shocks. In contrast to the results obtained by the traditional Granger causality test, our empirical findings demonstrate that the effect of oil price changes on the stock markets is stronger under extreme circumstances than under normal circumstances. Furthermore, large upward or downward oil price changes have an asymmetric impact on extreme upward or downward stock price changes. Finally, robustness checks verify the rationality and validity of the extreme Granger causality analysis.     

Asymmetric Causality Between Inflation and Uncertainty: Evidences from 33 Developed and Developing Countries

Empirical studies have provided conflicting findings about the relationship between inflation and inflation uncertainty. Thus, the direction of the causality is still questionable. The present paper is aimed to extend the existing literature using non-linearity models and asymmetric causality tests. For this purpose, the data for 33 developed and developing countries during 1988Q4-2016Q3 is used. The results showed an asymmetry in the inflation behavior which is specified by smooth transition process, as well as separating positive and negative shocks observed in causality test. The asymmetric causality between inflation and inflation uncertainty is confirmed in most countries, although the empirical evidence in favor of Cukierman-Meltzer hypothesis is found to be weaker than Friedman-Ball hypothesis.

     

Testing the Robustness of Public Spending Determinants on Public Spending Decisions in Nigeria

This study tests the robustness of variables used in determining public spending in Nigeria from 1970 to 2016. This is achieved through the simultaneous use of a symmetric and asymmetric ARDL and Toda–Yamamoto causality procedures. The empirical findings reveal sufficient evidence of asymmetry in the behaviour of policy variables such as oil price, inflation rate, and the exchange rate. Hence, the conclusion that asymmetry significantly exists in key variables, used by Nigerian fiscal authorities for spending decision-making. Also, the asymmetric Toda–Yamamoto causality result reveals that increase in oil price, depreciation in the Naira value, and government revenue are the key determinants of public spending. Hence, the revenue-spend hypothesis. It is recommended that the re-investment of surplus proceeds from oil receipts should be given much priority. Specifically, the re-investment of such revenues into sectors such as manufacturing, construction, and information technology, will speed-up the diversification process of the revenue base; and sufficiently reduce the negative effects a decline in the oil price, and the Naira exchange rate will have on public spending. The policy of inflation targeting by the monetary authority should be sustained to check unwarranted inflationary trajectory; which may have an adverse effect on public spending value.     

An error correcting model of farmland prices

Granger has demonstrated that if two variables are integrated of order one and are conitegrated, they can be modelled as having been generated by an error correction mechanism. Cointegration and error correction systems allow long-run components of variables to obey equilibrium constraints while short-run components are allowed to have flexible dynamic specification. Using data from five Corn Belt States in the US, we show that farmland prices and cash rents are each integrated of order one and are model is estimated. The error correction term is found to be significant in both equations, indicating Granger causality running in both directions. Historical simulation of the model is performed. The price equation peroformed better although both equations simulate reasonably well.     

Inflation and inflation volatility in Thailand

Quarterly data for Thailand are used in this article for the period 1965q3–2013q4 to investigate both the relationship between inflation and inflation volatility, and the impact of inflation volatility on economic growth. Inflation volatility is estimated by deploying the generalized autoregressive conditional heteroscedastic (GARCH) technique. A Granger causality test is then conducted to examine the causality between inflation and inflation volatility. The empirical results obtained are consistent with a number of theoretical propositions. First, the results are consistent with the Friedman–Ball proposition, which states that a rise in inflation raises inflation volatility. Second, there is evidence supporting the Holland proposition that inflation volatility lowers the rate of inflation. This is consistent with the view that central banks attempt to stabilize inflation with the rise in inflation volatility. Third, empirical results obtained by asymmetric GARCH models suggest that inflation shocks have an asymmetric impact on inflation volatility (i.e. a positive inflation shock has a larger impact on inflation volatility – as measured by the logarithm of the conditional variance of inflation – than a negative inflation shock). Fourth, inflation volatility has an adverse impact on economic growth. Finally, given the fixed/pegged or managed float exchange rate system, US inflation has been found to have a positive impact on inflation and its volatility in Thailand. This article discusses the implications of empirical findings on the design and enactment of monetary policy for price stability in Thailand.     

Broken trend stationarity of hours worked

The estimated impact of a technology shock on hours worked using Structural Vector Autoregressions (SVARs) depends to a great extent on whether or not hours worked is considered to be integrated of first order. It is shown in this article that the widely analysed time series of hours worked per capita in the US business sector evolves around a broken linear trend. When this fact is taken into account, the unit root null is rejected by recently proposed tests. Therefore, it can be stated that empirical specifications with hours in first differences are not recommended. It seems more appropriate to control for the presence of this shift in the deterministic component. We also draw this conclusion from a bivariate model for both productivity growth and hours worked. Our results suggest that technology improvements have a negative but nonsignificant effect on hours only in the very short run. This impact later becomes positive and statistically significant after five periods.     

Testing for Temporal Asymmetry in the Price‐Volume Relationship

This paper presents some evidence for the presence of temporal asymmetry in the price-volume relationship in the crude oil futures market. By using threshold models we show that there is bidirectional causality between volume and prices, whereas the conventional model that assumes symmetry can only detect unidirectional causality. The results also show that the price-volume relationship is asymmetric, in the sense that negative price and volume changes have stronger effects (on each other) than positive changes. Some explanations for asymmetry in the price-volume relationship are suggested.     

The effect of oil prices on stock prices: fresh evidence from asymmetric causality tests

This article investigates the causal impact of oil prices on stock prices in each G7 market as well as in the world market. An asymmetric causality test developed by Hatemi-J is used for this purpose. Since the underlying data appears to be non-normal with time-varying volatility, we use bootstrap simulations with leverage adjustments in order to produce more reliable critical values than the asymptotic ones. Based on symmetric causality tests, we find no causal effect of oil prices on the stock prices of the world market or any of the G7 countries. However, when we apply an asymmetric causality test, we find that increasing oil prices cause stock prices to rise in the world, the U.S. and Japan while decreasing oil prices cause stock prices to fall in Germany. This may imply that the world, the U.S. and Japanese stock markets consider increases in oil prices as an indicator of good news as this may mean that there is an increase in oil demand due to an expected growth in the economy while the German stock market treats decreasing oil prices as a signal of an expected contraction in the economy.     

Identification problems in Granger causality tests based on the net oil price increase

The net oil price increase is one of the most popular models used to study the relationship between changes in the price of oil and macroeconomic activity. The model postulates that an increase in the price of oil has negative consequences for the economy if the new price exceeds the maximum price observed over a reference period of arbitrary length. The relationship between the net oil price increase and other economic variables is often evaluated with Granger causality tests, the results of which are sensitive to the choice of the reference period. If the reference price is chosen to best fit the data, it becomes an unidentified nuisance parameter under the null hypothesis, causing standard tests to over-reject the null. This article proposes a simple method to obtain correct critical values. Using US data for the period 1954 to 2012, it is found that these corrected critical values reduce, but do not eliminate support for the proposition that the net oil price increase Granger causes real USGDP growth.     

World economic convergence: Does the estimation methodology matter?

An extant empirical literature produces evidence on economic convergence using methods that assume an underlying deterministic trend. Competing approaches that assume a stochastic trend, however, produce only limited evidence of economic convergence. In this paper we address this puzzling feature of the literature by providing a comprehensive analysis of economic convergence using three methodologies that cover all possible underlying assumptions: deterministic, stochastic, and combination trends. We also develop a method for an overall Stochastic Convergence Rate Index, that combines the outcomes of alternative stochastic tests and provides a single measure of the intensity of stochastic convergence. We consider 135 economies over the period 1980–2017. We find that economic convergence occurs at a global level through the formation of convergence clubs, and economic convergence emerges as a deterministic rather than a stochastic process. Tests that ignore deterministic trends tend to understate the evidence for convergence.     

Is the price of gold to gold mining stocks asymmetric?

If an asymmetric relation exists between the prices of gold and gold mining stocks, then these firms possess real option characteristics, and therefore, a premium should be added to their valuation. This article examines this proposition, by firstly, using quantile regressions, which are ideally suited to examine asymmetries, and secondly, by accounting for endogenously determined structural breaks in the data. Our findings provide no support for an asymmetric relation. Furthermore, we also show that out-of-sample forecasting shows there is no causality from the gold price to the prices of those gold mining shares used in the sample.     

Is real GDP per capita a stationary process? Smooth transitions,nonlinear trends and unit root testing

The aim of this article is to provide additional evidence about the order of integration of constant price GDP per capita in a selection of countries. It does so by taking into account the possibility of non-linear deterministic trends and of asymmetric adjustment towards equilibrium. We find evidence of a global stationary ESTAR process around a nonlinear deterministic trend in almost half of the selected countries. These results show that nonlinearities affect real GDP series. By neglecting them, one can draw misleading conclusions from unit root tests. Specifically, the article questions the so-called stylised fact of a near unit root which has so influenced macroeconomic thought over the past two decades.     

Threshold cointegration between inflation and US capacity utilization

An analogue to the Phillips curve shows a positive relationship between inflation and capacity utilization. Some recent empirical work has shown that this relationship has broken down when using data after the mid-1980s. We empirically investigate this issue using several threshold error correction models. We find, in the long run, a 1% increase in the rate of inflation leads to approximately a 0.0046% increase in capacity utilization. The asymmetric error correction structure shows that changes in capacity utilization show significant corrective measures only during booms while changes in inflation correct during both phases of the business cycle with the corrections being stronger during recessions. We also find that, in the short run, changes in the inflation rate do Granger cause capacity utilization while changes in capacity utilization do not Granger cause inflation. The Granger causality from inflation to capacity utilization can be interpreted as supporting recent calls made in the popular press by some economists that it may be desirable for the Federal Reserve Bank to try to induce some inflation. However, it is also possible to interpret these Granger causality results as arising because both variables respond to some more fundamental set of variables with the inflation rate simply responding sooner. The lack of Granger causality from capacity utilization to inflation casts doubt on the older view that capacity utilization could be a leading indicator for future inflation.     

The inflation bias when the central bank targets the natural rate of unemployment

This paper studies the proposition that an inflation bias can arise in a setup where a central banker with asymmetric preferences targets the natural unemployment rate. Preferences are asymmetric in the sense that positive unemployment deviations from the natural rate are weighted more (or less) severely than negative deviations in the central banker's loss function. The bias is proportional to the conditional variance of unemployment. The time-series predictions of the model are evaluated using data from G7 countries. Econometric estimates support the prediction that the conditional variance of unemployment and the rate of inflation are positively related.     

Does international tourism affect international trade and economic growth? The Indian experience

This study attempts to investigate the relationship between international tourism, trade, and economic growth in India over the period from April 1991 to July 2012. To account for potential asymmetries in the relationship, we make use of new asymmetric Granger-causality tests and frequency analysis. We show that there is bidirectional Granger-causality between trade and tourism in positive components, whereas unidirectional Granger-causality runs from tourism to trade for negative components. Moreover, we find evidence of bidirectional Granger-causality between economic growth and tourism in positive components, but unidirectional Granger-causality running from economic growth to tourism for negative components. On the other hand, the results from frequency analysis provide evidence of Granger-causality between trade and tourism, and also between economic growth and tourism, at different frequency bands.     

The relationship between Turkey’s foreign debt and economic growth: an asymmetric causality analysis

Tackling foreign debt that arises as a result of limited and ineffective use of resources is an item that remains on the agenda particularly for developing countries. In this study, we examine the foreign debt debates to date in terms of economic growth and using the time series for the period 2003Q1 to 2017Q1. We used unit root tests to determine the maximum integration degree of series, and we conducted causality analysis. We found a causality relationship between net foreign debt stock and economic growth in causality analyses performed for Turkey. The empirical results of this study indicate that there is a causality relationship, including both positive and negative aspects, between net foreign debt stock and economic growth. The results of our testing showed a significant causal relationship between the variables.     

A Copula Nonlinear Granger Causality

We propose a new copula nonlinear Granger causality test that is more robust than the current available linear and nonlinear Granger causality tests when there exists an asymmetric and nonlinear directional dependence. To perform the statistical test of the copula nonlinear causality, the Gaussian Copula Marginal Regression (GCMR) model and copula directional dependence (Kim and Hwang, 2017) are employed in this paper. By using GCMR and two-sample permutation test with rank sum statistic for the copula nonlinear Granger causality, we can confirm that the result of the proposed copula nonlinear Granger causality test is a reliable test through the simulated data and real data both for small and large sample sizes.     

Research output and economic growth in G7 countries: new evidence from asymmetric panel causality testing

Recent studies have shown increasing interest on the relationship between research output and economic growth. The study of such a relationship is not only of theoretical interest, but it can also influence specific policies to improve the quality, and probably the quantity of research output. This article has studied this relationship in G7 countries using the asymmetric panel causality test of Hatemi-J (2011). Our results show that only the UK shows a causal relationship from the output of research to real GDP. However, when the signs of variations are taken into account, there is an asymmetric causality running from negative research output shocks to negative real GDP shocks.