The endogeneity of the natural rate of growth – an empirical study for Latin‐American countries

The aim of this paper is to analyse the sensitivity of the natural rate of growth to the actual rate of growth for a sample of 11 Latin‐American countries, assuming the natural rate to be determined endogenously by changes in the actual rate of growth. The natural rates of growth are estimated in a system of SUR estimations over the period 1986–2003. In order to determine whether they react endogenously to changes in the actual rate of growth, a dummy variable for boom periods is added to the system of regressions. The results confirm the hypothesis about the endogeneity of the natural rate of growth.     

中国货币化率与经济增长

近年来,中国高货币化率问题愈发严重,学者们专注于寻找其背后的原因,却忽略了对货币化率与经济增长关系的研究.为此,在对货币化率影响经济增长相关理论进行总结归纳基础上,提出货币化率与经济增长之间呈现倒U型关系的理论假设,并且选择全球72个主要国家1996—2018年面板数据,对货币化率与经济增长之间关系进行实证检验.结果表明:在全样本和发达国家子样本中,货币化率与经济增长之间呈现倒U型关系,目前我国货币化率水平小于全样本数据拐点值,大于发达国家子样本数据拐点值.发展中国家子样本数据则显示,货币化率与经济增长呈现正U型关系,适当提高货币化率可以促进经济增长.最后,根据上述结论,提出中国货币化率最优路径图.     

Public Debt,Economic Growth and the Real Interest Rate: A Panel VAR Approach to EU and OECD Countries

ABSTRACT

We investigate the causal relationship between public debt ratios and economic growth rates for 31 EU and OECD countries. We estimate a panel VAR model that incorporates the long-term real interest rate on government bonds as a vehicle to transmit shocks in both the public debt to GDP ratio and the economic growth rate. We find no causal link from public debt to growth, irrespective of the levels of the public debt ratio. Rather, we find a causal relationship from growth to public debt. In high-debt countries, the direct negative impact of growth on public debt is enhanced by an increase in the long-term real interest rate, which in its turn decreases interest-sensitive demand and leads to a further increase in the public debt ratio.     

A spatial econometric analysis of the regional growth and volatility in Europe

Based on a sample of 1,084 European regions (EU15) from 1995 to 2004, we estimate the relationship between the average growth rate of GDP per capita and the volatility of the growth rate allowing for spatial effects. The spatial lag and spatial error models show that the regional per capita growth rate and volatility are significantly positively related on average. However, the inclusion of country interaction terms reveals that the volatility impact is not uniform across countries. In particular, the relationship between growth and volatility is significantly positive for the majority of countries but significantly negative for three countries (namely Finland, Italy, and Ireland).

Estimating the natural rate of interest in an open economy

The concept of the natural or equilibrium rate of interest has attracted a lot of attention from monetary policymakers in recent years. Most attempts to estimate the natural rate use a closed-economy framework. We argue that in the face of greater integration of global product and capital markets, an open economy framework is more appropriate. We provide some initial estimates of the natural rate for the USA and Japan in a two-country framework. Our identifying assumptions include a close relationship between the time-varying natural rate of interest and the low-frequency fluctuations of potential output growth in both the home country and the foreign country. Our results suggest that the natural rates in both countries are mainly determined by their own trend growth rates of potential output. Nevertheless, the other country’s trend growth plays an important role in several specific periods. The gap between the actual real interest rate and our estimated natural rate offers valuable insights into the recent stance of monetary policy in both of these two countries.     

林业上市公司可持续增长实证研究

采用罗伯特·C·希金斯的可持续增长理论模型,运用T检验法,对我国林业上市公司可持续增长问题进行实证研究。得出结论是:我国林业上市公司实际增长率大于可持续增长率,且未实现可持续增长。为此,本文从影响林业上市公司可持续增长率的四个财务因素入手研究,详细剖析了林业上市公司可持续增长率下滑的主要原因,在此基础上,有针对性地提出了若干参考建议。     

Regime-switching purchasing power parity in Latin America: Monte Carlo unit root tests with dynamic conditional score

We suggest a Monte Carlo simulation-based unit root test of the purchasing power parity theory for Latin American countries. Under the null hypothesis, we use a Markov regime-switching (MS) model with unit root in the conditional location and MS volatility dynamics. Under the alternative hypothesis, the proposed test incorporates Markov regime-switching autoregressive moving average (MS-ARMA) plus MS volatility dynamics. Under both the null and alternative hypotheses, one of the volatility models estimated is Beta-t-EGARCH, which is a recent dynamic conditional score volatility model. We use data on real effective exchange rate time series for 14 Latin American countries. For each country, we estimate by Monte Carlo simulation the critical values of the unit root test. We provide an economic discussion of the unit root test results and also study the robustness of MS-ARMA plus MS volatility with respect to smooth transition autoregressive models with Fourier function.     

Does crime deter South Africans from self-employment?

The very high crime rate in South African cities is often argued to be the main reason for the country's small share of business ownership and self-employment. This paper revisits this hypothesis. We estimate the effect of crime on business ownership and performance using a matched dataset of census, survey and police data. In contrast to previous studies, which take into account perceived rather than actual crime and often focus on specific geographic areas, we do not find robust evidence that high crime rates have a negative impact on business ownership. Even though our estimate of the effect of crime is statistically significant and negative, it is economically small. Further, we find no evidence for a negative effect of actual crime on sales, profits and investment of informal businesses. This may imply that the low share of business ownership and self-employment in South Africa must have other reasons. These results may also suggest that crime may not be in general a serious threat for small businesses in low and middle-income countries, however, this needs further empirical research.     

Uncertainty and risk analysis of the Langrun Chinese GDP Forecast: Fan Charts revisited

In this paper, we develop a fan chart methodology for Chinese economic growth to incorporate uncertainty analysis into the gross domestic product growth forecast. Using the ‘Langrun Forecast’ project results exclusively, we estimate the density distribution for Chinese gross domestic product growth forecasts and build corresponding fan charts for the first time. Our analysis shows that the fan chart method effectively highlights the overall uncertainty and balance of risks surrounding Chinese gross domestic product growth, especially during the past international financial crisis between 2007 and 2009. Wallis' interval forecast test is conducted to evaluate the performance of the produced fan charts, and the results indicate that our forecasts perform well for the period being investigated.     

Testing for unemployment hysteresis in nonlinear heterogeneous panels: International evidence

Nonlinear behavior of unemployment is well documented in the literature, and thus linear unit root tests may not be appropriate in this case. This paper tests for hysteresis of unemployment for 29 OECD countries through the use of a new nonlinear panel unit root test developed by Ucar and Omay (2009). The test examines the joint null hypothesis of linearity and a unit root against the alternative hypothesis of nonlinear stationarity. Large power gains are achieved by both combining cross-sectional information with nonlinearities in the data. In addition, after the unit root null being rejected, we use a sequential panel selection method suggested by Chortareas and Kapetanios (2009) to classify the whole panel into a group of stationary countries and a group of non-stationary countries. The empirical findings show that the nonlinear panel test gives strong evidence in favor of the natural rate hypothesis of unemployment for 23 of 29 OECD countries, in contrast to those obtained by Chang's (2002) linear panel test that 17 countries display evidence of stationary unemployment.     

双视角下地区能源状况与经济增长关系研究——基于省际面板数据的实证分析

本文从阐述"资源诅咒"的命题出发,以省际面板数据为样本,选择煤炭、石油和天然气这三种主要的能源矿产作为研究对象,既从静态角度讨论了地区能源储量与经济发展的关系,又从动态角度研究了能源供求比的变动对经济增长速度的影响,其实证结果表明,煤能源供求比与经济增长显著负相关,同时"资源诅咒"现象在中国客观存在但并非普遍存在,具有相同能源状况的地区经济增长的表现并不一致。     

基于均衡汇率角度的人民币升值问题分析

在人民币不断升值的大背景下,关于人民币升值的合理性及临界点的探讨已成为热门话题。人民币汇率的合理性问题归根到底是实际汇率是否偏离均衡汇率的问题。在考虑中国转型经济特点和对基本经济因素进行分析后,建立了人民币均衡汇率模型,将估计出的均衡汇率与实际有效汇率进行比较分析,确认人民币确实存在一定的低估,但失调程度不大。因此对于人民币升值我们应保持在适度的范围内,而不应屈从于外在压力。在此基础上进一步提出了人民币汇率调整的方法建议。     

Renewable and nonrenewable energy production and economic growth in sub-Saharan Africa: a hidden cointegration analysis

The objective of this article is to investigate the hypothesis of asymmetric effects between economic growth and renewable and nonrenewable energy production. To this end, both the linear cointegration and the hidden cointegration methodology are employed, with the latter allowing a straightforward delimitation of the data in an economically sensible way. We test for the presence of hidden cointegration across 12 sub-Saharan African countries spanning the period 1971–2011. The empirical results confirm the growth hypothesis for a subset of countries, suggesting that their growth could be adversely affected by conservation policies, while for a second subgroup of countries they confirm the conservation hypothesis, indicating that conservation policies could enhance the growth process in these countries. The differentiation of the results could be captured entirely by the linear approach, indicating that the lack of cointegration between renewable energy production and economic growth found in previous studies may be due to failures to properly delimit the nonlinearity property in the data.     

Political instability and economic growth

This paper investigates the relationship between political instability and per capita GDP growth in a sample of 113 countries for the period 1950 through 1982. We define political instability as the propensity of a government collapse, and we estimate a model in which such a measure of political instability and economic growth are jointly determined. The main result of this paper is that in countries and time periods with a high propensity of government collapse, growth is significantly lower than otherwise. We also discuss the effects of different types of government changes on growth.     

The European unemployment problem: its cause and cure

The stubbornly high unemployment experienced by European countries since the mid-1970s have led to a major reconsideration of the natural rate paradigm. Traditional theories which describe movements of unemployment as fluctuations around a moving natural rate have been challenged by hysteresis theories. The question arises how one can discriminate between these competing theories. To this end, we estimate a time-varying parameter model of the unemployment rate for the US, UK, Germany, and France. The parameters of the model were estimated jointly by maximum likelihood estimation using the Kalman filter algorithm. When the moving natural rate model is tested against the alternative of a unit root process, the unit root hypothesis is resoundingly rejected. Among the determinants of the natural rate institutions that alter labour market incentives for workers appear to have been more important than institutions that affect labour demand.     

Export-led Growth in South Asia: A Panel Cointegration Analysis

Abstract

In this paper, we attempt to examine the export-led and manufacturing export-led growth hypothesis for four South Asian Countries; namely, India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka, using Pedroni’s panel cointegration technique for the period 1980–2002. In this context we estimate growth accounting equations to investigate the impact of exports, manufacturing exports and other important physical and human capital variables on both total GDP and non-export GDP. The study finds long-run equilibrium relationship between GDP (and non-export GDP) and exports along with other variables supporting export-led growth hypothesis. The results also substantiate the existence of manufacturing export-led growth hypothesis. Further, we find that export, fixed capital formation, public expenditure on health and education have statistically significant coefficients re-emphasizing the importance of these variables for higher economic growth.     

Public capital in the 21st century: as productive as ever?

The global financial crisis and the euro area sovereign debt crisis that followed induced a rapid deterioration in the fiscal positions of countries across the globe. In the ensuing fiscal adjustment process, public investments were severely reduced in many countries. How harmful is this for growth perspectives? Our main objective is to find out whether the importance of public capital for long run output growth has changed in recent years. To this end, we expand time series on public capital stocks for 20 OECD countries and estimate country-specific recursive vector autoregressive (VAR) models. Results show that the effect of public capital shocks on economic growth has not increased in general, although results differ widely between countries. This suggests that the current level of public investments generally does not pose an immediate threat to potential output. Of course, this could change if low investment levels are sustained for a long time.     

The real exchange rate and economic growth: are developing countries different?

Recent research has found a positive relationship between real exchange rate (RER) undervaluation and economic growth. Different rationales for this association have been offered, but they all imply that the mechanisms involved should be stronger in developing countries. Rodrik (2008 Rodrik, D. 2008. The real exchange rate and economic growth. Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, 2: 365–412.  [Google Scholar]) explicitly analyzed and found evidence that the RER–growth relationship is more prevalent in developing countries. We show that his finding is sensitive to the criterion used to divide the sample between developed and developing countries. Using alternative classification criteria and empirical strategies to evaluate the existence of asymmetries between groups of countries, we find that the effect of currency undervaluation on growth is indeed larger and more robust for developing economies. However, the relationship between RER undervaluation and per capita GDP is non-monotonic, and is limited largely to the least developed and richest countries. This discontinuity constitutes a puzzle that calls for closer analysis.     

Inflation Effects on Finance-Growth Link: A Panel Smooth Threshold Approach

This paper proposes an original framework to examine whether the strength of the relationship between financial development and economic growth, widely documented in the recent empirical literature, varies with the inflation rate. Using a Panel Smooth Threshold Regression for 71 developed and developing countries over the period 1960–2004, we find a non-linear link between financial development and economic growth: three equilibriums are identified with inflation rate. Then, there is an inflation threshold, for which finance ceases to increase economic growth. Our results suggest that for an inflation rate higher than 20%, economic growth is not, or is negatively, affected by financial development, whereas the impact of finance on growth is positive and significant for an inflation level below 10%.     

The growth effects of education in Australia

In this article, we estimate the growth effect of human capital with country-specific time series data for Australia. In doing so, we extended the Solow (1956) growth model by using educational attainment as a measure of human capital developed by Barro and Lee (2010). The extended Solow (1956) model performs well after allowing for the presence of structural changes. Our results, based on alternative time series methods, show that educational attainment has a small and significant permanent effect on the growth rate of per worker output in Australia.