Testing for short- and long-run causality: A frequency-domain approach

The framework of Geweke (1982. Journal of the American Statistical Association 77, 304–324.) and Hosoya (1991. Probability Theory and Related Fields 88, 429–444.) is adopted to construct a simple test for causality in the frequency domain. This test can also be applied to cointegrated systems. To study the large sample properties of the test, we analyze the power against a sequence of local alternatives. The finite sample properties are investigated by means of Monte Carlo simulations. Our methodology is applied to investigate the predictive content of the yield spread for future output growth. Using quarterly US data we observe reasonable leading indicator properties at frequencies around one year and typical business cycle frequencies.     

Testing causality: Some caveats and a suggestion

The Granger concept of causality is defined within the framework of dynamic economic systems in terms of the predictability criterion. The concept has however been often wrongly applied to static systems. The test procedures for Granger causality due to Granger, Sims, Haugh and Pierce provide grossly inconclusive and often conflicting if not misleading results. These problems are illustrated with the data on profits and investment for Canada and the U.S.A. Further, it is suggested that the predictability criterion, if interpreted in terms of conventional forecasting methods, would enable us to provide more conclusive results. The problems assume added importance as the recent vintage of econometric modelling techniques heavily rely on these causality tests.     

A brief note examining the impact of federal deposit insurance on savings and loan failures using granger causality tests

This brief note applies Granger causality testing to the issue of whether federal deposit insurance has caused S&L failures. The findings strongly indicate that federal deposit insurance has Granger-caused S&L failures over the 1934–1991 period.     

Nonlinear causality testing with stepwise multivariate filtering: Evidence from stock and currency markets

We examine the spillovers of the US subprime crisis to Asian and European economies and in particular to what extent currency and stock markets have been affected by the crisis. Linear and nonlinear dependencies are detected after pairwise and system-wise causality analysis. A new stepwise multivariate filtering approach is implemented after controlling for conditional heteroskedasticity in the raw data and in VAR/VECM residuals using multivariate GARCH models. Significant nonlinear causal linkages persisted even after the application of GARCH-BEKK, CCC-GARCH and DCC-GARCH modelling. This indicates that volatility effects might partly induce nonlinear causality. Perhaps new short-term asset-pricing models could be developed to explain this stylized fact. These results might also have important implications for hedging, trading strategies and financial market regulation.     

Efficiency and stock returns: evidence from the insurance industry

This study investigates whether the capital market values the efficiency of firms. After tracing stock returns and efficiency changes of 399 listed insurance firms in 52 countries during the 2002–2008 period, the paper reports a positive and statistically significant relationship between profit efficiency change and market adjusted stock returns. However, there is no robust evidence that cost efficiency change is associated with stock returns.     

Earnings and stock returns: evidence from Germany

Past research in the US indicates that stock prices and earnings per share are related. Evidence pertaining to this relationship in other countries is not as extensive. This paper extends two recent studies focusing on Germany, and provides additional information concerning the important informative role played by DVFA earnings. DVFA earnings are a metric jointly constructed by the Deutscher Vereinigung für Finanzanalyse und Anlageberatung and the Schmalenbach-Gesellschaftwith the purpose of providing investors and others interested in share value with a more meaningful measure of economic income than the traditional published earnings figure     

Budget deficits and stock prices: International evidence

The purpose of this research is to provide empirical evidence regarding deficits and their effects on stock prices. We investigate whether changes in deficits cause changes in stock prices and if so, in what direction. We use Granger causality tests and impulse response analysis of vector autoregressive models to assess the relationship between budget deficits and stock prices in several industrialized nations. The evidence from impulse response analysis and Granger causality tests shows that only in the U.S. deficit reductions have an inverse effect on equity returns.     

Understanding employee preferences for investing in employer stock: evidence from France

In this article, we broaden the focus of existing research on employee stock purchase plans by analysing employee preferences for investing in employer stock as a construct distinct from actual investment behaviour. In our analysis of original survey data in a sample of 900 employees in four French companies, we find that employee preferences are influenced by two common cognitive heuristics (representativeness and familiarity), organisational commitment, the perceived quality of corporate communications about these plans and perceived managerial commitment to employee ownership. We did not find, however, that risk aversion, turnover intentions or perceived employee involvement in decision making influenced preferences for investing in employer stock. Our findings have both theoretical and practical implications for understanding and operating these types of employee benefit plans, which are becoming more common across the globe.     

Comparing alternative tests of causality in temporal systems: Analytic results and experimental evidence

This paper discusses eight alternative tests of the absence of casual ordering, all of which are asymptotically valid under the null hypothesis in the sense that their limiting size is known. Their behavior under alternatives is compared analytically using the concept of approximate slope, and these results are supported by the outcomes of Monte Carlo experiments. The implications of these comparisons for applied work are unambiguous: Wald variants of a test attributed to Granger, and a lagged dependent variable version of Sim's test introduced in this paper, are equivalent in all relevant respects and are preferred to the other tests discussed.     

Testing for weak identification in possibly nonlinear models

In this paper we propose a chi-square test for identification. Our proposed test statistic is based on the distance between two shrinkage extremum estimators. The two estimators converge in probability to the same limit when identification is strong, and their asymptotic distributions are different when identification is weak. The proposed test is consistent not only for the alternative hypothesis of no identification but also for the alternative of weak identification, which is confirmed by our Monte Carlo results. We apply the proposed technique to test whether the structural parameters of a representative Taylor-rule monetary policy reaction function are identified.     

Testing for convergence: evidence from non-parametric multimodality tests

In this paper, we test the convergence hypothesis in a cross-section of 119 countries by means of bootstrap multimodality tests and nonparametric density estimation techniques. By looking at the density distribution of GDP across countries in 1970, 1980 and 1989, we find low mobility patterns of intra-distribution dynamics and increasing evidence for bimodality. The findings stand in sharp contrast with the convergence prediction. © 1997 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Institutions and economic development: A Granger causality analysis of panel data evidence

This study examines the causal relationship between institutions and economic development using a panel Granger causality test. The study incorporates two institutional datasets, the International Country Risk Guide (ICRG) and World Governance Indicators (WGI). The empirical results based on 60 countries show that there is a bi-directional causality between institutions and economic development. The findings also suggest that causality patterns between institutions and economic performance vary at different stages of income level. Better institutional quality fosters economic development in higher income countries, whereas economic development tends to enhance institutional quality in lower income countries.     

Note: Heteroscedasticity in the market model: Some evidence from the athens stock exchange

Over the last three decades a substantial amount of empirical research has been undertaken to investigate the behaviour of major securities markets. While some work has been done with data from the markets of developing countries, considerable testing must be undertaken for the world's emerging securities market. The objective of this paper is to present some Greek evidence of the heteroscedasticity in the market model. The paper examined 43 companies quoted on the Athens Stock Exchange and found substantial evidence of heteroscedasticity.     

Monetary policy and stock prices in small open economies: Empirical evidence for the new EU member states

This study presents evidence on the effect of domestic and Euro Area monetary policy on stock prices in four new EU member states of Central Europe and the main determinants of stock price volatility, estimating structural vector autoregressive models identified with short-run restrictions. We find that stock prices in the considered new EU member states are more sensitive to changes in the Euro Area interest rate than to the domestic one. Moreover, the bulk of stock price volatility in these countries is due to shocks related to exchange rate and Euro Area monetary policy. Overall, we find that local stock markets are more sensitive to external shocks than to domestic ones.     

The emerging market crisis and stock market linkages: further evidence

This study examines the long‐run price relationship and the dynamic price transmission among the USA, Germany, and four major Eastern European emerging stock markets, with particular attention to the impact of the 1998 Russian financial crisis. The results show that both the long‐run price relationship and the dynamic price transmission were strengthened among these markets after the crisis. The influence of Germany became noticeable on all the Eastern European markets only after the crisis but not before the crisis. We also conduct a rolling generalized VAR analysis to confirm the robustness of the main findings. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Inflation,output and stock prices: evidence from Latin America

Research in economics and finance documents a puzzling negative relationship between stock returns and inflation rate in markets of industrialized economies. The present study investigates this relationship for the developing markets of Peru and Chile. Fama's model of linkages between inflation and real economic activity constitutes the theoretical framework of this paper. The study tests whether the negative relationship between equity returns and inflation is a result of a ‘proxy effect’, namely, a negative relationship between inflation and real economic activity. The evidence for Peru and Chile does not provide strong support for Fama's hypothesis. It is shown that the negative relationship between the real stock returns and unexpected inflation persists after purging inflation of the effects of the real economic activity. The long‐run equilibrium between stock prices and general price levels is weak, as indicated by the findings of the Johansen and Juselius co‐integration tests. However, in both economies, stock prices and general price levels seem to show a strong long‐run equilibrium with the real economic activity. These findings suggest that in the long‐run, Fama's propositions A and B are supported for Peru and Chile. The disparity between traditional regression and co‐integration test results suggest that it may be prudent to re‐examine the proxy effect in the framework of a long‐run relationship before denying its validity. Copyright © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Impact of diversification on the distribution of stock returns: International evidence

In the past, stock returns are often assumed to be normally distributed. Potential gains from international portfolio diversification are thus based on a mean-variance framework. However, numerous empirical results reveal that stock returns are actually not normally distributed. Although previous studies found that both skewness and kurtosis can be rapidly diversified away, these results are only valid for a random sample of a given portfolio size. This paper studies the joint effect of diversification and intervaling on the skewness and kurtosis of eleven international stock market indexes with a holding period spanning from one to six months. A complete set of all possible combinations of portfolios is used. It is found that diversification does not reduce either skewness or kurtosis. As the portfolio size increases, portfolio returns become more negatively skewed and more leptokurtic. As a result, a rational investor may not gain from international diversification.     

Testing for autoregressive against moving average errors in the linear regression model

This paper presents a new approach to hypotheses testing problems which are non-nested in the classical sense and which concern the covariance matrix of the disturbance vector of the linear regression model. In particular, the application of the approach to testing for AR(1) disturbances against MA(1) disturbances is explored in some detail. Practical difficulties are discussed and selected upper bounds for the test's five percent significance points are tabulated. The small sample power of four versions of the new test are compared empirically and a clear conclusion is made in regard to the best overall test.