Assessing a Perfect European Optimum Currency Area: A Common Cycles Approach

In this paper we introduce a new definition for an optimum currency area (OCA) which is more restrictive than the previous ones. Indeed, using both a cointegration and a common cyclical feature analysis in a VAR(p)framework, a set of countries is said to constitute a perfect OCA if theshort-run dynamics is perfectly correlated while long-run relationships arenot constrained. Using seasonally unadjusted industrial production indicesfor the period 75:M1 to 97:M4, we show that European countries are notsufficiently related to fit our definition.     

Macroeconomic Policy Design in the European Monetary Union: A Numerical Game Approach

Optimal economic reactions of European policy-makers on exogenous shocks are determined by simulating a global macroeconomic model under different institutional arrangements. In particular, it is investigated whether discretionary or rule-based policies and whether non-cooperative or cooperative policies for Europe result in a better performance as measured by intertemporal objective functions. The results show that the answers to these questions depend strongly on the nature of the shock to which European economies are exposed. For a negative supply shock, rule-based policies dominate, whereas for a negative demand shock, cooperative fiscal policy-making within the European Monetary Union gives the best results.     

Synchronization and diversity in business cycles: a network analysis of the European Union

In this article, we use a correlation matrix and its internal networks to analyse business cycle synchronization across Europe since 2000. This methodology allows us to summarize individual country interactions and co-movements while also capturing the existing heterogeneity of connectivity within the European economic system. Our results indicate that synchronization of the euro zone countries remained stable from 1999 until the current financial crisis, after which co-movements increased sharply and synchronization rose to the highest in the time sample. By endogenously identifying clusters of countries with close connections in their business cycle, we also refute the commonly accepted notion of identifiable core and peripheral euro zone countries.     

Controlled Dismantlement of the Eurozone: A Strategy to Save the European Union and the Single European Market

The problems with a single currency in Europe are neither temporary nor curable. Any persistent defence of the euro will result in a long‐lasting recession and high unemployment in countries using fiscal austerity to pursue ‘internal devaluation’. It may lead to a revival of populist and nationalist movements, political collapse and disorderly eurozone break‐up. This article argues for a controlled segmentation of the eurozone via the exit of the most competitive countries and an agreement on a new European currency coordination system.     

利率平价理论在中国的适用性--基于债券市场开放的视角

在梳理利率平价文献的基础上,本文从影响中资企业离岸在岸债券收益率的影响因素入手,探讨了利率平价理论在中国的适用性。通过对2010年以来投资级中资企业美元债与境内高等级信用债的计量分析发现,由于资本管制,长期以来抵补利率平价并不适用于中国。伴随着“债券通”之后中国债券市场开放程度的逐步扩大,以及人民币汇率灵活度的提升,自2017年年中以来,抵补利率平价理论开始适用于中国,即使是2020年的疫情冲击也未改变上述关系。汇率成本是影响离岸债券收益率的重要因素,套息交易的作用相对有限。进一步地,本文针对投资级城投债、房地产债的计量分析表明,产业和融资政策限制影响了企业境内外相关债券收益率的相关性,市场不完全是导致利率平价理论在中国不成立的重要原因。本文的研究为我国系统性推动包括债券市场在内的高水平金融开放提供了实证基础。     

Tax harmonization and tax competition in the European Union: Lessons from Switzerland

This paper presents empirical evidence on individual income tax competition in Switzerland. Tax competition has some influence on the spread of people with high income over the cantons, and it is partly capitalised in dwelling rents. However, it neither leads to a collapse of public good supply nor makes redistribution by the fiscal authorities impossible. Thus, if tax competition works well in Switzerland there is no reason why it should have disastrous effects in a future European Union.     

The Endogeneity of Optimum Currency Areas Criteria: Some Evidence from the European Union and Portugal

Observing the statistical relationship between business cycles correlation and trade intensity in the European Union, euro zone, and the Portuguese economy, we conclude that there is, in general, a positive effect that supports the endogeneity argument proposed by Frankel and Rose (The Economic Journal 108(449):pp. 1009–1025, 1998). However, if we analyse this relationship in sub-periods – 1967–1975, 1976–1985, 1986–1992, and 1993–2003 – we conclude that endogeneity hypothesis just hold in the first two, although the correlations are increasing. This could mean that, after the Single European Act in 1986, other forces beyond trade are contributing to business cycle synchronization. The Portuguese business cycle correlation with the European Union and the Euro zone had also increased in these four decades, despite the fact that endogeneity hypothesis is at a 90 percent confidence level. We also analyse the bilateral relationships between the Portuguese economy and the other European Union countries and find that the endogeneity is confirmed in just four cases: Spain, Ireland, Netherlands, and UK.     

Another look at momentum crashes: momentum in the European Monetary Union

This article studies the profitability of a selection of prominent momentum-based strategies in the European Monetary Union (EMU). In contrast to past examples documenting the lack of profitability of unconditional price momentum in the most recent decade, the current research finds that unconditional price momentum yielded significant positive payoffs. There is evidence of option-like behaviour for strategies based on intermediate past performance. Surprisingly, there is no such evidence for the momentum strategy based on recent past performance.     

Spanish Imports of Manufactures and the European Union: An Empirical Assessment of the Entry

This paper investigates the consequences of Spain's accession to the European Union on its imports of manufactures. To that end the realised shares of GDP and the supplies of Spain's main trading partners in the transition period 1986–1992 are compared with the shares that are predicted by means of a model that is estimated using data that relate to the pre-integration period.     

Debt and Economic Growth in the European Union: A Panel Granger Causality Approach

This paper contributes to empirical investigation of the causality relationships between real gross domestic product (GDP) growth and the growth of three debt categories, namely public, foreign and private debt, in the universe of the 28 European Union (EU) countries during the past decade. Using panel Granger causality estimations, we find statistically relevant bidirectional causality relationships between public debt and economic growth for the periods both before and after the outbreak of the recent financial crisis. Moreover, there is clear evidence of economic growth’s contribution to decreasing public debt.     

Regional Liquidity Risk and Covered Interest Parity During the Global Financial Crisis: Evidence from Tokyo,London, and New York*

ABSTRACT

During the global financial crisis, there were substantial deviations from covered interest parity (CIP) condition. In particular, in the post-Lehman period, the US dollar interest rate became very low on the forward market. However, the deviations from the CIP condition varied across markets. After presenting a simple model, the following analysis examines how the CIP condition between the Japanese yen and the US dollar was violated in Tokyo, London, and New York markets. We show that the CIP deviations became largest in the New York market soon after the Lehman shock but were largest in the Tokyo market in the rest of the turmoil period. The regressions suggest that market-specific credit risks and central banks’ liquidity provisions explained the difference across the markets. In particular, they indicate that larger dollar-specific risk and smaller yen-specific risk caused larger deviations in the Tokyo market.     

Environmental Appraisal and Environmental Policy in the European Union

Revisions to the European Treaty of Union require some form of environmental appraisal – primarily risk assessment and cost-benefit analysis – of regulatory initiatives by the European Commission. A retrospective look at the emergence of environmental appraisal also shows that, while the Commission has made great advances in introducing cost-benefit or cost-effectiveness appraisals in recent years, past environmental decisions and overall environmental policy have not been informed by systematic appraisal techniques. Nor is it clear what role is now being played by risk assessments. While it is impossible to gauge the extent to which systematic appraisal procedures will save on regulatory and compliance expenditures, some indications are provided of the costs of past neglect of these procedures.     

Integration or Independence? An Alternative Assessment of Real Interest Rate Linkages in the European Union

The relationship between national real interest rates provides a valuable insight into the extent of economic and financial integration between countries. This paper tests for long‐run parity in ex post real interest rates among the major European Union (EU) countries over the period 1979–2003. The empirical investigation, however, is based on an alternative approach. Strong parity is determined by whether or not the first largest principal component (LPC), based on real interest rate differentials with respect to a chosen base country, is stationary. The qualitative outcome of the test is invariant to the choice of base country, and compared with alternative multivariate tests for long‐run parity, this methodology places less demands on limited data sets. Strong evidence of onshore parity occurs during 1979–1990 and 1993–2003 with the half‐life of a deviation to parity that varies towards 6 months. There is no evidence of long‐run parity among EU members during 1990–1993 despite the easing of remaining capital controls in 1990. Parity is rejected for a sample of non‐EU countries throughout the study period.     

Monetary and Fiscal Policy-Makers in the European Economic and Monetary Union: Allies or Adversaries?

Optimal monetary and fiscal policies within the European Economic and Monetary Union (EMU) are determined by simulating a global model under alternative assumptions about the objective function of the European Central Bank (ECB) and about cooperation vs. non-cooperation between monetary and fiscal policy-makers and among the latter. The results show the high effectiveness of fixed rules in the presence of supply-side shocks and the usefulness of cooperative discretionary measures against demand-side shocks. More generally, cooperation among fiscal policy-makers in the EMU is nearly always superior to non-cooperative equilibrium solutions, yielding a strong case for the coordination of fiscal policies.     

Education and sustainable development in Romania and the European Union countries

The sustainable development supposes a development strategy that would ensure the interdependence and complementarily of objectives from the social, economic and environmental fields. The degree of priority established for the three dimensions of sustainable development differs from one country to another, a fact that confers a national and local meaning to this issue. For the Central and Eastern European countries, balanced economic development represents one of the fundamental objectives of the reforms started in 1990. Education represents a priority of any country＇s economic development and an extremely important element of economic growth. This paper presents the characteristics of the Romanian educational system while achieving a comparative analysis regarding different countries of the European Union, both from a quantitative viewpoint （using the main indicators in the education field） and a qualitative viewpoint （using student performances in international evaluations）. In the end, we present some proposals for the improvement of the present state of the Romanian educational system.     

Evaluating the Relative Innovative Position of European Union Member Countries: An Empirical Analysis

This paper aims to provide empirical evidence about the relative positions of European Union member states on innovation and, more specifically, on innovation in manufacturing. These positions were obtained from the aggregation of different innovation variables using the principal component analysis. We do not provide, from the statistical viewpoint, a synthetic indicator, even if, from the economic perspective, the information we obtained was similar to what such an indicator would provide. Our unit of analysis is the sector in each country, what we will term ‘country‐sector’, covering both innovative and non‐innovative firms.     

Structural current accounts in the European Union countries: cross-sectional exploration

This paper investigates structural determinants of the current account balance and assesses whether the current accounts in the European Union countries were consistent with the calculated structural current accounts between 1995 and 2017. We estimate current account regressions using cross-sectional data for 94 countries in 2008–2016 and confirm the main findings with panel data estimates. We document that the current account depends on the real exchange rate in a nonlinear way. The real exchange rate affects the current account at low income levels, but it ceases to be important at high income levels. Based on structural current account estimates for the European Union countries, we document that after the 2008 crisis current accounts adjusted towards structural current accounts in deficit countries, but persisted above structural current accounts in surplus countries.     

New empirical evidence of the linkages between governance and economic output in the European Union

This paper uses data for the 27 Member States of the European Union (EU) from 2000 to 2010 to support the thesis that a positive and significant correlation exists between a nation’s quality of governance and its economic output. To achieve this goal, the elements of governance that have been reported by the Worldwide Governance Indicators project are considered. Four individual indicators for the quality of policies and institutions and a global indicator of governance quality are constructed. We estimate that, for our database, a standard deviation shock in these indicators causes changes between 0.03-fold and 0.05-fold in income per capita.     

Sovereign credit ratings in the European Union: A model-based fiscal analysis

We present a model-based measure of sovereign credit ratings derived solely from the fiscal position of a country: a forecast of its future debt liabilities, and its potential to use fiscal policy to repay these. We use this measure to calculate credit ratings for 14 European countries over the period 1995–2012. This measure identifies a European sovereign debt crisis almost two years before the official ratings of the credit rating agencies.