What causes business cycles? Analysis of the Japanese industrial production data

We explore what causes business cycles by analyzing the Japanese industrial production data. The methods used are spectral analysis and factor analysis. Using the random matrix theory, we show that two largest eigenvalues are significant. Taking advantage of the information revealed by disaggregated data, we identify the first dominant factor as the aggregate demand, and the second factor as inventory adjustment. They cannot be reasonably interpreted as technological shocks. We also demonstrate that in terms of two dominant factors, shipments lead production by four months. Furthermore, out-of-sample test demonstrates that the model holds up even under the 2008–2009 recession. Because a fall of output during 2008–2009 was caused by an exogenous drop in exports, it provides another justification for identifying the first dominant factor as the aggregate demand. All the findings suggest that the major cause of business cycles is real demand shocks.     

Do banks diversify portfolio risk? A test of the risk-cost hypothesis

Baltensperger, 1972a, Baltensperger, 1972b proposes the risk-cost hypothesis that banks decide the number of loans by considering the costs arising from diversifiable portfolio risk. Thus, the banks do not minimize operation costs, but total costs including risk costs. This paper examines empirically whether the risk-cost hypothesis is valid, using financial panel data from Japanese banks from 1981 to 1994. Estimating the first-order condition of total cost minimization together with an operation cost function, we find that the hypothesis is supported. Dividing the sample into different types of banks, it is found that the hypothesis is valid for city and regional banks, but not for second regional banks.     

On the performance of the foreign subsidiaries of Korean banks: are securities investments really profitable?

This study, by focusing on the securities investments of Korean banks’ foreign subsidiaries, analyzes the background of the increase in those securities investments, the present situation, and the influence of securities investments on performance. The major sources of income for Korean banks’ foreign subsidiaries are composed of loans, foreign exchange activities, and securities investments. However, as loans and foreign exchange activities are not profitable because of high funding costs, tighter supervision in host countries, competition among the Korean banks, and the concentration of exports and imports on specific countries, the foreign subsidiaries of Korean banks have increased the weight of their securities investments. The results of this analysis reveal that securities investments affect negatively on the performance of Korean banks’ foreign subsidiaries, and it strongly suggests that the foreign subsidiaries of Korean banks—short on credit, size, technology, experience, and networking—need more preparation for financial globalization.     

Does family planning help the employment of women? The case of India

This paper gives some insight into the existence of a positive effect of family planning programmes on women's employment in developing countries. We study married women aged 15–49 living throughout India using a sample drawn from the National Health Family Survey (NFHS-2) for 1998–1999. We focus on a programme of doorstep services delivered by health or family planning (FP) workers who are sent to visit women in their assigned areas. Results derived from the estimation of fixed effect linear probability and conditional logit models show a positive and significant correlation of the share of women living in a local area (village, town or city) that has been visited by FP workers with the probability of women's employment. A multinomial analysis also shows that the largest positive effect of FP in rural India is to be found on paid work, as opposed to unpaid work, suggesting a potential empowering feedback of demographic measures through labour earnings.     

Did the Unconventional Monetary Policy of the U.S. Hurt Emerging Markets?

Open Economies Review - Policymakers in emerging markets complained that the unconventional US monetary policy response to the Great Recession hurt their economies. US policymakers responded that...     

What determines the success or failure of german bilateral financial aid?

This paper explores the causes of success or failure of German bilateral financial aid, using data on 1,003 Financial Cooperation (FC) projects and programs performed by the Kreditanstalt für Wiederaufbau (KfW). The authors find that the success or failure of financial aid loans disbursed under FC depends on project characteristics and macroeconomic conditions in the recipient country. Supervision time is also highly negatively correlated with the probability of success. While the relationship disappears once endogeneity is taken into account, the existence of an institutional bias toward a disproportionate allocation of supervision resources in unsuccessful projects cannot be rejected. These results show that some recent evidence on multilateral policybased aid holds also for the case of German bilateral project-based aid.     

Did the RIAA’s Prosecution of Music Piracy Impact Music Sales?

Between 2004 and 2009 it is estimated that over 30 billion songs were downloaded illegally on different peer-to-peer sharing networks according to the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). In an attempt to stop this during the late 1990’s and early 2000s the RIAA and other music labels engaged in a very public and vigorous campaign of prosecution of firms, such as Napster and Limewire, for copyright violations in order to reduce piracy. Due to the public backlash, in late 2008 the RIAA announced that they would begin to stop litigation on a grand scale. This paper examines the impact that this model of piracy prosecution had on music sales. We find evidence that the RIAA’s model of litigation actually backfired and led to decreased legitimate album sales. Additionally, we find that variation in per capita seasonally adjusted album sales cannot be explained by the existence of both Limewire and Napster file sharing services.     

Fiscal Faux Pas?: An Analysis of the Revenue Implications of Trade Liberalization

This paper examines the argument that trade liberalization depresses tax revenue/GDP ratios in developing countries. This occurs because the structural characteristics associated with developing countries limit their ability to make the transition from trade to domestic taxes. Using a panel of 80 developing and industrialized countries over 1970–98, the econometric analysis carried out employs a fixed-effects regression framework to examine the evidence. The results indicate that low-income and upper middle-income countries have experienced declining tax revenues as a result of falling income and trade tax revenues and that structural characteristics have been significant in explaining the decline.     

Surviving the Famine Unscathed? An Analysis of the Long‐Term Health Effects of the Great Chinese Famine

We study the long‐term health effects of the Chinese Famine of 1959–1961 on five cohorts of individuals exposed to it at different stages of their early lives. Based on a 2011 national survey, we use instrumental variables to estimate the impact of the Famine on various health and lifestyle indicators for the whole sample and for the female and male subsamples separately. We have found some negative effects of Famine exposure: (i) for the whole sample, Famine exposure reduced adult height for two out of five cohorts; (ii) for both the female and the male subsamples, Famine exposure reduced adult height in one cohort; and on the whole the reduction was larger for males. We have also found in the subsample that Famine exposure was associated with (i) a higher risk of having hypertension in one cohort for females; (ii) a higher likelihood of smoking in one male cohort; and (iii) a higher probability of consuming alcohol in one cohort for males. Finally, we have not found a statistically significant association between Famine exposure and the risk of being overweight or underweight, having diabetes or other chronic diseases, having depression.     

Did the 1998 Merger of Price Waterhouse and Coopers & Lybrand Increase Audit Quality?

We examine the effects of the 1998 merger of Price Waterhouse (PW) and Coopers & Lybrand (CL) on the audit quality of the merged firm PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) at both the firm and office levels, where audit quality is surrogated by the auditor's propensity to issue a going‐concern opinion, clients’ likelihood of meeting or beating analysts’ earnings forecasts, and clients’ accrual quality. At the firm level, we find that the merger increased audit quality for PwC relative to the audit quality of the other Big N firms. At the office level, our findings, albeit mixed, collectively suggest that the improvement in firm‐level audit quality was likely driven by the improvement in audit quality at PwC's overlapping offices, that is, offices in cities where both PW and CL had separate offices prior to the merger. Further, our findings suggest that although the PW/CL merger increased auditor concentration in local audit markets with PwC overlapping offices, the merger improved (rather than hurt) audit quality in those markets. Overall, our study contributes to the extant sparse literature on the effect of Big N mergers on audit quality, and is of potential interest to regulators.     

Does the Identity of Engagement Partners Matter? An Analysis of Audit Partner Reporting Decisions

This study examines the persistence and economic consequences of variations in reporting style across audit partners in individual engagements. Our results show that both aggressive and conservative audit reporting, measured by the pattern of prior Type 2 and Type 1 audit reporting error rates in auditor‐specific clienteles, persist over time and extend to other clients of the same partner. Analyses of abnormal accruals and persistence of client firms’ accrual estimates corroborate this finding, and hold both for private and publicly listed companies. Further, our results also show that the market penalizes client firms susceptible to aggressive audit partner reporting decisions. In particular, we find that our proxies for aggressive audit reporting are related to higher interest rates, worse credit ratings and less favorable forecasts of insolvency for private client companies, and a lower Tobin's Q for publicly listed client companies. Collectively, these results imply that audit partner aggressive or conservative reporting is a systematic audit partner attribute and not randomly distributed across engagements.     

The Buffer Stock Model Redux? An Analysis of the Dynamics of Foreign Reserve Accumulation

Cointegration analysis suggests that the buffer stock precautionary model accounts for the optimal reserve demand in nine developing countries located in Asia and Latin America. The corresponding VECMs are further interpolated, using the permanent and transitory innovation decomposition procedure, in order to assess the relative impact of the time series on the convergence to equilibrium after a shock. Finally the (asymmetric) effect on the speed of convergence of positive/negative changes in signal variables—such as the excess reserves of the previous period, relative competitiveness and US monetary stance—is found to be significant, in line with mercantilistic and fear of floating motives for hoarding reserves.     

The China money puzzle: will devaluation of the yuan help or hurt the Hong Kong dollar?

A Chinese yuan devaluation could affect the stability of the Hong Kong dollar. This paper studies two linkages. The first is that trade balance effect is studied through a computable general equilibrium (CGE) model. The result shows that the net change in Hong Kong's foreign reserve after a yuan devaluation is, in fact, negligible. The second is that psychological effect is studied by a survey of financial market participants. In spite of the small trade balance effect, all respondents believe that a yuan devaluation would lead to a panic selling of Hong Kong assets. Therefore, a yuan devaluation is bad for the Hong Kong dollar primarily through market psychology.     

Can the HOSS framework help shed light on the simultaneous growth of inequality and informalization in developing countries?

Using simple, modified versions of the factor proportions framework, and focusing on structural features within developing economies, this paper attempts to reconcile puzzling developments observed in many post-reform, post-liberalization countries whereby increasing income inequality has emerged side-by-side with informalization of the economy. Measures undertaken to enhance public sector efficiency and attract investment in an import-intensive export sector may increase rental–wage and skilled–unskilled wage gaps, contra the predictions of the simple Heckscher–Ohlin–Stolper–Samuelson (HOSS) framework regarding skill- and capital-scarce countries. The common thread generating our interesting results is the presence of sectors that are even more labor-intensive than those producing traded goods.

Why Is the Farmers'''' Propensity to Consume Lower Than That of the Urban Residents?

I. IntroductionIts a generally accepted observation, which is supported by Keysians theory of absoluteincome, that Chinas low-income regions have a higher rate of consumption out of incomethan do the high-income regions, and in urban areas, low-income households have a higherrate of consumption than that of the high-income ones. However, for more than 20 yearssince the initiation of economic reforms and opening up, the consumption rate of thefarmers, who are in the low-income group, has been …     

What has Happened to the Urban Population in Côte d'Ivoire Since the 1980s? An Analysis of Monetary Poverty and Deprivation Over 15 Years of Household Data

This article investigates the evolution of urban poverty in its various dimensions in Côte d'Ivoire since the 1980s. The robustness of the results is checked using dominance criteria. An econometric analysis of poverty complements the analysis. The study shows that the dynamic of poverty in terms of existence conditions can significantly differ from that of monetary poverty. As was the case in the 1980s, monetary poverty increased strongly in the 1990s in spite of a return to sustained growth following the devaluation of the CFA Franc. Poverty in terms of existence conditions rose less before the adjustment and even decreased afterward.     

Giving to the Poor? Targeting of Food Aid in Rural Ethiopia

This study determines the factors underlying the allocations of food aid in Ethiopia. We focus on regional differences in targeting criteria, and targeting accuracy according to per capita income. Data are drawn from two linked rural household surveys in 1995–96. We find large differences in food aid allocations across regions that cannot be explained by observable regional characteristics such as per capita income and rainfall. These differences are consistent with speculation that food aid is being used by the Ethiopian government to transfer resources to favored regions. We also find wide variations in the criteria used to identify recipient households across regions. We identify measurable indicators that could be used by food aid authorities to improve targeting effectiveness in the future, both across and within regions. Finally, we present simulation results on targeting accuracy under various targeting strategies and discuss potential benefits and shortcomings of those strategies.     

The case for price level or inflation targeting—What happened to monetary policy effectiveness during the Japanese disinflation?

This paper examines whether price level or inflation targeting would have been appropriate policy choices for Japan during its disinflation and deflation period. We employ Markov switching and structural vector autoregressions, together with structural IS equations, to investigate monetary policy effectiveness during the Japanese disinflation. We find evidence of regime switching in the mid-1990s in a model including the nominal policy interest rate. When monetary policy shocks are identified by using the McCallum rule for monetary base, a monetary expansion is found to have a statistically significant impact on prices. Moreover, a lower real ex ante interest rate can still stimulate the economy despite the zero lower bound on nominal interest rates.     

How to Evaluate and Enhance the Effectiveness of Capital Control in China?

China's accession to the World Trade Organizationwill make it more difficult for the country to re-strict the flow of international capital.However,it doesnot necessarily mean China will lose its effectivenessin maintaining capital control.In this paper,we pro-pose a framework to evaluate the effectiveness ofChina's efforts in that endeavor.     

On the choice of an anchor for the GCC currency: does the symmetry of shocks extend to both the oil and the non-oil sectors?

This paper assesses the costs of forming a monetary union among the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries by looking at economic linkages within the GCC, and between the GCC and the potential anchors (the US, and major European countries such as France, Germany and Italy) for their proposed new currency. We investigate the importance of the US dollar compared to the Euro by focusing on aggregate demand (AD) and aggregate supply (AS) shock symmetry across these countries. We differentiated between oil and non-oil sector by estimating structural vector autoregression (SVAR) models with a combination of variables: oil output, non-oil output, total output, nominal/real price of oil and overall price level. One set of models was identified with the long-run restrictions of Blanchard and Quah (Am Econ Rev 79(4):655–673, 1989), whereas the set that assesses the robustness of the findings was estimated with the short-run restrictions of Sims (Eur Econ Rev 36(5):975–1000, 1992). We find overwhelming support for AD shock symmetry across the GCC countries and between the GCC and the US, but none for the major European countries with the GCC. Non-oil AS shocks are mostly asymmetric, but oil AS shocks are mostly symmetric when the real price of oil is included. This agrees with the view that GCC countries are subjected to common oil shocks. It also suggests that previous VAR models estimated to pass judgment on the feasibility of monetary union across GCC countries may have suffered from problems of mis-specification if the real price of oil was not considered. We surmise that the US dollar is a better anchor candidate for anchoring the new GCC currency than the Euro, since US monetary policy can at least help smooth demand shocks in these countries.