"Meteor showers" and "heat waves" in Greek financial markets

This paper examines the presence of "meteor showers" and "heat waves" effects in Greek financial markets. In particular, the relationship between the stock market price index volatility and the volatility of three exchange rates (U.S. dollar, deutsche mark, and ECU) recorded on a daily basis is investigated. The results provide evidence in favor of the "heat wave" hypothesis, while the "meteor shower" hypothesis was observed only with respect to the U.S. dollar.We would like to thank, without implicating, participants in the Country Studies session of the 43rd International Atlantic Economic Conference held in London, England and especially Dorota Witkowska for helpful comments and suggestions.     

Diversification benefits in the smaller European stock markets

This paper examines the diversification benefits available to U.S. and Japanese investors over the period 1974-94 in seven of the smaller European stock markets (SESMs): Austria, Belgium, Greece, Holland, Ireland, Italy, and Spain. With reference to a simplified International CAPM that accommodates both contemporaneous and delayed information flows, we employ correlation, principal components, and cointegration analysis in studying monthly observations from national basket indices. The empirical evidence is conclusive in showing that the SESMs have behaved differently, at least since the October 1987 crash, with stronger contemporaneous interdependencies and integration between them and with the U.S. market. Cointegration analysis found no significant common trend shared between the SESMs and the U.S. and Japanese markets. We conclude that despite the increasing international integration there still exist opportunities for diversification investment in the smaller and less studied European stock markets.The present study is an extensively revised version of a paper presented at the 42nd Atlantic Economic Society Conference in Washington, DC, October 1996. We are indebted to the attendants and discussants of our session, especially Nicholas Apergis, Erotokritos Varelas, and George Zestos for their constructive comments and arguments. We also thank Terence Mills and two anonymous referees for their comments on this paper. Finally, we wish to thank Jay Smith, Leading Market Technologies, Cambridge, MA for providing us theEXPO/NeuralNet andEXPO/Econometrics software used in this study. For any remaining errors, the authors are fully responsible. Raphael Markellos is grateful for financial support received from the Department of Economics and the School of Humanities and Social Sciences, Loughborough University, United Kingdom.     

The economics of poverty traps part one: Complete markets

This paper lists theoretical reasons why neoclassical models of one-sector growth imply that nations with identical economic structures need not converge to the same steady state or balanced growth path, and outlines the empirical significance and policy implications of conditional nonconvergence. We survey poverty traps in both convex and nonconvex economies with complete market structures. Among the potential causes of traps are subsistence consumption; distorted international trade in intermediate inputs; demographic transitions when fertility is endogenous; technological complementarities in the production of consumption goods, financial intermediation services, manufactures, or human capital; coordination failures among voters; various restrictions on borrowing; indivisibilities in human capital formation or child rearing; and monopolistic competition in product or factor markets.     

Identification of Greek Takeover Targets and Coherent Policy Implications

The main purpose of this paper is the identification of the characteristics of takeover targets in a small open economy like Greece, using the market for corporate control (MCC) hypothesis as theoretical background. Contrary to this hypothesis, the results indicate that the motives for merging or acquisition activities are basically of strategic character. Using a sample of 35 acquired and 105 non‐acquired firms, the sampling process was initially performed by a modified methodology of state‐based sampling, even if its nature cannot be recognized by the classical maximum likelihood estimator (MLE) of logit model. Subsequently, taking into account the small size of the sample, we develop and use, in the logit context, the bootstrap MLE as an advanced alternative method for reducing inherit bias and inefficiency. The findings remain uniform supporting the strategic motives explanation in actual takeover activities, a fact that clearly illustrates the framework of merger policies followed by the Greek Competition Committee during the period under study.     

A random coefficient model of speculative attacks: The case of the Mexican peso

A considerable body of theoretical and empirical literature has developed seeking to explain the timing, magnitude, and mechanics of speculative attacks against currencies. This paper extends the empirical specification of the traditional speculative attack model by developing a random coefficient (RC) model which, as we show, encompasses a variety of fixed-coefficient models as special cases. Two classes of models (fixed- and random-coefficient models) are estimated for the case of Mexican peso over the period January 1988 to Novemeber 1994, while forecasts of the peso/U.S. dollar exchange rate are generated for the period December 1994 through December 1995. The comparison of forecast errors generated by five model specifications indicates that forecasts based on the RC procedures are superior to those based on the fixed-coefficient estimation. It is also shown that there are good theoretical reasons why the RC procedure performs better in prediction than the fixed-coefficient procedure.     

Asset price volatility in a nonconvex general equilibrium model

Summary. Asset prices and returns are known to vary significantly more than␣output or aggregate consumption growth, and an order of magnitude in excess of what is justified by innovations to fundamentals. We study excess price volatility in a lifecycle economy with two assets (claims on capital and␣a public debt bubble), heterogeneous agents, and increasing returns to financial intermediation. We show that a relatively modest nonconvexity generates a set valued equilibrium correspondence in asset prices, with two␣stable branches. Price volatility is the outcome of an equilibrium selection mechanism, which mixes adaptive learning with “noise”, and alternates stochastically between the two stable branches of the price correspondence. Received: March 19, 1998; revised version: June 2, 1998