Macroeconomic and credit forecasts during the Greek crisis using Bayesian VARs

We investigate the ability of small- and medium-scale Bayesian VARs (BVARs) to produce accurate macroeconomic (output and inflation) and credit (loans and lending rate) out-of-sample forecasts during the latest Greek crisis. We implement recently proposed Bayesian shrinkage techniques based on Bayesian hierarchical modeling, and we evaluate the information content of forty-two (42) monthly macroeconomic and financial variables in terms of point and density forecasting. Alternative competing models employed in the study include Bayesian autoregressions (BARs) and time-varying parameter VARs with stochastic volatility, among others. The empirical results reveal that, overall, medium-scale BVARs enriched with economy-wide variables can considerably and consistently improve short-term inflation forecasts. The information content of financial variables, on the other hand, proves to be beneficial for the lending rate density forecasts across forecasting horizons. Both of the above-mentioned results are robust to alternative specification choices, while for the rest of the variables smaller-scale BVARs, or even univariate BARs, produce superior forecasts. Finally, we find that the popular, data-driven, shrinkage methods produce, on average, inferior forecasts compared to the theoretically grounded method considered here.     

Profit strategy of Greek banks: cross-subsidization and diversification versus complementarity

This study analyses the profit strategy employed by banks in Greece using dynamic panel data techniques and a data set which includes proprietary supervisory data covering the whole Greek commercial banking system from 2004 to 2011. We provide evidence that banks use interest- and non-interest income (non-II) as substitutes rather than complements, with non-II representing an indirect competition instrument by the more efficient banks used in place of direct competition with their peers through prices on loans and deposits. This behaviour is explained by further decomposing the non-II into the relatively stable fees component and the volatile trading income. Moreover, we provide evidence that the net-interest income is primarily affected by the banks’ market power and their operating costs, while more efficient banks exploit their core deposit base to lever their non-II. Finally, macroeconomic developments affect both income components, which are found to be procyclical with respect to economic activity. In particular, the two income components are affected differently from inflation implying that non-II provides a natural hedge against adverse effects from deflation on interest income.     

Die Voraussetzungen der Handelsbilanzsanierung durch Inlandserzeugung von bisher eingeführten und von bisher nicht ausgeführten Gütern

Ohne Zusammenfassung     

Decentralization of Pareto optima in economies with public projects,nonessential private goods and convex costs

Summary In the theory of economies with public goods one usually considers the case in which private goods are essential, i.e., each agent receives a fixed minimum level of utility if he consumes no private goods, irrespective of the public goods consumed. This paper develops the second welfare theorem for economies with public projects and possibly inessential private goods. As a corollary we also derive conditions under which valuation equilibria exist.hank Dolf Talman and an anonymous referee for many useful remarks and annotations of a previous draft of this paper.     

The relevance of quantifiable audit qualifications in the valuation of IPOs

How useful are audit qualifications to financial statement users? We analyze a sample of 204 firms that went public at the Athens Stock Exchange over the period 1987–2002. For 149 of these firms, auditors report quantitative estimates of the amount by which assets are overstated and/or liabilities are understated in reported financial statements. We find that underwriters and their affiliated analysts do not incorporate the negative information provided by these qualifications into offer prices and earnings forecasts. Investors, however, appear to efficiently impound the negative implications of the audit qualifications into stock market prices within the first day of trading. The results suggest that underwriters tend to align their interests with the interests of their clients, the old stockholders, at the expense of the new stockholders. They also suggest that the practice of reporting quantifiable qualifications in audit reports is valuable to investors given that they are disclosed by an expert.     

A novel approach in risk evaluation for ship-to-ship (STS) transfer of cargo using process failure mode and effects analysis (PFMEA)

The ship-to-ship transfer (STS) of oil and oil products plays currently an important role on a worldwide scale. Usually, it refers to the transfer of cargo between seagoing ships positioned alongside each other. Although the procedure of STS transfer has become a day-to-day practice, it remains a difficult operation, which deserves special consideration. To reduce the adverse effect of a potential accident on humans as well as on the environment, a risk assessment is necessary to be done to evaluate the hazards that derive from such a difficult procedure. To this end, the process failure mode and effect analysis (PFMEA), which is under the umbrella of the traditional failure mode and effect analysis, is properly modified and applied to assess the hazards of a typical STS transfer procedure. PFMEA is based on the risk priority number with regard to each risk related to the procedure of interest by multiplying the numerical values of the severity, occurrence and detection indices. Although PFMEA is currently applied mainly to manufacturing processes, the aim of the paper was to implement this methodology to STS transfer of petroleum products. According to the study of PFMEA implementation, the petroleum cargo is the product similar to the product in a manufacturing procedure; hence, the different phases of the STS procedure are similar to the production line of the manufactured product. Moreover, proposals to eliminate the disadvantages of the implementation of PFMEA by a qualitative manner (using linguistic terms) are proposed. The objective target of this effort is to assess and evaluate the effectiveness of implementing the PFMEA in a maritime activity and therefore to address the advantages and disadvantages of such an approach.     

Excess stock returns and news: evidence from European markets

This paper aims at decomposing the forecast error variance of excess returns in five major European stock markets into the variance of news about future excess returns, dividends and real interest rates. Special emphasis is given on the issue of stationarity and structural breaks in the unconditional mean of dividend yields and their implications for variance decompositions. Empirical results indicate that in some markets the dividend yield is subject to structural breaks in the mean. Evidence from Monte Carlo simulations suggests that this kind of structural breaks cause small-sample bias in variance decompositions of a magnitude comparable to bias introduced by unit roots. Our results constitute a warning about return decompositions that, in particular, use variables in the forecasting equations that may be nonstationary or contain a structural break.     

Foreign exchange intervention and equilibrium real exchange rates

Monetary authorities intervene in the currency markets in order to pursue a monetary rule and/or to smooth exchange rate volatility caused by speculative attacks. In the present paper we investigate for possible intervention effects on the volatility of nominal exchange rates and the estimated equilibrium behaviour of real exchange rates. The main argument of the paper is that omission of intervention effects – when they are significant – would bias the ability to detect any PPP-based behaviour of the real exchange rates in the long run. Positive evidence for this argument comes from the experience of six Central and Eastern European economies, whose exchange markets are characterised by frequent interventions.