Parliamentary election cycles and the Turkish banking sector

This paper analyzes the effects of parliamentary election cycles on the Turkish banking system. Using annual bank-level data representing all banks in Turkey during 1963–2007, we present evidence of meaningful differences in the structure of bank assets, liabilities and financial performance across different stages of the parliamentary election cycle. However, we find that government-owned banks’ behavior does not meaningfully differ from that of either domestic and foreign-owned private-sector banks before, during or after elections. Our estimates also show that government-owned banks underperform both domestic and foreign-owned private-sector counterparts.     

Estimating the recreational value of Pakistan's largest freshwater lake to support sustainable tourism management using a travel cost model

Keenjhar Lake, Pakistan's largest freshwater lake and an important Ramsar site, provides habitat for internationally important water birds. Annually, 385,000 people visit the lake. The lake is threatened by a variety of causes, including industrial and agricultural pollution. To support its sustainable management and conservation, the lake's recreational value is estimated using an individual travel cost model. Randomly selected visitors are interviewed during peak season about their recreational travel behavior and perception of lake conditions. Key issues in travel cost modeling are addressed, including the opportunity cost of time, group travel, substitution and income effects, and endogenous stratification and truncation due to on-site sampling. Poisson and negative binomial regression models produce similar results. We find significant over-dispersion, and therefore, use the more conservative truncated negative binomial model results to estimate consumer surplus. The value of this assessment method for resource managers is illustrated by comparing the consumer surplus with existing pricing and budgeting mechanisms. The annual flow of benefits from lake recreation appears to be almost 50 times higher than the average entrance fee paid by the predominantly higher-income segments visiting the lake, suggesting scope for increasing fees and reallocating government budgets to finance the necessary lake protection measures.     

Medición,estructura y efectos de la informalidad en una microeconomía

En este artículo se mide el alcance del empleo informal y los ingresos no registrados que genera en una microeconomía caracterizada por una gobernanza deficiente. Se utilizan datos censales y de encuestas para estimar el número de trabajadores informales en Chipre Septentrional y analizar sus características durante el periodo 2004–2011. En su mayoría son nacionales no registrados en el régimen de seguridad social, inmigrantes ilegales o pluriempleados que no han declarado su segundo empleo. En términos de valor añadido, el tamaño estimado de la economía informal era del 9,1 y del 12,2 por ciento del PIB en 2006 y 2011, respectivamente.     

Network defense and behavioral biases: an experimental study

Experimental Economics - How do people distribute defenses over a directed network attack graph, where they must defend a critical node? This question is of interest to computer scientists,...     

Political patronage in Ukrainian banking1

This paper empirically investigates the link between political patronage and bank performance for Ukraine during 2003Q3–2005Q2. We find significant differences between politically affiliated and non‐affiliated banks. The data suggest that affiliated banks have significantly lower interest rate margins and increase their capitalization. Furthermore, we show that the level of activity of affiliated deputies in parliament has a positive (negative) impact on banks’ capitalization ratio (interest rate margin). Our findings imply, in line with the related literature, that political affiliation has important effects on banks’ behaviour.     

Persistence in International Inflation Rates

We test for fractional dynamics in inflation rates based on the consumer price index (CPI) for 27 countries and inflation rates based on the wholesale price index (WPI) for 22 countries. The fractional differencing parameter is estimated using semiparametric and approximate maximum likelihood methods. Significant evidence of fractional dynamics with long-memory features is found in both CPI- and WPI-based inflation rates for industrial as well as developing countries. Implications of the findings are considered, and sources of long memory are hypothesized.     

Asymmetric impact of oil prices,exchange rate,and inflation on tourism demand in Pakistan: new evidence from nonlinear ARDL

This study scrutinized the asymmetric impact of oil prices, exchange rate, and inflation on tourism demand in Pakistan using [Shin, Y., Yu, B., & Greenwood-Nimmo, M. (2014) Modelling asymmetric cointegration and dynamic multipliers in a nonlinear ARDL framework. In Festschrift in honor of peter schmidt (pp. 281–314). New York, NY: Springer] nonlinear autoregressive distributed lag (NARDL) model. The NARDL bounds test examined the existence of cointegration in study variables, including CO₂ emissions, institutional quality, oil prices, exchange rate, inflation, and tourism demand. The evidence proposes that disregarding the intrinsic nonlinearities may misinform inference. The estimated NARDL model affirmed long-run negative and significant effect of CO₂ emissions on tourism demand, while institutional quality was positively associated with tourism demand. Furthermore, the findings of the study also suggested long-run asymmetric relationship between oil prices, exchange rate, inflation, and tourism demand.     

Fads and the Crash of '87

This paper examines changes in return-generating processes before and after the crash of '87. We find that the process for daily returns of size-sorted portfolios changed from an ARMA(1, 2) in the pre-crash period to a MA(1) in the post-crash period. The change is explained by a “fads” model similar to that proposed by Poterba and Summers [17]. The analysis suggests that the crash may have been related to speculative fads that prevailed prior to the crash. The fads component in stock prices then disappeared after the crash. Other possible explanations are also discussed.     

ESTIMATION BIAS IN REGIONAL INPUT-OUTPUT MODELS USING SECONDARY DATA*

Regional input-output models are widely utilized in policy oriented research relating to regional economic growth and development problems. National coefficients are frequently used in conjunction with existing secondary data to estimate regional input-output models, with regional exports and regional imports being estimated on net or residual basis. This paper illustrates and clarifies the nature of inaccuracy that may exist in trade, technical and interdependence coefficients and multipliers when this technique is utilized. Methods of improving regional estimates are suggested Les modéles régionaux interindustriels sont souvent utilisés dans le cas de recherche pour une politique concernant les problèmes de développement el de progrès économique dans une région. Les coefficients nationaux sont souvent employés en connection avec les données secondares existantes pour estimer les modèles, régionaux interindustriels, avec ?exportation régionale et ?importation régionale qui sont évaluées sur une base nette ou résiduelle. Cette étude met au jour et clarifie la nature de ?inexactitude technique qui peut exister dans le commerce, et ?interdépendance des coefficients et des multipliants on se sen de cette technique. On donne des méthodes pour améliorer ?évaluation des estimations régionales.