Political and Institutional Factors in the Convergence of International Equity Markets: Evidence from the Club Convergence and Clustering Procedure

In this study the new panel convergence methodology developed by Phillips and Sul (2007) is employed to explore the convergence dynamics of international equity markets and determine whether political and institutional factors can explain convergence or divergence patterns across international equity markets. The empirical findings suggest that international equity markets do not form a homogeneous convergence club. Seven specific political and institutional factors are used to explain such divergent behavior. The empirical analysis documented specific factors, i.e. democratization, unemployment benefits, and public expenditure on pensions, which seem capable of explaining such a heterogeneous divergent pattern among the equity markets under study.     

Nonlinearities between oil spot and futures markets： Evidence from intraday data

This paper builds on the literature of the relationship between oil spot and futures prices from the NYNEX market, both in their means and in their conditional volatilities, to investigate whether the association is linear or not. The novelty of this work is based on intraday data from both markets. The empirical findings indicate the presence of nonlinearities both in means and conditional volatilities. Moreover, non-linear causality estimations both in means and in volatilities reveal the presence of bi-directional causality, a fact that provides additional support to the hypothesis that both markets are driven by the same information sets.     

Health Expenses: Evidence from the Club Clustering Approach

This paper explores convergence of real health expenses across the Indian states. The new panel convergence methodology developed by Phillips and Sul (Econometrica 75:1771–1855, 2007) is employed. The empirical findings suggest that these states form distinct convergent clubs, exhibiting considerable heterogeneity in the underlying health expenses patterns.     

Measuring Exchange Market Pressure and the Degree of Exchange Market Intervention for the Greek Drachma

This paper presents exchange market pressure and intervention indices than can be applied as tools for policy analysis in the case of Greece. A small open economy model is presented that helps to assess Greek exchange rate policy, within a framework characterized for a strong preference to eliminate excessive exchange rate volatility to meet the Maastricht criteria of low inflation and a fixed domestic currency. [F31]     

Dynamic Linkages between FDI Inflows and Domestic Investment: A Panel Cointegration Approach

This paper analyzes the dynamic relationship between FDI inflows and domestic investment for a panel of selected countries by means of panel cointegration and causality techniques. Specifically, the paper provides empirical evidence regarding the existence of possible crowding in or crowding out effects between FDI inflows and domestic investment, accounting for the location and the level of development of the host countries.The paper was presented at the International Atlantic Economic Conference in London, March 9–13, 2005. The authors wish to thank the participants of the Macroeconomic Topics session for their valuable comments on an earlier draft. We would also like to express our gratitude to G. Chortareas and G. Konteos for helpful comments and suggestions. Nevertheless, the usual disclaimer applies.     

Financial Deepening and Economic Growth Linkages: A Panel Data Analysis

The paper examines whether a long-run relationship between financial development and economic growth exists employing panel integration and cointegration techniques for a dynamic heterogeneous panel of 15 OECD and 50 non-OECD countries over the period 1975–2000. Three different measures of financial deepening are used to capture the variety of different channels through which financial development can affect growth. Our findings support the existence of a single long-run equilibrium relation between financial deepening, economic growth and a set of control variables. Further, the evidence points to a bi-directional causality between financial deepening and growth. JEL no. O11, O16, C33     

The determinants of business start-ups in tertiary education: evidence for Greece through a panel data approach

Up to now there is no consensus in the relevant literature on the exact factors that lead a student to entrepreneurship. In addition, evidence on differences in the entrepreneurial activity among regions and, even more, in the entrepreneurial education provided by individual universities, within the same region, call for context-specific longitudinal studies. The primary objective of this paper is to provide evidence on the determinants that influence the propensity of young students of a Greek University to establish a new business venture. The methodological approach employed is based on a questionnaire survey collecting data from 1,500 students, spanning the period 2005–2010. Data has been processed through the use of a panel cointegration and panel causality methodology. The empirical findings entail useful insights on students’ attitudes and perceptions of entrepreneurship.     

Prediction of financial distress for multinational corporations: Panel estimations across countries

This research predicts ex-ante financial distress and analyses the link between financial distress, performance, employment, `and research and development (R&D) investment in the case of multinational companies (MNCs). The conditional logit and hazard models are employed to predict financial distress, while a conditional mixed process model is employed to obtain consistent and efficient estimates. Financial distress generates contractions in performance, employment, and R&D investment. Hedging against risk mitigates the effect of financial distress on R&D. Our findings vary across countries, for example, we find MNCs in Canada, Israel and the U.S. benefit from hedging against risk. The findings also indicate that ex-ante financial distress is detrimental to employment for Canada, the U.K., the Netherlands and the U.S. The findings indicate the MNCs play different roles across countries in contributing jobs, investment in R&D during the distress period.     

From education to democracy: evidence from long-run time-varying estimates

This study reinvestigates the hypothesis that education is expected to have a positive and statistically significant effect on democracy for a panel of 169 countries over the period 1990–2014. Unlike previous studies, we employ the time-varying cointegration approach of Bierens and Martins (Econom Theory 26:1453–1490, 2010) to show the time-varying coefficient associated with education has a positive impact on democracy. Further examination of the countries by income classification reveals that education has a positive and increasing impact on democracy with the greatest impact in low-income countries.     

The Role of Happiness in Financial Decisions: Evidence from Financial Portfolio Choice and Five European Countries

This paper investigates the role of happiness in portfolio choices. Previous literature has only emphasized the reverse association. An additional novelty of the paper is that the analysis focuses on a wider country sample, while the literature has mainly focused on the U.S. and U.K. economies. Based on micro data from five European countries, i.e., France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, and the U.K., spanning the period 2009–2014, the results show that higher levels of happiness lead to higher shares of risky assets in financial portfolios. The findings survive a number of robustness tests. When asset holdings are disaggregated by the extent of the risk associated with them, this effect remains only for safe and low-risk assets, whereas the effect for assets with higher risks is the reverse.