Has the Euro Increased International Price Elasticities?
Oliver Holtemöller, Götz Zeddies
Empirica,
No. 1,
2013
Abstract
The introduction of the Euro has been accompanied by the hope that international competition between EMU member states would increase due to higher price transparency. This paper contributes to the literature by analyzing price elasticities in international trade flows between Germany and France and between Germany and the United Kingdom before and after the introduction of the Euro. Using disaggregated Eurostat trade statistics, we adopt a heterogeneous dynamic panel framework for the estimation of price elasticities. We suggest a Kalman-filter approach to control for unobservable quality changes which otherwise would bias estimates of price elasticities. We divide the complete sample, which ranges from 1995 to 2008, into two sub-samples and show that price elasticities in trade between EMU members did not change substantially after the introduction of the Euro. Hence, we do not find evidence for an increase in international price competition resulting from EMU.
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Testing for Structural Breaks at Unknown Time: A Steeplechase
Makram El-Shagi, Sebastian Giesen
Computational Economics,
No. 1,
2013
Abstract
This paper analyzes the role of common data problems when identifying structural breaks in small samples. Most notably, we survey small sample properties of the most commonly applied endogenous break tests developed by Brown et al. (J R Stat Soc B 37:149–163, 1975) and Zeileis (Stat Pap 45(1):123–131, 2004), Nyblom (J Am Stat Assoc 84(405):223–230, 1989) and Hansen (J Policy Model 14(4):517–533, 1992), and Andrews et al. (J Econ 70(1):9–38, 1996). Power and size properties are derived using Monte Carlo simulations. We find that the Nyblom test is on par with the commonly used F type tests in a small sample in terms of power. While the Nyblom test’s power decreases if the structural break occurs close to the margin of the sample, it proves far more robust to nonnormal distributions of the error term that are found to matter strongly in small samples although being irrelevant asymptotically for all tests that are analyzed in this paper.
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Stale Information, Shocks, and Volatility
Reint E. Gropp, A. Kadareja
Journal of Money, Credit and Banking,
No. 6,
2012
Abstract
We propose a new approach to measuring the effect of unobservable private information on volatility. Using intraday data, we estimate the effect of a well-identified shock on the volatility of stock returns of European banks as a function of the quality of public information available about the banks. We hypothesize that as publicly available information becomes stale, volatility effects and its persistence increase, as private information of investors becomes more important. We find strong support for this idea in the data. We further show that stock volatility is higher just before important announcements if information is stale.
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Macroeconomic Imbalances as Indicators for Debt Crises in Europe
Tobias Knedlik, Gregor von Schweinitz
Journal of Common Market Studies,
No. 5,
2012
Abstract
European authorities and scholars published proposals on which indicators of macroeconomic imbalances might be used to uncover risks for the sustainability of public debt in the European Union. We test the ability of four proposed sets of indicators to send early-warnings of debt crises using a signals approach for the study of indicators and the construction of composite indicators. We find that a broad composite indicator has the highest predictive power. This fact still holds true if equal weights are used for the construction of the composite indicator in order to reflect the uncertainty about the origin of future crises.
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Fiscal Spending Multiplier Calculations Based on Input-Output Tables? An Application to EU Member States
Toralf Pusch
Intervention. European Journal of Economics and Economic Policies,
No. 1,
2012
Abstract
Fiscal spending multiplier calculations have attracted considerable attention in the aftermath of the global financial crisis. Much of the current literature is based on VAR estimation methods and DSGE models. In line with the Keynesian literature we argue that many of these models probably underestimate the fiscal spending multiplier in recessions. The income-expenditure model of the fiscal spending multiplier can be seen as a good approximation under these circumstances. In its conventional form this model suffers from an underestimation of the multiplier due to an overestimation of the import intake of domestic absorption. In this article we apply input-output calculus to solve this problem. Multipliers thus derived are comparably high, ranging between 1.4 and 1.8 for many member states of the European Union. GDP drops due to budget consolidation might therefore be substantial in times of crisis.
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Regionale Unterschiede der Kooperationsmuster der deutschen Photovoltaik-Industrie
Christoph Hornych
Wirtschaft im Wandel,
No. 12,
2011
Abstract
Der Beitrag analysiert das Kooperationsgeschehen in der deutschen Photovoltaik-Industrie. Ausgehend von den theoretischen Vorteilen, die Kooperationen in stadt- und regionalökonomischen Ansätzen zugeschrieben werden, wird geprüft, inwieweit die tatsächlich bestehenden Kooperationsmuster in den verschiedenen Bundesländern den aus theoretischer Sicht günstigen Kooperationsmustern entsprechen. Hierzu erfolgt eine vergleichende Beschreibung der Kooperationsstrukturen der Industrie in und zwischen den einzelnen Bundesländern. Die Untersuchung basiert auf der „IWH-Unternehmensdatenbank Photovoltaik“, die u. a. Informationen zu den Kooperationsbeziehungen zwischen den in der Datenbank enthaltenen Unternehmen und öffentlichen Forschungseinrichtungen enthält. Die Ergebnisse zeigen, dass sich die Kooperationsintensitäten in und zwischen den Bundesländern deutlich voneinander unterscheiden. Dabei sind insbesondere die mitteldeutschen Bundesländer Sachsen, Sachsen- Anhalt und Thüringen durch eine starke gegenseitige und deutschlandweite Vernetzung gekennzeichnet. Hingegen sind die Akteure in der Region Berlin-Brandenburg, die ähnlich wie Mitteldeutschland durch eine hohe
Konzentration an Photovoltaikunternehmen gekennzeichnet ist, deutlich weniger in Netzwerkstrukturen eingebunden.
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Extreme Dependence with Asymmetric Thresholds: Evidence for the European Monetary Union
Stefan Eichler, R. Herrera
Journal of Banking and Finance,
No. 11,
2011
Abstract
Existing papers on extreme dependence use symmetrical thresholds to define simultaneous stock market booms or crashes such as the joint occurrence of the upper or lower one percent return quantile in both stock markets. We show that the probability of the joint occurrence of extreme stock returns may be higher for asymmetric thresholds than for symmetric thresholds. We propose a non-parametric measure of extreme dependence which allows capturing extreme events for different thresholds and can be used to compute different types of extreme dependence. We find that extreme dependence among the stock markets of ten initial EMU member countries, the United Kingdom, and the United States is largely asymmetrical in the pre-EMU period (1989–1998) and largely symmetrical in the EMU period (1999–2010). Our findings suggest that ignoring the possibility of asymmetric extreme dependence may lead to an underestimation of the probability of co-booms and co-crashes.
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International Fragmentation of Production and the Labour Input into Germany’s Exports – An Input-Output-analysis
Hans-Ulrich Brautzsch, Udo Ludwig
IWH Discussion Papers,
No. 14,
2011
Abstract
The import penetration of exports has become a topic of public debate, particularly in the context of Germany’s position as one of the world’s leading exporters. The growth in the volume of intermediate products purchased from abroad for subsequent processing into export goods in Germany seems to be undermining the importance of exports as a driver of domestic production and employment. The gains that arise from an increase in exports seem to have been offset by the losses caused by the crowding out of local production by imports. Empirical evidence on the impact of this international integration of the goods market on the German labour market is ambiguous. Short-term negative effects on employment are claimed to be offset by the long-term benefit that the jobs lost in the short run will eventually be replaced by higher-skilled jobs with better
perspectives. Against this background, the following hypothesis is tested empirically: Germany is poor in natural resources, but rich in skilled labour. In line with the Heckscher- Ohlin theory, Germany should therefore specialize in the production of export goods and services that are relatively intensive in these factors and should import those goods and services that are relatively intensive in unskilled labour. The empirical part of the paper deals with the extent of the German export penetration by imports. At first, it analyses by what ways imports are affecting the exports directly and indirectly and shows the consequences of import penetration of exports for the national output and employment. Secondly, consequences for employment are split in different skill types of labour. These issues are discussed with the standard open static inputoutput- model. The data base is a time series of official input-output tables. The employment effects for Germany divided by skill types of labour are investigated using skill matrices generated by the authors.
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Macroeconomic Imbalances as Indicators for Debt Crises in Europe
Tobias Knedlik, Gregor von Schweinitz
Abstract
European authorities and scholars published proposals on which indicators of macroeconomic imbalances might be used to uncover risks for the sustainability of public debt in the European Union. We test the ability of four proposed sets of indicators to send early-warnings of debt crises using a signals approach for the study of indicators and the construction of composite indicators. We find that a broad composite indicator has the highest predictive power. This fact still holds true if equal weights are used for the construction of the composite indicator in order to reflect the uncertainty about the origin of future crises.
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The Revealed Competitiveness of U.S. Exports
Massimo Del Gatto, Filippo di Mauro, Joseph Gruber, Benjamin Mandel
Federal Reserve Discussion Paper,
No. 1026,
2011
Abstract
The U.S. share of world merchandise exports has declined sharply over the last decade. Using data at the level of detailed industries, this paper analyzes the decline in U.S. share against the backdrop of alternative measures of the competitiveness of the U.S. economy. We document the following facts: (i) only a few industries contributed to the decline in any meaningful way, (ii) a large part of the drop was driven by the changing size of U.S. export industries and not the size of U.S. sales within those industries, (iii) in a gravity framework, the majority of the decline in the U.S. export share within industries was due to the declining U.S. share of world income, and (iv) in a computed structural measure of firm productivity, average U.S. export productivity has generally maintained its high level versus other countries over time. Overall, our analysis suggests that the dismal performance of the U.S. market share is not a sufficient statistic for competitiveness.
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