AIECE General Report, Part 2, Spring 2023
Andrej Drygalla, Axel Lindner, Birgit Schultz
IWH Studies,
No. 4,
2023
Abstract
The Halle Institute for Economic Research (IWH) is a member of AIECE (Association d'Instituts Europeens de Conjoncture Economique/Association of European Conjuncture Institutes), an association of independent European institutes involved in surveying economic conditions and developments, and in short-term macroeconomic forecasting. The main objective of the Association is to stimulate the exchanges between its members with a view to improve their insight into international economic developments. This ranges from the exchange of statistical or institutional information to discussions on economic policy Guidelines to common research activities. The AIECE organises between its members an exchange of view, of information and of literature on international economic developments, in particular in Europe. The Association provides the framework for joint activities of its members in areas of common interest. Its structure allows its members to develop common views on the future cyclical development. In order to meet these objectives the Association has half-yearly plenary meetings, centred around a general report on the European conjuncture prepared in turn by one of the members in cooperation with the other member institutes, but also with discussions of the working group reports and of special surveys prepared by member institutes. In Spring 2023, the report was written by the Halle Institute for Economic Research (IWH).
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AIECE General Report, Part 1, Spring 2023
Andrej Drygalla, Axel Lindner, Birgit Schultz
IWH Studies,
No. 3,
2023
Abstract
The Halle Institute for Economic Research (IWH) is a member of AIECE (Association d'Instituts Europeens de Conjoncture Economique/Association of European Conjuncture Institutes), an association of independent European institutes involved in surveying economic conditions and developments, and in short-term macroeconomic forecasting. The main objective of the Association is to stimulate the exchanges between its members with a view to improve their insight into international economic developments. This ranges from the exchange of statistical or institutional information to discussions on economic policy Guidelines to common research activities. The AIECE organises between its members an exchange of view, of information and of literature on international economic developments, in particular in Europe. The Association provides the framework for joint activities of its members in areas of common interest. Its structure allows its members to develop common views on the future cyclical development. In order to meet these objectives the Association has half-yearly plenary meetings, centred around a general report on the European conjuncture prepared in turn by one of the members in cooperation with the other member institutes, but also with discussions of the working group reports and of special surveys prepared by member institutes. In Spring 2023, the report was written by the Halle Institute for Economic Research (IWH).
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Monetary Policy in an Oil-dependent Economy in the Presence of Multiple Shocks
Andrej Drygalla
Review of World Economics,
February
2023
Abstract
Russian monetary policy has been challenged by large and continuous private capital outflows and a sharp drop in oil prices during 2014. Both contributed to significant depreciation pressures on the ruble and led the central bank to give up its exchange rate management strategy. Against this background, this work estimates a small open economy model for Russia, featuring an oil price sector and extended by a specification of the foreign exchange market to correctly account for systematic central bank interventions. We find that shocks to the oil price and private capital flows substantially affect domestic variables such as inflation and output. Simulations for the estimated actual strategy and alternative regimes suggest that the vulnerability of the Russian economy to external shocks can substantially be lowered by adopting some form of inflation targeting. Strategies to target the nominal exchange rate or the ruble price of oil prove to be inferior.
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Bitcoin Flash Crash on May 19, 2021: What Did Really Happen on Binance?
Tim Baumgartner, Andre Guettler
IWH Discussion Papers,
No. 25,
2022
Abstract
Bitcoin plunged by 30% on May 19, 2021. We examine the outage the largest crypto exchange Binance experienced during the crash, when it halted trading for retail clients and stopped providing transaction data. We find evidence that Binance back-filled these missing transactions with data that does not conform to Benford‘s Law. The Bitcoin futures price difference between Binance and other exchanges was seven times larger during the crash period compared to a prior reference period. Data manipulation is a plausible explanation for our findings. These actions are in line with Binance aiming to limit losses for its futures-related insurance fund.
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On Modeling IPO Failure Risk
Gonul Colak, Mengchuan Fu, Iftekhar Hasan
Economic Modelling,
April
2022
Abstract
This paper offers a novel framework, combining firm operational risk, IPO pricing risk, and market risk, to model IPO failure risk. By analyzing nearly a thousand variables, we observe that prior IPO failure risk models have suffered from a major missing-variable problem. Evidence reveals several key new firm-level determinants, e.g., the volatility operating performance, the size of its accounts payable, pretax income to common equity, total short-term debt, and a few macroeconomic variables such as treasury bill rate, and book-to-market of the DJIA index. These findings have major economic implications. The total value loss from not predicting the imminent failure of an IPO is significantly lower with this proposed model compared to other established models. The IPO investors could have saved around $18billion over the period between 1994 and 2016 by using this model.
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Monetary Policy through Exchange Rate Pegs: The Removal of the Swiss Franc‐Euro Floor and Stock Price Reactions
Gregor von Schweinitz, Lena Tonzer, Manuel Buchholz
International Review of Finance,
No. 4,
2021
Abstract
The Swiss National Bank abolished the exchange rate floor versus the Euro in January 2015. Using a synthetic matching framework, we analyze the impact of this unexpected (and therefore exogenous) policy change on the stock market. The results reveal a significant level shift (decline) in asset prices following the discontinuation of the minimum exchange rate. As a novel finding in the literature, we document that the exchange‐rate elasticity of Swiss asset prices is around −0.75. Differentiating between sectors of the Swiss economy, we find that the industrial, financial and consumer goods sectors are most strongly affected by the abolition of the minimum exchange rate.
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Dilemma and Global Financial Cycle: Evidence from Capital Account Liberalisation Episodes
Xiang Li
IWH Discussion Papers,
No. 13,
2021
Abstract
By focusing on the episodes of substantial capital account liberalisation and adopting a new methodology, this paper provides new evidence on the dilemma and global financial cycle theory. I first identify the capital account liberalisation episodes for 95 countries from 1970 to 2016, and then employ an augmented inverse propensity score weighted (AIPW) estimator to calculate the average treatment effect (ATE) of opening capital account on the interest rate comovements with the core country. Results show that opening capital account causes a country to lose its monetary policy independence, and a floating exchange rate regime cannot shield this effect. Moreover, the impact is stronger when liberalising outward and banking flows.
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Conditional Macroeconomic Forecasts: Disagreement, Revisions and Forecast Errors
Alexander Glas, Katja Heinisch
IWH Discussion Papers,
No. 7,
2021
Abstract
Using data from the European Central Bank‘s Survey of Professional Forecasters, we analyse the role of ex-ante conditioning variables for macroeconomic forecasts. In particular, we test to which extent the heterogeneity, updating and ex-post performance of predictions for inflation, real GDP growth and the unemployment rate are related to assumptions about future oil prices, exchange rates, interest rates and wage growth. Our findings indicate that inflation forecasts are closely associated with oil price expectations, whereas expected interest rates are used primarily to predict output growth and unemployment. Expectations about exchange rates and wage growth also matter for macroeconomic forecasts, albeit less so than oil prices and interest rates. We show that survey participants can considerably improve forecast accuracy for macroeconomic outcomes by reducing prediction errors for external conditions. Our results contribute to a better understanding of the expectation formation process of experts.
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The Appropriateness of the Macroeconomic Imbalance Procedure for Central and Eastern European Countries
Geraldine Dany-Knedlik, Martina Kämpfe, Tobias Knedlik
Empirica,
No. 1,
2021
Abstract
The European Commission’s Scoreboard of Macroeconomic Imbalances is a rare case of a publicly released early warning system. It was published first time in 2012 by the European Commission as a reaction to public debt crises in Europe. So far, the Macroeconomic Imbalance Procedure takes a one-size-fits-all approach with regard to the identification of thresholds. The experience of Central and Eastern European Countries during the global financial crisis and in the resulting public debt crises has been largely different from that of other European countries. This paper looks at the appropriateness of scoreboard of the Macroeconomic Imbalances Procedure of the European Commission for this group of catching-up countries. It is shown that while some of the indicators of the scoreboard are helpful to predict crises in the region, thresholds are in most cases set too narrow since it largely disregarded the specifics of catching-up economies, in particular higher and more volatile growth rates of various macroeconomic variables.
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Sovereign Default Risk, Macroeconomic Fluctuations and Monetary-Fiscal Stabilisation
Markus Kirchner, Malte Rieth
IWH Discussion Papers,
No. 22,
2020
Abstract
This paper examines the role of sovereign default beliefs for macroeconomic fluctuations and stabilisation policy in a small open economy where fiscal solvency is a critical problem. We set up and estimate a DSGE model on Turkish data and show that accounting for sovereign risk significantly improves the fit of the model through an endogenous amplication between default beliefs, exchange rate and inflation movements. We then use the estimated model to study the implications of sovereign risk for stability, fiscal and monetary policy, and their interaction. We find that a relatively strong fiscal feedback from deficits to taxes, some exchange rate targeting, or a monetary response to default premia are more effective and efficient stabilisation tools than hawkish inflation targeting.
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