Exploring the Economic Convergence in the EU New Member States by Using Nonparametric Models
Monica Raileanu Szeles
IWH Discussion Papers,
No. 2,
2011
Abstract
This paper analyzes the process of real economic convergence in the New Member States (NMS) bein g formerly centrally planned economies, using nonparametric methods instead of conventional parametric measurement tools like beta and sigma models. This methodological framework allows the examining of the relative income distribution in different periods of time, the number of modes of the density distribution, the existence of “convergence clubs” in the distribution and the hypothesis of convergence at a single point in time. The modality tests (e.g. the ASH-WARPing procedure) and stochastic kernel are nonparametric techniques used in the empirical part of the study to examine the income distribution in the NMS area. Additionally, random effects panel regressions are used, but only for comparison reasons. The main findings of the paper are the bimodality of the income density distribution over time and across countries, and the presence of convergence clubs in the income distribution from 1995 to 2008. The findings suggest a lack of absolute convergence in the long term (1995-2008) and also when looking only from 2003 onwards. The paper concludes that, in comparison with the parametrical approach, the nonparametric one gives a deeper, real and richer perspective on the process of real convergence in the NMS area.
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Fiscal Spending Multiplier Calculations based on Input-Output Tables – with an Application to EU Members
Toralf Pusch, A. Rannberg
Abstract
Fiscal spending multiplier calculations have been revived in the aftermath of the
global financial crisis. Much of the current literature is based on VAR estimation
methods and DSGE models. The aim of this paper is not a further deepening of
this literature but rather to implement a calculation method of multipliers which is
suitable for open economies like EU member states. To this end, Input-Output tables are used as by this means the import intake of domestic demand components can be isolated in order to get an appropriate base for the calculation of the relevant import quotas. The difference of this method is substantial – on average the calculated multipliers are 15% higher than the conventional GDP fiscal spending multiplier for EU members. Multipliers for specific spending categories are comparably high, ranging between 1.4 and 1.8 for many members of the EU. GDP drops due to budget consolidation might therefore be substantial if monetary policy is not able to react in an expansionary manner.
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Die Entwicklung der Corporate Governance deutscher Banken seit 1950
R. H. Schmidt, Felix Noth
Bankhistorisches Archiv,
No. 2,
2011
Abstract
The present paper gives an overview of the development of Corporate Governance of German banks since the 1950s. The focus will be on economic analysis. The most striking changes in Corporate Governance occurred with the ownership structure of commercial banks, in particular with the major joint-stock banks. In addition to that, the capital market has become a core element of Corporate Governance in all major German banks, which have replaced their prior concentration on the interests of a broadly defined circle of stakeholders by a one-sided concentration on shareholders’ interests. In contrast, with savings banks and cooperative cooperative banks, Corporate Governance has remained unchanged for the most part. Exceptions to this are the regional state banks: in their case, after they had turned away from traditional business models and in particular following the discontinuation of the guarantee obligation, the problems of their Corporate Governance, which were already discernible beforehand, became quite obvious. If you include the financial crisis, beginning in 2007, in the analysis, it becomes evident that it was precisely a Corporate Governance unilaterally geared to shareholders’ interest and the efficiency of the capital market that materially contributed to the evolution and widening of the crisis.
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Cross-border Diversification in Bank Asset Portfolios
Claudia M. Buch, J.C. Driscoll, C. Ostergaard
International Finance,
forthcoming
Abstract
We compute optimally diversified international asset portfolios for banks located in France, Germany, Italy, the United Kingdom and the United States using the mean–variance portfolio model with currency hedging. We compare these benchmark portfolios with the actual cross-border asset positions of banks from 1995 to 2003 and ask whether the differences are best explained by regulations, institutions, cultural conditions or other financial frictions. Our results suggest that both culture and regulations affect the probability of a country's being overweighted in banks' portfolios: countries whose residents score higher on a survey measure of trust are more likely to be overweighted, while countries that have tighter capital controls are less likely to be overweighted. From a policy standpoint, the importance of culture suggests a limit to the degree of financial integration that may be achievable by the removal of formal economic barriers.
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Money and Inflation: The Role of Persistent Velocity Movements
Makram El-Shagi, Sebastian Giesen
Abstract
While the long run relation between money and inflation is well established, empirical evidence on the adjustment to the long run equilibrium is very heterogeneous. In the present paper we use a multivariate state space framework, that substantially expands the traditional vector error correction approach, to analyze the short run impact of money on prices. We contribute to the literature in three ways: First, we distinguish changes in velocity of money that are due to institutional developments and thus do not induce inflationary pressure, and changes that reflect transitory movements in money demand. This is achieved with a newly developed multivariate unobserved components decomposition. Second, we analyze whether the high volatility of the transmission from monetary pressure to inflation follows some structure, i.e., if the parameter regime can assumed to be constant. Finally, we use our model to illustrate the consequences of the monetary policy of the Fed that has been employed to mitigate the impact of the financial crisis, simulating different exit strategy scenarios.
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Are European Equity Style Indices Efficient? – An Empirical Quest in Three Essays
Marian Berneburg
Schriften des IWH,
No. 28,
2008
Abstract
Many situations in the history of the stock markets indicate that assets are not always efficiently priced. But why does it matter whether the stock market is efficiently priced? Because “well-functioning financial markets are a key factor to high economic growth”. (Mishkin and Eakins, 2006, pp. 3-4) In three essays, it is the aim of the author to shed some more light on the topic of market efficiency, which is far from being resolved. Since European equity markets have increased in importance globally, the author, instead of focusing on US markets, looks at a unified European equity market. By testing for a random walk in equity prices, revisiting Shiller’s claim of excess volatility through the means of a vector error correction model, and modifying the Gordon-Growth-Model, the book concludes that a small degree of inefficiency cannot be ruled out. While usually European equity markets are pricing assets correctly, some periods (e.g. the late 1990s and early 2000s) show clear signs of mispricing; the hypothesis of a world with two states (regime one, a normal efficient state, and regime two, a state in which markets are more momentum driven) presents a possible explanation.
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The Stability of Bank Efficiency Rankings when Risk Preferences and Objectives are Different
Michael Koetter
European Journal of Finance,
No. 2,
2008
Abstract
We analyze the stability of efficiency rankings of German universal banks between 1993 and 2004. First, we estimate traditional efficiency scores with stochastic cost and alternative profit frontier analysis. Then, we explicitly allow for different risk preferences and measure efficiency with a structural model based on utility maximization. Using the almost ideal demand system, we estimate input- and profit-demand functions to obtain proxies for expected return and risk. Efficiency is then measured in this risk-return space. Mean risk-return efficiency is somewhat higher than cost and considerably higher than profit efficiency (PE). More importantly, rank–order correlation between these measures are low or even negative. This suggests that best-practice institutes should not be identified on the basis of traditional efficiency measures alone. Apparently, low cost and/or PE may merely result from alternative yet efficiently chosen risk-return trade-offs.
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Where enterprises lead, people follow? Links between migration and FDI in Germany
Claudia M. Buch, J. Kleinert, Farid Toubal
European Economic Review,
No. 8,
2006
Abstract
Standard neoclassical models of economic integration are based on the assumptions that capital and labor are substitutes and that the geography of factor market integration does not matter. Yet, these two assumptions are violated if agglomeration forces among factors from specific source countries are at work. Agglomeration implies that factors behave as complements and that the country of origin matters. This paper analyzes agglomeration between capital and labor empirically. We use state-level German data to answer the question whether and how migration and foreign direct investment (FDI) are linked. Stocks of inward FDI and of immigrants have similar determinants, and the geography of factor market integration matters. There are higher stocks of inward FDI in German states hosting a large foreign population from the same country of origin. This agglomeration effect is confined to higher-income source countries.
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The relationship between unemployment and output in post-communist countries
Hubert Gabrisch, Herbert Buscher
Post-Communist Economies,
2006
Abstract
Unemployment is still disappointingly high in most Central and East European countries, and might be a reflection of the ongoing adjustment to institutional shocks resulting from systemic transition, or it may be caused by high labour market rigidity, or aggregate demand that is too weak. In this paper we have investigated the dynamics of unemployment and output in those eight post-communist countries, which entered the EU in 2004. We used a model related to Okun’s Law; i.e. the first differences in unemployment rates were regressed on GDP growth rates. We estimated country and panel regressions with instrument variables (TSLS) and applied a few tests to the data and regression results. We assume transition of labour markets to be accomplished when a robust relationship exists between unemployment rate changes and GDP growth. Moreover, the estimated coefficients contain information about labour market rigidity and unemployment thresholds of output growth. Our results suggest that the transition of labour markets can be regarded as completed since unemployment responds to output changes and not to a changing institutional environment that destroys jobs in the state sector. The regression coefficients have demonstrated that a high trend rate of productivity and a high unemployment intensity of output growth have been occurring since 1998. Therefore, we conclude that labour market rigidities do not play an important role in explaining high unemployment rates. However, GDP growth is dominated by productivity progress and the employment-relevant component of aggregate demand is too low to reduce the high level of unemployment substantially.
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