Financial system in steering the economy towards planetary well-being

This chapter discusses the possible roles that financial system may play in steering economic production towards planetary well-being. The costs associated with using natural resources are seldom equal to the actual environmental costs incurred. The present chapter proposes linking Sir Partha Dasgupta’s Impact Equation and the standard asset pricing framework and discusses the roles that financial institutions and central banks as well as debt and equity funding play in supporting production that preserve planetary well-being via the incentives of those in need for and those willing to supply funding. It is proposed that the increasing costs of capital and the financial exclusion of non-env…

Effects of the European Monetary Union on High-Technology Exports

AbstractOur study estimates the effects of the European Monetary Union (EMU) on high-technology (HT) export and assesses the potential knowledge spillovers of such trade. Irrespective of the importance of the HT trade channel, none of the previous studies in the literature focus on the effects of a common currency on HT trade. Increasing trade in the HT sector may lead to more efficient use of resources and help countries to move towards a knowledge-based economy. Moreover, it may lead to higher overall growth. After considering multilateral resistances, pair fixed effects and bias correction in the preferred (three-way bias-corrected) model, EMU membership becomes negative and statisticall…

The beer market and advertising expenditure

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to examine the impacts of advertising expenditure on brands' market shares, utilizing a novel four‐week advertising‐sales data from the highly competitive oligopolistic Finnish beer market in which price competition among the homogeneous larger‐type beer brands is not allowed during the period of the study.Design/methodology/approachCompetition is modelled using the Lanchester model. The impacts of advertising on market shares are estimated using the impulse‐response functions from vector autoregression, and the full information maximum likelihood and advertising elasticities.FindingsSome new insights into beer market dynamics are obtained. First, the imp…

Assessing the Commodity Market Price and Terms of Trade Exposures of Macroeconomy in Emerging and Developing Countries

This paper provides novel evidence on commodity market exposure, i.e., the impacts of commodity price and terms of trade fluctuations on macro performance amongst 46 emerging and developing countries (EMDCs) in Africa, Asia and the Latin American and Caribbean (LAC) region. We estimate the exposure of six macroeconomic variables to the commodity prices and terms of trade. Our results indicate that in overall terms, there is a strong and statistically significant long-run relationship between the vector of analyzed world trade prices and macro variables in all EMDCs. However, based on the short-term reactions, only about 10% of the macroeconomic variation amongst the EMDCs is due to commodit…

Stock market and exchange rate information in the Taylor rule : Evidence from OECD countries

We analyze the effects of stock market and exchange rate information in a forward-looking Taylor rule for monthly data from 14 OECD countries during the years 1999–2016. Especially the stock market information in the form of dividend but also the currency market information in the form of real exchange rate are revealed to be relevant in Taylor rule for many of the countries examined by helping to strengthen the role of inflation and real economic activity deviations in the policy rule. In many cases the rule also seems to be opportunistic, i.e., the inflation target has been time-varying. peerReviewed

Media Tone Goes Viral: Global Evidence from the Currency Market

Using several million news and social media articles related to currencies, we examine the role of media tone in predicting the exchange rate returns of 12 developed and 24 emerging markets from 1998 to 2016. The text-based currency Media tone is a strong positive predictor of currency excess returns beyond fundamentals of one to three months ahead and six months cumulatively, with the average in-sample and out-of-sample R^2s of 4.45% and 9.03% in the US. The one-month predictability is observed in four other developed markets and 18 emerging market currencies, with the latter showing a stronger pattern. This predictability encompasses previous month currency returns, currency factors, macr…

Current Accounts and Coordination of Wage Bargaining

This study provides novel evidence on the impact of labor market institutions on current account dynamics. Our results suggest that a high degree of coordination of wage bargaining has a positive effect on the current account balance over the long run. This result is not driven entirely by wage moderation induced by centralized wage setting. We also provide robust evidence that a high degree of coordination of wage bargaining is associated with a slower current account adjustment toward its long-run equilibrium. This result seems theoretically plausible; the aggregate shocks in the exporting sector are largely driven by idiosyncratic shocks and the presence of idiosyncratic shocks increases…

Coordination of Wage Bargaining, Exchange Rate Stability and External Adjustment

The literature on the determinants of the rate of current account reversion has been limited to examining the role of exchange rate regimes. We propose that the degree of coordination of wage bargaining affects the speed of current account adjustment. Our point estimates are economically and statistically significant, suggesting that fragmented firm-level wage bargaining facilitates external adjustment. We also find a strong negative interaction between the effects of coordination of wage bargaining and exchange rate stability on the rate of current account reversion.

Money and equity returns in the Euro area

Abstract This study examines the impacts of liquidity on equity returns in the euro area during the period 1987–2001. The main contribution of the study is that the money demand is carefully considered while estimating the liquidity. We provide evidence that in part the impact of money on equity returns depended on the measure used for liquidity (real money supply, real money gap and monetary overhang). However, a unanimous inference was made that over time an increase in liquidity has a negative impact on equity returns. This is interpreted as being due to the positive impact of money on inflation. Accordingly, an increase in liquidity generated expectations of inflation, which led to a de…

Assessing commodity price risks and terms of trade exposures in emerging and developing countries

This paper provides novel evidence on commodity exposure (impacts of commodity price and terms of trade fluctuations) amongst 46 emerging and developing countries (EMDCs) in Africa, Asia and the Latin American and Caribbean (LAC) region. We focus on the exposures of six macroeconomic variables to the commodity prices and terms of trade, based on the real business cycle (RBC) theory. Our empirical results indicate that, overall, about 10% of the macroeconomic variation amongst the EMDCs is due to commodity market-related exposures. The Asian and LAC economies are especially sensitive to changes in commodity prices. The changes in the prices of world trade have an imminent impact on non-commo…

The Dynamics of Currency Substitution: Evidence from UK Foreign Currency Balances

This study evaluates the magnitude of the permanent and the transitory components of currency substitution in the UK. The results indicate that the permanent component, the ratchet effect, accounted only for a small share while the aggregate temporary component, speculation, whose impact lasts about one month, was responsible for most of the dynamics of UK currency substitution. The findings thus lend support to the view that at worst currency substitution would only cause short-run problems for the UK economy.

Blessed Mary, Forgive Us Our Deficits

Many studies have explored the medium-term determinants of current account balances. This paper contributes to the existing literature by introducing religious variables that until now have been omitted. We propose that Catholic countries tend to run current account deficits. This result remains robust even if we include both the official financial flows and the variables measuring the quality of institutions. In total we control for close to all of the variables that have been included in previous studies. To rationalize our result we consulted the World Values Survey and discovered that Roman Catholics do not consider thrift as important as other religious groups.

Substituting a substitute currency

Abstract This study evaluates the dynamics between the dollar and euro balances in the Estonian economy. The focus is to apply the traditional currency substitution model to the substitution of the substitute currency, the dollar and euro-related foreign currency balances. We find substitution between the dollar and the euro to be asymmetric in the short run. Inertia, irreversibility and ratchet effects favoured the use of the euro as a substitute currency. No significant evidence of asymmetries in the long run was detected. However, in general, a traditional model for currency substitution was capable of explaining the dynamics of the euro and the dollar as substitute foreign currencies.

Talousennustajien näkemykset talouskasvusta vuosina 2019−2039

Työ, talous ja yliopisto : Jaakko Pehkonen 50 vuotta

Aluetaloustieteen opetus ja tutkimus Jyväskylän yliopistossa

Democracy, political risks and stock market performance

We study whether the emerging stock markets’ performance is affected by direct and indirect effects of democracy level and political risk. We argue that the relationship between democracy level and the political risk is parabolic instead of a simple linear relation i.e. there exists a limit in democracy after which the political risk begins to decline and this is reflected in stock prices. Using panel data for 38 emerging markets at yearly frequency and controlling for several domestic and international factors, we find a fairly robust evidence that during the period 2000-2010, this relationship is true and after some threshold, the more democratic countries produce higher returns. Similar …

The euro–dollar exchange rate and equity flows

Abstract I examine equity flows between the US and the euro area and their impact on the euro–dollar exchange rate. I explain equity flows by examining the behavior of an international investor who maintains a minimum variance portfolio. An excess of euro area equity returns over US equity returns generates a flow of equity from the euro area to the US. The equity flow, the purchase of US equities by the euro-area residents, causes appreciation (depreciation) of the dollar (euro), while the purchase of euro area equities by US residents causes appreciation (depreciation) of the euro (dollar).

Time-Varying Fundamentals of the Euro–Dollar Exchange Rate

Abstract This study examines changes in the impact of the economic fundamentals on the euro–dollar exchange rate. First, the monetary model is augmented with the equity markets and the model is estimated in its structural form. Second, the time-varying impacts of the long-run fundamentals representing equilibrium in different markets on the euro–dollar exchange rate are examined using Kalman filtering. The time-varying structural model indicated that the relative importance of the different fundamentals was not equal and the impact of the fundamentals was time-dependent.

When Aiyagari meets Piketty: Growth, Inequality and Capital Shares

We incorporate the division of income between capital and labor into analysis on the relationship between inequality and growth. Using historical data, we document that changes in the top 1 % income shares are positively associated with subsequent growth of per capita GDP when the capital share of income is low, whereas under high capital share, the association is negative. We show that these findings are compatible with a theoretical analysis that emphasises how changes in the distribution of income translate into the accumulation of capital and overall economic activity through the interplay between precautionary saving motives and consumption smoothing. We also investigate how accounting…

Culture and current account balances

This article contributes to the literature of current account balances by introducing cultural variables that until now have been omitted. The World Values Survey indicates that the Roman Catholics do not consider thrift as important as others. We propose that Catholic countries tend to run current account deficits. This result remains robust even if we control for close to all of the determinants that have been included in previous studies. We find evidence that the inclination of Catholic countries to have high levels of uncertainty avoidance goes to a great length in explaining the result. peerReviewed

Substituting a Substitute Currency – The Case of Estonia

This study evaluates substitution of foreign currency balances in Estonia, a transition economy neighbouring countries participating in EMU. The focus is on substitution between dollar and euro balances in the three basic functions of money - unit of account, store of value and means of payment. While traditional models for currency substitution concentrate on substitution between a domestic currency and aggregate foreign currency balances, we look for substitution between the dollar and the euro or euro-related foreign currency balances. We find substitution between dollarization and euroization to be asymmetric in the short run, which suggests that inertia, irreversibility and ratchet eff…

Timescale-dependent stock market comovement: BRICs vs. developed markets

This paper examines the differences in the asset return comovement of the BRIC countries (Brazil, Russia, India and China), the other developed economies in their regions (Canada, Hong Kong and Australia) and the major industrialized economies (the U.K., Germany and Japan) with respect to the U.S. for different return periods. The novelty of the paper is that the stock return indices are decomposed to several timescales using wavelet analysis and that the results are further used as inputs for the dynamic conditional correlation (DCC) framework, which is used as a measure of comovement. The results propose that the level of stock market comovement depends on regional aspects, the level of d…