0000000000369934
AUTHOR
Andrea Cipollini
Testing for financial contagion between developed and emerging markets during the 1997 East Asian crisis
In this paper we examine whether during the 1997 East Asian crisis there was any contagion from the four largest economies in the region (Thailand, Indonesia, Korea and Malaysia) to a number of developed countries (Japan, UK, Germany and France). Following Forbes and Rigobon, we test for contagion as a significant positive shift in the correlation between asset returns, taking into account heteroscedasticity and endogeneity bias. Furthermore, we improve on earlier empirical studies by carrying out a full sample test of the stability of the system that relies on more plausible (over) identifying restrictions. The estimation results provide some evidence of contagion, in particular from Japan…
Economic value, competition and financial distress in the european banking system
Abstract In this paper we examine the impact of a large number of factors at the bank level (liquidity and credit risks, asset size, income diversification and market power), at the industry level (banking concentration) and macro-level (real GDP growth) on bank financial distress using an unbalanced panel of 308 European commercial banks between 1996 and 2009. The observations falling below a given threshold of the empirical distribution of the Shareholder Value Ratio proxy bank financial distress. We employ a panel probit regression and, given the presence of overlapping data giving rise to residual autocorrelation, we use the Bertschek and Lechner (1998) robust estimator of the covarianc…
Monetary policy and the exchange rate during the Asian crisis: identification through heteroscedasticity
Abstract This paper examines whether a monetary policy tightening (i.e., an increase in the domestic interest rate) was successful in defending the exchange rate from speculative pressures during the Asian financial crisis. We estimate a bivariate VECM for four Asian countries, and improve upon existing studies in two important ways. First, by using a long data span we are able to compare the effects of an interest rate rise on the nominal exchange rate during tranquil and turbulent periods. Second, we take into account the endogeneity of interest rates and identify the system by exploiting the heteroscedasticity properties of the relevant time series, following Rigobon [Identification thro…
Forecasting Financial Crises and Contagion in Asia using Dynamic Factor Analysis
Abstract In this paper we use principal components analysis to obtain vulnerability indicators able to predict financial turmoil. Probit modelling through principal components and also stochastic simulation of a Dynamic Factor model are used to produce the corresponding probability forecasts regarding the currency crisis events affecting a number of East Asian countries during the 1997–1998 period. The principal components model improves upon a number of competing models, in terms of out-of-sample forecasting performance.
A Stochastic Variance Factor Model for Large Datasets and an Application to S&P Data
The aim of this paper is to consider multivariate stochastic volatility models for large dimensional datasets. We suggest the use of the principal component methodology of Stock and Watson [Stock, J.H., Watson, M.W., 2002. Macroeconomic forecasting using diffusion indices. Journal of Business and Economic Statistics, 20, 147–162] for the stochastic volatility factor model discussed by Harvey, Ruiz, and Shephard [Harvey, A.C., Ruiz, E., Shephard, N., 1994. Multivariate Stochastic Variance Models. Review of Economic Studies, 61, 247–264]. We provide theoretical and Monte Carlo results on this method and apply it to S&P data.
Asymmetric semi-volatility spillover effects in EMU stock markets
Abstract The aim of this paper is to quantify the strength and the direction of semi-volatility spillovers between five EMU stock markets over the 2000–2016 period. We use upside and downside semi-volatilities as proxies for downside risk and upside opportunities. In this way, we aim to complement the literature, which has focused mainly on the contemporaneous correlation between positive and negative returns, with the evidence of asymmetry also in semi-volatility transmission. For this purpose, we apply the Diebold and Yilmaz (2012) methodology, based on a generalized forecast error variance decomposition, to downside and upside realized semi-volatility series. While the analysis of Diebol…
Credit Demand and Supply Shocks in Italy During the Great Recession
In this paper, we use Structural VAR analysis to disentangle credit demand and supply shocks and their eFFect on real economic activity in Italy during the 2008-2014 crisis period. The three endogenous variables considered are the loan interest rate, the loans growth rate and the employment to population ratio. The data are observed at annual frequency for each of 103 Italian provinces. The structural shocks are identified through heteroscedasticity, by letting the variance of the shocks to switch across four Italian macro-regions: North, Centre, South and Islands. Sign restrictions are used to interpret ex post the structural shocks. The empirical findings suggest a more important role of …
Testing for Financial Contagion Between Developed and Emerging Markets During the 1997 East Asian Crisis
In this paper we examine whether during the 1997 East Asian crisis there was any contagion from the four largest economies in the region (Thailand, Indonesia, Korea and Malaysia) to a number of developed countries (Japan, UK, Germany and France). Following Forbes and Rigobon (2002), we test for contagion as a significant positive shift in the correlation between asset returns, taking into account heteroscedasticity and endogeneity bias. Furthermore, we improve on earlier empirical studies by carrying out a full sample test of the stability of the system that relies on more plausible (over)identifying restrictions. The estimation results provide some evidence of contagion, in particular from…
Credit demand and supply shocks in Italy during the Great Recession
In this article, we use Structural VAR analysis to disentangle credit demand and supply shocks and their effect on real economic activity in Italy during the 2008 to 2014 crisis period. The three endogenous variables considered are the loan interest rate, the loans growth rate and the employment to population ratio. The data are observed at annual frequency for each of 103 Italian provinces. The empirical evidence suggests that the variance of the shocks varies across four Italian macro-regions: North, Centre, South and Islands, and hece heteroscedasticity is used to identify (ex ante) the structural shocks. Sign restrictions are used to interpret shocks ex post. The empirical findings sugg…
Testing for public debt sustainability using band spectrum regression analysis "
In this note we focus on the response of the primary surplus to debt (ratios to GDP)over a low frequency band (associated with cycles with period between eight and sixteen years) to filter out business cycle effects. For this purpose, we use band spectrum regression, using both the Fourier Transform and the Discrete Wavelet transform, fitted to pooled panel dataset of 18 EMU countries. The empirical findings give evidence of fiscal fatigue within Eurozone:the response of primary surplus to debt will decrease over a finite debt limit.
Threshold Effects in the U.S. Budget Deficit. ECONOMIC INQUIRY
We contribute to the debate on whether the U.S. large federal budget deficits are sustainable in the long run. We model the U.S. government deficit per capita as a threshold autoregressive process. We find evidence that the U.S. budget deficit is sustainable in the long run and that economic policy makers will only intervene to reduce per capita deficit when it reaches a certain threshold.
Monetary Policy and the Exchange Rate During the Asian Crisis: Identification Through Heteroscedasticity
This paper examines whether a monetary policy tightening (i.e., an increase in the domestic interest rate) was successful in defending the exchange rate from speculative pressures during the Asian financial crisis. We estimate a bivariate VECM for four Asian countries, and improve upon existing studies in two important ways. First, by using a long data span we are able to compare the effects of an interest rate rise on the nominal exchange rate during tranquil and turbulent periods. Second, we take into account the endogeneity of interest rates and identify the system by exploiting the heteroscedasticity properties of the relevant time series, following Rigobon (2002). We find that while ti…
Can an unglamorous non-event affect prices? The role of newspapers
AbstractOur paper offers evidence that the print media can affect stock prices by covering public information. After price-to-book value figures of Italian listed shares were first published on the major national financial newspaper, the prices of value stocks did, on average, show a positive reaction. The price reaction was limited to small caps stocks and disappeared within three weeks. Over the period of analysis, we could not find any abnormal behaviour of the returns of small and value stocks on other European markets. These findings support the view that newspapers play a role in disseminating information to small investors and grabbing their attention, even if news are continuously r…
Switching to floating exchange rates, devaluations, and stock returns in MENA countries
Abstract We test for the impact of the announcements of floating and/or devaluating the exchange rate on stock returns in three MENA countries after the financial crises they experienced. We, first, use an event-study methodology to test for event-induced abnormal volatility of stock returns in Egypt, Morocco and Turkey. We, then, use three different methodologies to test for abnormal returns: a traditional approach and two approaches that control for event-induced volatility. We find clear evidence of abnormal volatility and abnormal returns due to the floating of the Egyptian and Turkish exchange rates in 2003 and 2001, respectively. In contrast, our results do not show that the devaluati…
Predicting bond betas using macro-finance variables
We conduct in-sample and out-of-sample forecasting using the new approach of combining explanatory variables through complete subset regressions (CSR). We predict bond CAPM betas and bond returns conditioning on various macro-finance variables. We explore differences across long-term government bonds, investment grade corporate bonds, and high-yield corporate bonds. The CSR method performs well in predicting bond betas, especially in-sample, and, mainly high-yield bond betas when the focus is out-of-sample. Bond returns are less predictable than bond betas.
A Dynamic Factor Analysis of Financial Contagion in Asia
In this paper we compared the performance of country speci…c and regional indicators of reserve adequacy in predicting, out of sample,
Risk aversion connectedness in five European countries
Abstract In this paper we compute an aggregate index of risk aversion and indices of vulnerability and the contribution to systemic risk aversion for five European countries. The variance risk premium proxies risk aversion. The contribution to the literature is twofold. First, this is the first study estimating not only the common component, but also indices of directional connectedness among variance risk premia. Second, it is the first to estimate the interconnections by means of a FIVAR model, in order to account for long memory. Our analysis indicates measures of total and directional connectedness unlike those that would be obtained with the use of a short memory VAR. These differences…
Macro-uncertainty and financial stress spillovers in the Eurozone
Abstract This paper studies macro-uncertainty and financial distress spillovers within the Eurozone. We propose a novel methodology to derive the indices of spillovers, by using a Global Vector autoregressive model fitted to data sampled at mixed-frequencies. We find that macro-uncertainty and financial stress are relatively disconnected in the Eurozone. We also show that connectedness between core and periphery Eurozone countries mainly operates through financial stress and it decreases since the outbreak of the Eurozone sovereign debt crisis (with an increasing role played by peripheral countries). As a result, investors and policymakers should monitor separately macro-uncertainty and fin…
Evaluating currency crises: the case of the European monetary system
In this paper we examine the nature of currency crises. We ascertain whether the currency crises of the European Monetary System (EMS) were based either on fundamentals, or on self-fulfilling market expectations driven by extrinsic uncertainty. In particular, we extend previous work of Jeanne and Masson (J Int Econ 50:327–350, 2000) regarding the evaluation of currency crisis. We contribute to the existing literature proposing the use of Markov regime-switching with time-varying transition probability model. Our empirical results suggest that the currency crises of the EMS were not due only to market expectations driven by external uncertainty, or ‘sunspots’, but also to fundamental variabl…
TESTING FOR CONTAGION: A CONDITIONAL CORRELATION ANALYSIS
Abstract In this paper, we test for contagion within the East Asian region, contagion being defined as a significant increase in the degree of comovement between stock returns in different countries. For this purpose, we use a parameter stability test, and, following [Rigobon, R., 2003a. On the measurement of the international propagation of shocks: is the transmission stable?, Journal of International Economics], we control for three types of bias, resulting from heteroscedasticity, endogeneity and omitted variable, respectively. The null of interdependence against the alternative of contagion is then tested as an overidentifying restriction. Unlike other studies, our approach is based on …
Does Inflation Targeting Affect the Trade-off Between Output Gap and Inflation Variability?
We utilize a stochastic volatility model to analyse the possible effects of inflation targeting on the trade–off between output gap variability and inflation variability. We find that the adoption of inflation targets (in New Zealand, Australia, Canada, the UK, Sweden and Finland) might result in a more favourable monetary policy trade–off (except in Australia and Finland). This conclusion is reached by comparing, first, the economic performance of targeting countries in the 1980s and the 1990s; and second, the economic performance in the 1990s of targeting and non–targeting countries (the USA, Japan, Switzerland, Germany, France and the Netherlands). We focus on two possible explanations f…
Volatility co-movements: a time-scale decomposition analysis
In this paper, we are interested in detecting contagion from US to European stock market volatilities in the period immediately after the Lehman Brothers collapse. The analysis is based on a factor decomposition of the covariance matrix, in the time and frequency domain, using wavelets. The analysis aims to disentangle two components of volatility contagion (anticipated and unanticipated by the market). Once we focus on standardized factor loadings, the results show no evidence of contagion (from the US) in market expectations (coming from implied volatility) and evidence of unanticipated contagion (coming from the volatility risk premium) for almost any European country. Finally, the estim…
Forecasting Financial Crises and Contagion in Asia Using Dynamic Factor Analysis
In this paper we use principal components analysis to obtain vulnerability indicators able to predict financial turmoil. Probit modelling through principal components and also stochastic simulation of a Dynamic Factor model are used to produce the corresponding probability forecasts regarding the currency crisis events affecting a number of East Asian countries during the 1997-1998 period. The principal components model improves upon a number of competing models, in terms of out-of-sample forecasting performance.
FISCAL READJUSTMENTS IN THE UNITED STATES: A NONLINEAR TIME-SERIES ANALYSIS
We analyze the fiscal adjustment process in the United States using a multivariate threshold vector error regression model. The shift from single-equation to multivariate setting adds value both in terms of our economic understanding of the fiscal adjustment process and the forecasting performance of nonlinear models. We find evidence that fiscal authorities intervene to reduce real per capita deficit only when it reaches a certain threshold and that fiscal adjustment takes place primarily by cutting government expenditure. The results of out-of-sample density forecast and probability forecasts suggest that a shift from a univariate autoregressive model to a multivariate model improves fore…
How do normalization schemes affect net spillovers? A replication of the Diebold and Yilmaz (2012) study
Abstract This paper replicates the Diebold and Yilmaz (2012) study on the connectedness of the commodity market and three other financial markets: the stock market, the bond market, and the FX market, based on the Generalized Forecast Error Variance Decomposition, GEFVD. We show that the net spillover indices (of directional connectedness), used to assess the net contribution of one market to overall risk in the system, are sensitive to the normalization scheme applied to the GEFVD. We show that, considering data generating processes characterized by different degrees of persistence and covariance, a scalar-based normalization of the Generalized Forecast Error Variance Decomposition is pref…
The Impact of Bank Concentration on Financial Distress: The Case of the European Banking System
This paper examines the impact of bank concentrationon bank financial distress using a balanced panel of commercial banks in the EU‐25 over a sample period running from 2003 to 2007. Financial distress is proxied by the observations falling below a given threshold of the empirical distribution of a risk‐adjusted indicator of bank performance: the Shareholder Value Ratio. We employ a panel probit regression estimated by GMM in order to obtain consistent and efficient estimates, following the suggestion made by Bertschek and Lechner (1998). After controlling for a number of environment variables, we conclude that our findings suggest a positive effect of bank concentration on financial distre…
Threshold Effects in the US Budget Deficit
We contribute to the debate on whether the large U.S. federal budget deficits are sustainable in the long run. We model the U.S. government deficit per capita as a threshold autoregressive process. We find evidence that the U.S. budget deficit is sustainable in the long run and that economic policymakers will intervene to reduce per capita deficit only when it reaches a certain threshold.
Leading indicator properties of US high-yield credit spreads.
Abstract In this paper we examine the out-of-sample forecast performance of high-yield credit spreads for real-time and revised data regarding employment and industrial production in the US. We evaluate models using both a point forecast and a probability forecast exercise. Our main findings suggest that the best results come from using only a few factors obtained by pooling information from a number of sector-specific high-yield credit spreads. In particular, for employment and at short-run horizons, there is a gain from using a principal components model fitted to high-yield credit spreads compared to the prediction produced by benchmarks. Moreover, forecast results based on revised data …
Stock Returns and Exchange Rate Volatility Spillovers in the MENA Region
In this article, we examine the presence of volatility spillovers between nominal exchange rates and stock returns in three MENA countries: Egypt, Morocco and Turkey. The multivariate GARCH model we use does not produce evidence of cross-market effects for the general stock indices returns. Nevertheless, bidirectional shock and volatility spillovers between exchange rates and stock returns exist at the industry sector level. These findings are more pronounced in Egypt and Turkey. The different results are due to the different exchange rate regimes/policies adopted by the three countries. While exchange rates in Egypt and Turkey were allowed to float, Morocco followed a more tightly managed…
Testing for Government Intertemporal Solvency: A Smooth Transition Error Correction Model Approach
Applied macroeconomists have tested for the government intertemporal solvency condition by either testing for linear stationarity in the total government deficit series or testing for linear cointegration between total government spending and total tax revenues. A number of authors have focused, in particular, on structural breaks in the government deficit process. In this paper, we use a smooth transition error correction model to test and estimate a shift in the adjustment toward a linear cointegration relationship between the government spending to output ratio and the total tax revenues to output ratio. Estimation results show that government authorities react only to large (in absolute…
Exchange Rates and Stock Prices in the MENA countries: What Role for Oil?
This paper considers the linkage between stock prices and exchange rates in four MENA (Middle East and North Africa) emerging markets. In contrast to the existing evidence that uses a global market index to uncover such a relationship it is found that for the sample countries oil prices emerge as the dominant factor in the above relationship. The paper considers the presence of regime shifts and evidence is found of cointegration only for the period following the 1999 oil price shock. Readjustment towards equilibrium in each stock market occurs via oil price changes. Finally, a number of robustness checks are performed and persistence profiles produced. Wiley Online Library
Volatility risk premia and financial connectedness
In this paper we use the Diebold Yilmaz (2009 and 2012) methodology to construct an index of connectedness among five European stock markets: France, Germany, UK, Switzerland and the Netherlands, by using volatility risk premia. The volatility risk premium, which is a proxy of risk aversion, is measured by the difference between the implied volatility and expected realized volatility of the stock market for next month. While Diebold and Yilmaz focus is on the forecast error variance decomposition of stock returns or range based volatilities employing a stationary VAR in levels, we account for the (locally) long memory stationary properties of the levels of volatility risk premia series. The…
Housing market shocks in italy: A GVAR approach
Abstract In this paper, we use a Global Vector Autoregression (GVAR) model to assess the spatio-temporal mechanism of house price spillovers, also known as “ripple effect”, among 93 Italian provincial housing markets, over the period 2004 − 2016 . In order to better capture the local housing market dynamics, we use data not only on house prices but also on transaction volumes. In particular, we focus on estimating, to what extent, exogenous shocks, interpreted as negative housing demand shocks, arising from 10 Italian regional capitals, impact on their house prices and sales and how these shocks spill over to neighbours housing markets. The negative housing market demand shock hitting the G…
Financial distress and real economic activity in Lithuania: a Granger causality test based on mixed-frequency VAR
In this paper, we extend the monthly financial stress index for Lithuania, computed by the European Central Bank, to a daily frequency and we also include banking sector stress among its constituents, beyond bond, equity and foreign exchange markets. We investigate the causal relationship between the daily financial stress index and monthly industrial production growth, using a Granger causality test applied to a mixed-frequency VAR. Our results suggest evidence of Granger causality from financial stress to industrial production growth once the index is enriched by daily observations from the financial markets. Our findings, based on impulse response analysis, confirm the negative effect of…
The European sovereign debt market: from integration to segmentation
This paper investigates the impact of European Monetary Union (EMU) and of the recent financial and fiscal crisis on the integration of the European sovereign debt market using annual data 1992–2010. The panel regression dependent variable is time-varying market linkages computed from daily realised correlations between sovereign bond returns for 13 European economies and Germany. The results indicate that the elimination of currency risk following the implementation of EMU led to a fundamental and significant one-off increase in integration. The net impact of fiscal fundamentals was negligible up until 2009 as the markets seemed to be pricing in a potential bailout for member states in cri…
Forecasting industry sector default rates through dynamic factor models
In this paper we use a reduced-form model for the analysis of portfolio credit risk. For this purpose, we fit a dynamic factor model to a large data set of default rate proxies and macro-variables for Italy. Multiple step ahead density and probability forecasts are obtained by employing both the direct and indirect methods of prediction together with stochastic simulation of the dynamic factor model. We first find that the direct method is the best performer regarding the out-of-sample projection of financial distressful events. In a second stage of the analysis, we find that reducedform portfolio credit risk measures obtained through the dynamic factor model are lower than those correspond…
The Euro and Monetary Policy Transparency
This paper focuses on a possible explanation for the weakness of the euro, namely the lack of transparency of the European Central Bank's (ECB) monetary policy. In order to obtain a time-varying measure of monetary policy uncertainty in both the U.S. and Euroland, we estimate a Stochastic Volatility model using policy-adjusted short-term interest rates. We also analyze directly the impact of higher uncertainty on the euro-dollar exchange rate. The empirical findings are in line with those of other studies, and show that the U.S. Fed is more transparent than the ECB. This results in higher volatility of European interest rates, capital outflows, and a weaker euro vis-a-vis the U.S. dollar.
A note on normalization schemes: The case of generalized forecast error variance decompositions
The aim of this paper is to propose new normalization schemes for the values obtained from the generalized forecast error variance decomposition, in order to obtain more reliable net spillover measures. We provide a review of various matrix normalization schemes used in different application domains. The intention is to contribute to the financial econometrics literature aimed at building a bridge between different approaches able to detect spillover effects, such as spatial regressions and network analyses. Considering DGPs characterized by different degrees of correlation and persistence, we show that the popular row normalization scheme proposed by Diebold and Yilmaz (2012), as well as t…
An index of financial connectedness applied to variance risk premia
The purpose is to construct an index of financial connectedness among France, Germany, UK, Switzerland and the Netherlands variance risk premia. The variance risk premium of each country stock market is measured by the difference between the (square) of implied volatility and expected realized variance of the stock market for next month. The total and directional indices of financial connectedness are obtained from the forecast error variance decomposition of a Vector Autoregressive Model, VAR, as recently suggested by Diebold and Yilmaz. While the authors main focus is on connectedness among financial returns, they base their analysis on a short memory stationary VAR. Given the long memory…
Volatility co-movements: a time scale decomposition analysis
In this paper we investigate short-run co-movements before and after the Lehman Brothers’ collapse among the volatility series of US and a number of European countries. The series under investigation (implied and realized volatility) exhibit long-memory and, in order to avoid missspecification errors related to the parameterization of a long memory multivariate model, we rely on wavelet analysis. More specifically, we retrieve the time series of wavelet coefficients for each volatility series for high frequency scales, using the Maximal Overlapping Discrete Wavelet transform and we apply Maximum Likelihood for a factor decomposition of the short-run covariance matrix. The empirical evidence…