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List of all publications by year, descending
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The Impact of European Enlargement on the Direction and Prospects of Brussels Exports
Author: Karolien De Bruyne Jan Van Hove
Vol.: 2012.10
Publishing house: i) INFER
Place: Speyer, London
year: 2012
No of pages: 30
ISBN
category INFER Working Paper Series
price EUR
Previous studies have argued that the enlargement of the European Union triggered a geographical
reorientation and diversification in the exports by European Union member states, caused by a
combination of trade creation and trade diversion. This paper adds to the existing literature, by
analyzing the export dynamics and potentials of a city rather than a country. It focuses on Brussels,
the European capital. Our findings indicate that the new European Union member states became
important destination markets for Brussels exports in recent years. Moreover, there appear to be
large export potentials for Brussels products, in particular in Latin American and certain Asian
markets. The export potentials within the European Union are more limited, although several new
European Union member states are likely to become more important trading partners.
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The Validity of Wagner’s Law in the United Kingdom for the Period 1850-2010
Author: Christian Richter Paparas Dimitrios
Vol.: 2012.9
Publishing house: i) INFER
Place: Speyer, London
year: 2012
No of pages: 16
ISBN
category INFER Working Paper Series
price EUR
The relationship between national income and government spending is one of the most debated topics between economists and policy makers during the last decades. The objective of this paper is to examine the Wagner’s law validity, and if it can be applied in the U.K. public spending expansion for the period 1850-2010. According to Wagner’s hypothesis, fundamental economic growth is a determinant to the public sector growth. The public sector is said to be able to grow at a very high rate when compared to the national income. The data covers a period in which U.K. economy faced increased economic growth, government spending and met most of the assumption of Wagner’s Law (industrialisation, urbanisation, increased population). Furthermore, the long data set ensures the reliability of our results in terms of statistical and economic conclusions. We apply unit root tests, unit root tests with structural breaks, cointegration techniques and Granger causality tests. Our results indicate a presence of a long run relationship between national income and government spending, while the causality is bi-directional, thus we find support of Wagner’s and Keynesian hypotheses.
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Testing the UIP Theory in the CEE Countries. Evidence from the Garch Models
Author: Cristina Maria Triandafil Christian Richter
Vol.: 2012.8
Publishing house: i) INFER
Place: Speyer, London
year: 2012
No of pages: 31
ISBN
category INFER Working Paper Series
price EUR
This paper tests the Uncovered Interest Parity theorem at the level of the CEE countries using three types of GARCH models (EGARCH, TGARCH and CGARCH models). In general the empirical results highlight that UIP is not confirmed. We find that a possible explanation for this might consist of an indiscriminate risk premium that results in a violation of the underlying assumptions of UIP. The analysis brings in a series of risk premiums which reflect the build up of various risk layers encompassed in the dynamics of macro-economic fundamentals and macro-financial variables. Apart from revealing those risk layers which trigger macroeconomic volatility, the research sheds light on the countries’ limited capacity to achieve nominal and real convergence in the not too distant future.
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Global Production Networks and Export Expansion: Cross-Sectoral Evidence from China
Author: Klimis Vogiatzoglou
Vol.: 2012.7
Publishing house: i) INFER
Place: Speyer, London
year: 2012
No of pages: 19
ISBN
category INFER Working Paper Series
price EUR
Given the rising importance of global production networks, this paper examines the link between a country’s extent of production sharing and a country’s export development. Using the OECD’s international input-output database on intermediate goods imports, the empirical analysis is applied to China, where international production sharing is particularly pronounced. Our findings indicate that China’s involvement in vertical production networks exerts a positive effect on China’s manufacturing exports. An important policy implication, particularly relevant for developing economies, is that a policy promoting a more extensive involvement in global production sharing may significantly improve an economy’s export performance.
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Does the Greenspan Era Provide Evidence on Leadership in the FOMC?
Author: Makram El-Shagi Alexander Jung
Vol.: 2012.6
Publishing house: i) INFER
Place: Speyer, London
year: 2012
No of pages: 42
ISBN
category INFER Working Paper Series
price EUR
This paper provides new empirical evidence on the presence of chairman dominance in the FOMC. It uses a novel data set with information on individual forecasts of FOMC members in the 1990s. The approach of this paper is to estimate individual Taylor-type reaction functions for FOMC participants based on their interest rate preferences and economic information in real-time. A bootstrap analysis, which exploits information contained in these reaction functions, constructs counterfactual distributions of disagreement among FOMC members. By comparing these distributions with the observed dissenting behaviour, we find empirical evidence in favour of an “invisible hand”, which influenced policy-makers’ preferences towards the consensus view during the committee deliberations. While several explanations for this behaviour are conceivable (e.g. informal rules, consensus tradition, joint paradigms, bias statement), during the Greenspan era the presence of a dominant chairman is the most plausible explanation for it.
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An Assessment of Fiscal Rules and Sustainability Using an Overlapping Generations Approach: An Application to Belgium
Author: Wouter van der Wielen
Vol.: 2012.5
Publishing house: i) INFER
Place: Speyer, London
year: 2012
No of pages: 37
ISBN
category INFER Working Paper Series
price EUR
Building on the work of among others Diamond (1965), a two-period overlapping generations model including income taxation, pension benefits, and public investment is set forth in order to assess Belgium’s fiscal sustainability. Moreover, the model is employed to get a better grasp of the effects of possible fiscal rules, which are among others thought to prevent a deficit bias. In particular, the model is employed to calibrate the effects of maintaining current fiscal policy, a balanced primary budget, and adhering to the golden rule of public finance. It is found that the Belgian conditions will not lead to a sustainable equilibrium under the conditions of the proposed model due to crowding out in the capital market. Furthermore, the assessed fiscal rules are preferred to the current policy even if the initial Belgian debt would be relatively low."
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How Reliable are Budget Sustainability Tests? A Case Study for Greece
Author: Christian Richter Dimitrios Paparas
Vol.: 2012.4
Publishing house: i) INFER
Place: Speyer, London
year: 2012
No of pages:
ISBN
category INFER Working Paper Series
price EUR
In this paper we try to answer if the empirical evidence on the Greek fiscal policy has been consistent with the government intertemporal budget constraint during two tested periods, 1833-2009 and 1960-2009. The recent Greek debt crisis provides a unique opportunity to test whether sustainability tests produce what they ought to produce: We know that the Greek debt is unsustainable, so do the sustainability tests show the same? We use several common approaches such as Johansen approach, DOLS, Engle-Granger approach, Bohn test and finally Trehan-Walsh approach. Our results are mixed and in contrast with our expectations, because the majority of the tests indicate sustainable fiscal policy in both tested periods. One reason for the non-performance of the sustainability tests may be that they do not include information provided by rating agencies (which may not always be rational). Another important limitation of the present value budget constraint is the assumption of infinite growth of the economy. Additionally, the budget deficit is one of the most important fiscal instruments, and based on previous data processes.
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Tracing the Link between Government Size and Growth: The Role of Public Sector Quality
Author: Daniel Oto-Peralías Diego Romero-Ávila
Vol.: 2012.3
Publishing house: i) INFER
Place: Speyer, London
year: 2012
No of pages: 40
ISBN
category INFER Working Paper Series
price EUR
This paper shows evidence of strong heterogeneity in the relationship between government size and growth, depending on the quality of public sector institutions. Focusing on a wide sample of developed and developing countries over the period 1981-2005, we find that government size reduces growth when bureaucracy quality is low, whereas no significant effect is observed for sufficiently high levels of bureaucracy quality. The results hold both in cross-section and panel data analyses and are robust to a large number of robustness checks. These findings have important implications for assessing the role of government size in economic growth.
Files to download:
- cover page: WP 2012_3 - title Oti-Peralias Romero-Avila.jpg
- : WP 2012_3 - Oti-Peralias Romero-Avila.pdf
The validity of Wagner’s Law in Greece during the last 2 centuries
Author: Christian Richter Dimitrios Paparas
Vol.: 2012.2
Publishing house: i) INFER
Place: Speyer, London
year: 2012
No of pages: 20
ISBN
category INFER Working Paper Series
price EUR
In this paper we investigate the long-run relationship between national income and government spending by using Greek data from 1833 until 2010. We use 5 different formulations of Wagner’s law (the long run tendency for government expenditure to expand relative to economic growth) and find that empirical results are supportive for Wagner’s law. The data set span covers a period of almost 2 centuries; the long data set thus ensures the reliability of our results in terms of statistical and economic conclusions. Furthermore, the data set covers the early periods of development of the Greek economy, a period of growth, industrialisation and modernisation of the economy, conditions which should be conducive to Wagner’s law. Our analysis provides evidence of long run relationship between government spending and national income, while the Granger causality tests indicate that causality runs from the national income to spending. Moreover we include tests for structural changes to take into account regime changes that occur over time. Our empirical results are in accordance with other studies examined the validity of Wagner’s law in Greece and in other economies by using long data set.
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Has the Financial Crisis Changed the Business Cycle Characteristics of the GIPSI Countries?
Author: Andrew Hughes Hallett Christian Richter
Vol.: 2012.1
Publishing house: i) INFER
Place: Speyer, London
year: 2012
No of pages: 33
ISBN
category INFER Working Paper Series
price EUR
Since the financial crisis erupted in 2008, the governments of Portugal, Ireland, Italy Greece and Spain (GIPSI) find themselves in a position where financing their debts has become increasingly difficult. As a result, these governments reduced government expenditure and/or increased taxes in order to reduce their deficits. Hence, whilst other countries in the Eurozone – notably Germany - enjoy a recovery from the financial crisis, the GIPSI countries remain in recession. It is therefore no surprise that the business cycles of the northern and southern European countries have increasingly diverged. This in itself poses already a risk for the Eurozone, as it makes the common monetary policy less effective.
In this paper we analyse these business cycles in detail. We ask whether the financial crisis has changed the characteristics of the business cycles of the GIPSI countries. For example, the austerity measures in Greece may lead to a convergence of government spending between Germany and Greece and to greater convergence of business cycles in both countries. If this is the case, then at least there is some hope that the common monetary policy will be more effective in the future. But the austerity measures could also lead to greater divergence between Greece and Germany, in which case leaving the monetary Union would not only be beneficial for Greece. It might be unavoidable.
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CALL FOR PAPERS
INFER Annual Conference 2013
event starting date: 2013-05-29
NEWS
2013-05-06
Invitation to General Meeting
2013-05-06
Reminder INFER Workshops
2013-03-10
MESSAGE TO INFER MEMBERS
PUBLICATIONS
The Impact of European Enlargement on the Direction and Prospects of Brussels Exports
Author: Karolien De Bruyne Jan Van Hove
Publishing house: i) INFER
year: 2012
The Validity of Wagner’s Law in the United Kingdom for the Period 1850-2010
Author: Christian Richter Paparas Dimitrios
Publishing house: i) INFER
year: 2012
Testing the UIP Theory in the CEE Countries. Evidence from the Garch Models
Author: Cristina Maria Triandafil Christian Richter
Publishing house: i) INFER
year: 2012
