The use of risk and return for testing the stability of stock markets

The European CentralBank stipulates that a financial system is stable if the financial risks areevaluated and rewarded correctly and if the economic and financial shocks areabsorbed. When analyzing the return and volatility of the stock exchanges we mayascertain that a stock exchange is stable if there is a connection betweenreturn and volatility and if the shocks determined by the new positive andnegative information do not cause significant changes of the volatility. Wetook into consideration the values of the indices of stock markets from Holland(AEX), Belgium (BEL), Romania (BET), Hungary (BUX), Germany (DAX), France(CAC), Czech Republic (PX), Slovakia (SAX), Austria (ATX), Estonia (OMXT),Latvia (OMXR) and Lithuania (OMXV). In order to test the relationship betweenreturn-volatility and volatility asymmetry we estimated a GJR-GARCH-M model.The results confirm the lack of existence of a correlation between return andvolatility for the entire period under analysis and the existence of the volatilityasymmetry

Hip Hop, Religion and the Youth of Romania: A Preliminary Study

For the past two decades, Hip Hop has attained a significant presence in Romania. The fall of Communism as well as growing social unrest has led a growing number of Hip Hop artists to incorporate strong Orthodox and nationalist messages into their lyrics. However, not all Hip Hop fans advocate this stance. This essay argues for an investigation of how Romanian youth respond to the religious and spiritual lyrics in Hip Hop. This mixed-methods study examines whether Romanian youth gravitate toward spiritual-oriented messages or religious-oriented messages and are thus, hardcore listeners or casual listeners. The results of the study highlight Romanian youth’s support of religious/spiritual Hip Hop as well as the ability of religion to foster tolerance

"Let there be light!" Gen. 1:3 in the Interpretation of the Primordial Light

The concept of light occupies a prominent place in most religions and cultures and can be understood both at a literal and a metaphorical level. Ever since antiquity, people have created and, later on, have developed a mutual connection between light and divinity. Noticing that the sun was the one that provided them with light, the people of ancient times came to attribute human qualities to the light in the sky and to serve it. Unlike them, the hagiographers specified from the very first book of the Holy Scripture that light is God"™s creation (Gen. 1:3-5; Is. 45:7) and that it differs significantly from the lights in the vault of the sky (Gen. 1:14-18). The light made by God on the first day of creation to give light to the world is different from the natural light that the sun and the moon shed. Prophet Isaiah underlines this distinction, foretelling a time when the sun will no longer have to shine during the day, as God Himself will be an everlasting light for man (Is. 60:19-20; acc. Rev. 21:23; 22:5). In other words, the Old Testament grants a deep theological dimension to the primordial light, highlighting the fact that its radiance is due to God and that it cannot exist separately from Him. Thus, in this study we shall demonstrate that the uncreated light which was commanded into being by God is nothing else than the radiance of God"™s glory and, implicitly, a manner of revealing the mystery of the uncreated light that overflew the world from the very first day of the text of creation. Keywords: light (of God), darkness, divine grace, the day of the Lord, Hexaemero

GLOBALIZATION AND FOREIGN DIRECT INVESTMENTS

Mobilizing financial resources to cover investment needs is a concern of all countries, developed or developing ones, of consolidated market economies or emerging ones. A distinctive characteristic of Global Economy over the last few decades has been the rising rate and impressive increase in Foreign Direct Investment (FDI). The purpose of this research is to analyse global FDI inflows in Europe and in Romania. The results of the research support the idea that the balance of economic power is changing in the world economy and the countries that own a stable and solid industrial base are at an advantage. The new trends determined by the economic crisis in the field of FDI refer to the growing percentage of developing and emerging countries in the global flows of FDI

The Modeling of the Volatility of Business Cycles in Romania

The latest research highlights the existence of the asymmetry of the volatility of business cycles. In this context, in this paper we firstly aim to test whether the volatility of business cycles in Romania is constant or not and then, according to the identified result we try to model it. For the determination of business cycles of Romania we use the index of the industrial production registered during the period January 2000 – May 2011. The estimation of the business cycles is conducted by means of the Hodrick-Prescot filter. The results obtained confirm that the volatility of business cycles of Romania is not constant and suggest the possibility of taking into account the heteroscedastic models. The estimation of the EGARCH model shows that Romania’s business cycles present an asymmetric volatilit

Strong-field approximation for harmonic generation in diatomic molecules

The generation of high-order harmonics in diatomic molecules is investigated within the framework of the strong-field approximation. We show that the conventional saddle-point approximation is not suitable for large internuclear distances. An adapted saddle-point method that takes into account the molecular structure is presented. We analyze the predictions for the harmonic-generation spectra in both the velocity and the length gauge. At large internuclear separations, we compare the resulting cutoffs with the predictions of the simple-man's model. Good agreement is obtained only by using the adapted saddle-point method combined with the velocity gauge.Comment: 24 pages, 7 figure

Detrending Time Series and Business Cycles. The Romanian Case.

Detrending time series trend is a very important research topic for the economics of economic cycles, yet up to this moment no consensus has been reached on the methods used, which makes it a controversial topic. The papers made on the comparative analysis of time series exclusion trend are based on relatively large samples as to what we have available in Romania. The initiation of the passage to a market economy starting with 1989 meant for Romania changes in statistical records at that time and afterwards, therefore the samples we have available for the study are relatively limited as to samples from developed countries. Moreover, while the analysis for USA is made on values of the gross domestic product at a monthly rate, for Romania the values for the gross domestic product we have available are at most at a quarterly rate since 1998. Our analysis was conducted on the business cycles of variables representing fundamental indicators of the evolution of an economy on a quarterly basis during 1998.1 – 2011.3: gross domestic product, the final consumption, the working hours, the real wages, the productivity and the capital stock. To estimate the business cycles of variables we took into consideration the polynomial functions of time, the first order differences, the Beveridge-Nelson decomposition and Hodrick-Prescott filter. The results obtained are in compliance with the previous research performed on the economies of other countries