Real exchange rates and current account imbalances in the Euro-area

Global current account imbalances have been one of the focal points of interest for policymakers during the last few years. Less attention has been paid, however, to the growing imbalances within the Euro-area. In the short period since the commencement of the EMU two distinct groups of member state have emerged: those with consistently improving current accounts and those with consistently worsening current accounts. In this paper we consider the dynamics of current account adjustment and the role of real exchange rates in current account determination in the EMU member countries. Monetary union participation, which entails giving up the nominal exchange rate, can make the correction of current account imbalances more cumbersome. While most theoretical models of open economies rely on a causal relationship between real exchange rates and the current account limited, if any, contemporary evidence exist on the empirical validity of this relationship. We find that the above relationship is substantial in size and subject to pronounced non-linear effects. We identify two groups of countries since the abandonment of European national currencies: those with persistent real exchange rate depreciation leading to current account improvement; and those with systematic real appreciation and deteriorating current accounts. These groups largely correspond to those previous research has identified as respectively belonging and not belonging to a European Optimum Currency Area. Our findings validate the theoretical arguments concerning the potential costs of EMU participation and suggest that meeting the nominal convergence criteria has come, in some countries, at the cost of growing current account imbalances. The latter pose policy-response questions for national authorities and the ECB, suggesting that it may be optimal to add to the EMU-accession criteria one referring to the balance of the current account; and highlighting the importance of increasing the flexibility of relative prices to facilitate real exchange rate and current account adjustmentcurrent account, real exchange rate, EMU, nonlinearities

Banking Sector Performance in Latin America: Market Power versus Efficiency

TSince the mid-1990s the banking sector in the Latin American emerging markets has experienced profound changes due to financial liberalisation, a significant increase in foreign investments and greater mergers activities often occurring following financial crises. The wave of consolidation and the rapid increase in market concentration that took place in most countries has generated concerns about the rise in banks’ market power and its potential effects on consumers. This paper advances the existing literature by testing the market power (Structure-Conduct-Performance and Relative Market Power) and efficient structure (X- and scale efficiency) hypotheses for a sample of over 2,500 bank observations in nine Latin American countries over 1997-2005. We use the Data Envelopment Analysis technique to obtain reliable efficiency measures. We produce evidence supporting the efficient structure hypotheses. The findings are particularly robust for the largest banking markets in the region, namely Brazil, Argentina and Chile. Finally, capital ratios and bank size seem to be among the most important factors in explaining higher than normal profits for Latin American banks.Structure-Conduct-Performance; Efficient Structure; Latin American banking; Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA).

The financial development and growth nexus: A meta-analysis

We conduct a meta-analysis of the literature of financial development and economic growth. We cover a large number of empirical studies and estimations that have been published in journal articles. We measure the degree of heterogeneity and indentify the causes of the observed differentiation. Our results suggest that although evidence of publication bias is present, a genuine effect exists between financial development and economic growth.This is the accepted manuscript. The final version is available from Wiley at http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/joes.12086/abstract

Volatility and growth: a not so straightforward relationship

This paper is motivated by the conflicting theories and empirical evidence regarding the relationship between business cycle volatility and economic growth. The average reported effect of volatility on growth is negative, but the empirical estimates vary substantially across studies. We identify the factors that explain the heterogeneity of the estimates by conducting a meta-analysis. Our evidence suggests that researchers' choices regarding the measure of volatility, the control set of the estimated equation, the estimation methods, and the data characteristics play a significant role in the total outcome. Finally, the literature is found to be free of publication bias

Investment, firm-specific uncertainty, and market power in South Africa

© 2020 We examine the role of firms’ market power in affecting the link between firm-specific uncertainty and corporate investment decisions in a small open economy with a pronounced degree of concentration and mark-ups. Using firm-level data from South African-listed firms, we find that corporate investment of firms with low market power and market share responds positively to idiosyncratic uncertainty. A high degree of market power, however, moderates this positive relationship, allowing for delayed investment under conditions of uncertainty. The results are robust to alternative measures of firm-specific uncertainty and firms’ competitive position. The finding of an association between firms’ market power/market share and their capital budgeting decisions under uncertainty calls for effective competition policies

Athree-dimensionalasymmetric powerHEAVYmodel

This article proposes the three‐dimensional HEAVY system of daily, intra‐daily, and range‐based volatility equations. We augment the bivariate model with a third volatility metric, the Garman–Klass estimator, and enrich the trivariate system with power transformations and asymmetries. Most importantly, we derive the theoretical properties of the multivariate asymmetric power model and explore its finite‐sample performance through a simulation experiment on the size and power properties of the diagnostic tests employed. Our empirical application shows that all three power transformed conditional variances are found to be significantly affected by the powers of squared returns, realized measure, and range‐based volatility as well. We demonstrate that the augmentation of the HEAVY framework with the range‐based volatility estimator, leverage and power effects improves remarkably its forecasting accuracy. Finally, our results reveal interesting insights for investments, market risk measurement, and policymaking

Volatility and growth: a not so straightforward relationship

Conflicting theoretical models and diverse empirical evidence characterize research analysing the relationship between business cycle volatility and economic growth. While the average reported effect of volatility on growth is negative, the empirical estimates vary substantially across studies. We identify the factors that explain this heterogeneity in estimates by conducting a meta-analysis. Our evidence suggests that researchers’ choices regarding the measure of volatility, the control set of the estimated equation, the estimation methods, and the data characteristics can all explain the differences in the reported estimates. Finally, the literature is found to be free of publication bias

Corporate pollution and reputational exposure

This is the final version. Available on open access from Wiley via the DOI in this recordWe study the empirical association between corporate pollution and reputational exposure using a sample of 745 U.S. firms from 2007 to 2019 and an ordered probit model. Our results reveal an inverse relationship between chemical emissions and reputational exposure rating, after controlling for various firm attributes. We examine the roles of corporate governance structure and the demographic background of the top management team in the transmission process from polluting chemical emissions to reputation. Further, the negative impact of corporate pollution on reputational exposure rating is much stronger in areas where residents are convinced that climate change is happening. We perform several tests and analyses designed to mitigate endogeneity issues and correct sample bias to ensure the robustness of our findings. Finally, our results suggest that the negative effect is stronger for companies with higher information asymmetry, which indicates the importance of information transparency for firms' credibility