The evaluation of the USD currency and the oil prices : a Var analysis

Dollar devaluation creates a huge problem in the world oil industry, leading to a vast decrease in the revenues of the oil producers, though the local oil producers use the local currencies to operate and the oil price is evaluated in dollars. The depreciation of the US dollar reduces the effect of the high prices in oil, making it rather cheap for all the countries and especially for the Eurozone area. The record high exchange rate of the Euro vis-à-vis dollar followed by a subsequent high of the crude oil price, suggests on a relation between the price of the oil and the evaluation of the US dollar. The main aim of this research is to construct an restricted Vector Autoregressive estimation model to simulate the relation between the exchange rate of the U.S. dollar and Euro against the West Texas Intermediate (WTI) prices for light crude oil, in connection with the impulse response of the prices to the various shocks. Lastly, a co integration test will illuminate the possibility of simultaneous long term integration along with Granger causality test to estimate the direction of causality in variables.peer-reviewe

International stock markets : a co-integration analysis

This study investigates the degree of co-integration between five major European stock markets and five major non European stock markets. The results show that all five major European stock markets are co-integrated either positively or negatively, while among the five major non European the Canadian, the Japanese and the Singapore are non cointegrated with the others. The results point towards a decreasing number of common stochastic trends influencing the stock markets, i.e. the degree of co-integration between the European stock markets has been increased during the recent decade.peer-reviewe

Investigating the relationship between tax revenues and tax ratios : an empirical research for selected OECD countries

Purpose: Effective tax rates can have dual effect in the economic policy of a country by maintaining the state revenues in sustainable levels providing a safe net for the economic development. If taxation struggles the economy, there should be a turning point were the results of high tax rates do not have the expected results on the state revenue. The parabolic relation of Laffer curve is tested on a data set of different OECD countries. Design/Approach/Methodology: Three different functions have been selected to test the Laffer curve starting from the fact that the relation of revenues with taxes should have a parabolic form, with the turning point to be the peak of the parabola. Findings: The findings suggest that there exists a peak point where taxation policy is not providing the expected revenues. Results suggest that this pattern is common in several countries with different taxation regimes. The effective tax rates are different between the countries. Countries are divided into clusters with the same effective tax rates. The relation of the tax revenue and taxation rates is adjusted with the tax moral of the country. Practical Implications: The results are compared with other possible forms of the relation of revenue and taxes with considerable importance.peer-reviewe

A Quantitative Approach to Measure Tax Competitiveness Between EU Countries

The basic purpose of the study is to find a metric-variable of competitiveness for each country's tax regime and to assess the impact of tax regime differentiation across the common market. A country adopting competitive taxation policies manages to attract productive factors, funds and investments from other intra- and inter-countries. The value added tax (VAT), property tax as well as corporate and personal taxes are examined for the twenty seven (27) European Union (EU) countries. The methods applied consist of Least Square Dummy variable models and the results from the estimations for each one of the aforementioned taxes are integrated into a new total competitiveness taxation index (TCTI), following weighted hierarchical quantitative approaches. Our findings suggest that significant differences still exist between the countries examined and the application of diverse tax regime systems results in various tax performances. Using the above procedure, we also find that subgroups exist within the (27) EU countries and that EU lacks taxation policies with common rules or restrictions. Following the TCTI methodology proposed by this research, a tool for monitoring EU tax regimes is introduced in order to assist in the EU integration to a common tax regime