Government solvency: revisiting some EMU countries

Corsetti and Roubini (1991) reported that the government finances of Greece, Ireland, Italy and the Netherlands did not satisfy the intertemporal budget constraint (IBC). We re-examine this issue by utilizing a new empirical approach and extended data set. Structural shifts, an issue which Corsetti and Roubini were unable to address due to the lack of suitable econometric methods, are tackled. We show that: (i) government finances of all four countries satisfy the IBC and this finding is robust to different time horizons; (ii) multiple structural shifts, most of which correspond to important policy changes, did occur in the fiscal path of these countries; and (iii) the overall effect of structural shifts has been to strengthen the evidence supporting IBC. We also find a clear positive Maastricht effect on IBC

Revisiting the forward-spot relation: An application of the nonparametric long-run correlation coefficient

This study revisits the statistical relationship between the spot and the forward rate. Unlike previous studies, this association is measured by the estimation of the long-run correlation coefficient, a non-parametric measure of linear association. This estimator was shown to be equivalent to the Bartlett kernel spectral estimator of the complex coherency at frequency zero. This statistic allows for the measurement of the intensity of correlation. Using data for the £/DM over the May 1992 British General Election and September 1992 ERM devaluation, and for the FF/DM, BEF/DM, AT/DM, and NLG/DM up to the introduction of Euro, the results show that the predictive ability of the forward rate increased. © 2010 Springer Science+Business Media, LLC

Stock returns and expected inflation: evidence from an asymmetric test specification

Stock returns, Expected inflation, Asymmetry, G11, G12,