Advanced economies and emerging markets: Dissecting the drivers of business cycle synchronization

What are the divers of business cycle synchronization within and between advanced and emerging economies at the sector level? This question is addressed by analysing international co-movements of value added growth in a multi-sector dynamic factor model. The model contains a world factor, region factors, sector factors, country factors, and idiosyncratic components. The model is estimated using Bayesian methods for 9 disaggregated sectors in 5 developed economies (G5) and 19 emerging economies for the 1972-2009 period. The results suggest that, while there exists a common ‘regional business cycle’ in the G5, fluctuations in sectoral value added growth are dominated by country-specific factors in the emerging markets. Despite that, the international factor (the sum of world and sector factors) is more important than the region factor, suggesting that the emerging markets are more synchronized with the G5. A simple regression shows that (i) the world factor would be more important the larger the share of agriculture in output; (ii) in more open economies the sector factor is more important in explaining sectoral VA growth fluctuations; (iii) the region factors is more important the richer and the less volatile the economy. Finally, a comparison of the variance of sectoral value added growth accounted for by each factor from the pre- to the post-globalization period shows convergence of the business cycles within the G5 and EM, respectively. The changes in the contribution of the world, sector and region factor are due to changes in the importance of those factors within sectors. However, for the emerging markets, the fall in the importance of the country factors is dominated by changes in the structural composition of the economies. Therefore, the evolution of the structural composition in the emerging markets could be an important driver for more synchronized business cycles at the regional and international level

Sources of Current Account Fluctuations in Industrialized Countries

We analyze the sources of current account fluctuations for the G6 economies. Based on Bergin and Sheffrin’s (2000) two-goods inter-temporal framework, we build a SVAR model including the world real interest rate, net output, real exchange rate, and the current account. The theory model allows for the identification of structural shocks in the SVAR using longrun restrictions. Our results suggest three main conclusions: i) we find evidence in favour of the present-value model of the CA for all countries except France; ii) there is substantial support for the two-good intertemporal model, since both external supply and preferences shocks account for an important proportion of CA fluctuations; iii) temporary domestic shocks account for a large proportion of CA fluctuations, but the excess response of the CA is less pronounced than in previous studies

A Disaggregate Characterisation of Recessions

The Great Recession has inspired renewed interest in analyzing the behaviour of the economy during recession episodes, and how these temporary events can shape the productive structure of the economy for long periods. Most of the existing literature focuses on recessions at the aggregate level. We provide evidence on the behavior of a large set of developed and emerging markets at the disaggregate level around recession dates. We analyze sectoral value added (VA), employment, productivity, concentration, and structural change, and whether patterns arise in a systematic way. We unveil a set of regularities, grouped into 12 stylized facts, about the behaviour of these variables for both sets of countries and depending on the productivity level and the level of external financial dependence of industries. We also distinguish financial from normal recessions. We find that recessions tend to be more industry specific events in emerging markets and economy-wide phenomena in developed economies. Moreover, the amplitude of the cycle for VA and productivity growth is larger for emerging markets. The opposite is generally true for employment growth. Also, industries with high dependence on external finance generally face higher contractions in VA growth the year of the recession, and those contractions are higher in the case of financial than in the case of normal recessions. Finally, concentration of both VA and employment is higher among emerging markets, and especially when looking at employment shares

Financial Contagion in the Laboratory: Does Network Structure Matter?

We explore the role of interbank network structure and premature liquidation costs for the likelihood of financial contagions in a laboratory experiment. We consider complete versus incomplete networks of banks linked together by interbank deposits, and we further vary premature liquidation costs. Subjects play the role of depositors deciding whether or not to withdraw funds from their interconnected bank. We find that when liquidation costs are high, a complete network structure is significantly less vulnerable to financial contagions than an incomplete network structure. However, when liquidation costs are low, network structure is less important for the frequency of financial contagions

The need for an industrial policy for long-term growth

We document and analyse key deficiencies of the Greek economy, with the view to providing new insights and articulate policy proposals. We consider issues which are the purview of both horizontal policies, raising productivity across sectors, and vertical policies, which allow for realignment of activity. With respect to the first dimension, we focus on two specific problem-areas of Greek industry, with high importance: skills and management practices. We also use information from a novel survey on entrepreneurship, technological developments, and regulatory change and examine structural characteristics of innovation and technology adoption of Greek firms, with a focus on the role of size, ownership structure, and global value chain participation. With respect to the second dimension, we provide an overview of Greece’s export performance and analyse its sectoral comparative advantage. In an empirical study we also focus on the determinants of export sophistication. Overall, the collection of our empirical findings provides ample fodder for concrete policy proposals to increase productivity in Greek manufacturing

Commodity price uncertainty comovement: Does it matter for global economic growth?

Global economic activity is surrounded by increasing uncertainties from various sources. In this paper, we focus on commodity prices and estimate a global commodity uncer- tainty factor by capturing comovement in volatilities of major agricultural, metals and energy commodity markets through a group-specific Dynamic Factor Model. Then, by computing impulse response functions estimated using a Structural VAR model, we find that an increase in the common commodity price uncertainty results in a substantial and persistent drop in investment and trade for a set of emerging and advanced economies. We show that a global commodity uncertainty shock is more detrimental for economic growth than usual financial and economic policy uncertainty shocks. Last, our method- ology turns out to be a way to disentangle the macroeconomic effects of "good" and "bad" oil uncertainty: when an oil uncertainty shock is common to all commodities, then the macroeconomic effect is likely to be negative, but when this shock is specific to the oil market, the effect tends to be positive in the short run

Reallocation effects of recessions and financial crises: An industry-level analysis

We characterize the behavior of disaggregate manufacturing sectors for a large set of developed and emerging markets around recession dates. We uncover some relevant stylized facts. The dispersion in value added growth rates in developed economies is counter-cyclical, whereas for emerging countries it is pro-cyclical. Recoveries are more productivity-driven in developed countries as opposed to employment-driven for emerging markets. Around recession episodes sectoral-level misallocation of resources does not significantly change in developed economies, whereas it increases in emerging economies during financial crises. Therefore, there is no evidence that recessions improve the allocation of resources across industries

Current Account Dynamics and the Real Exchange Rate: Disentangling the Evidence

We study the main shocks driving current account fluctuations for the G6 economies. Our theoretical framework features a standard two-goods inter-temporal model, which is specifically designed to uncover the role of permanent and temporary output shocks and the relation between the real exchange rate and the current account. We build a SVAR model including the world real interest rate, net output, the real exchange rate, and the current account and identify four structural shocks. Our results suggest four main conclusions: i) there is substantial support for the two-good intertemporal model with time-varying interest rate, since both external supply and preference shocks account for an important proportion of current account fluctuations; ii) temporary domestic shocks account for a large proportion of current account fluctuations, but the excess response of the current account is less pronounced than in previous studies; iii) our results alleviate the previous puzzle in the literature that a shock that explains little about net output changes can explain a large proportion of current account changes; iv) the nature of the shock matters to shape the relationship between the current account and the real exchange rate, which explains why is it difficult to find a simple statistical relationship between these two variables

Essays in macroeconomic cycles

This thesis is structured around three main essays. The first focused on the sources of current account (CA) fluctuations in industrialized countries. Using a SVAR model with minimal long-run identifying restrictions, we identified external productivity shocks, domestic permanent and temporary output shocks, and demand or preferences shocks. We have found that the present value model (PVM) of the CA is consistent with the behaviour of the data for all countries except for France and the UK, where permanent domestic shocks have a long-run impact on the CA. Preferences shocks and, mostly, external supply shocks appear to play an important role in explaining CA fluctuations. Our model also reduces the degree of excess response of the CA to temporary output shocks found in previous literature. The second essay provides descriptive evidence at a disaggregate level on the behaviour of a large set of developed and emerging markets around recession dates. Using sectoral value added (VA), employment and productivity data, we unveiled a set of regularities for both sets of countries, while grouping industries according their level of productivity and external financial dependence. Also, we distinguished financial from normal recessions. Most importantly, results show that recessions tend to be more industry-specific events in emerging markets and economy-wide phenomena in developed countries. Moreover, the amplitude of the cycle for VA and productivity growth is larger -for emerging markets. Also industries with high dependence on external finance generally face higher contractions in V A, especially in the case of financial recessions. The third and final essay examined the importance of sector-specific factors in explaining business cycles (BC) co-movement, by analyzing international co- movements of VA growth in a multi-sector dynamic factor model. The model contains a World, country-specific, and sector-specific factors, and idiosyncratic components. We estimated the model using Bayesian methods for 30 sectors in the G7 economies for the 1974-2004 period. Our findings show that although there is a substantial role for sector-specific factors, fluctuations are dominated by country- factors. Also, the World factor appears to play a minimal role. Finally, our results suggest that, contrary to the convergence hypothesis, BC at a disaggregate level have not on average become more synchronized at the international level.EThOS - Electronic Theses Online ServiceGBUnited Kingdo

Time-variation in the effects of push and pull factors on portfolio flows: Evidence from a Bayesian dynamic factor model

The extent to which push and pull factors affect international capital flows is widely debated. We contribute to this strand of literature by estimating the relative importance of push and pull factors for portfolio flows over a time span, encompassing the global financial crisis, the European sovereign debt crisis as well as the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic. To do so, we extract common and country-specific components from fund flow data using Bayesian dynamic factor models with time-varying coefficients and stochastic volatility. Assuming that the common component represents push factors and the country-specific component pull factors, we show that (i) time-variation matters and (ii) there is a substantial amount of heterogeneity in the importance of factors across regions (advanced versus emerging market economies) and asset classes (equity versus bonds). We find that the relative importance of push factors for flows into advanced economies has on average increased over time, particularly for EU countries. With respect to flows into emerging market economies, we find very heterogeneous results between individual countries. Moreover, we identify risk measures, US stock market returns, US real interest rates, the US real effective exchange rate and the oil price as important push factors. Pull factors seem to covary with domestic stock market returns, in particular