Does financial activity cause economic growth?

To clarify the causal links between financial activity and economic growth, three theoretical models are analyzed and a structural equation path models is estimated. In the modeling part, poverty traps result from large fixed costs or high proportions of real investment to run a financial sector. Human capital allocated to financial activities will improve long-run levels but may reduce growth rates in the short run. Empirically, based on data for 93 countries during the 198090 period, it is shown that during the 1980s finance was predominantly a supply-leading determinant of economic growth. Our analysis suggests, however, that this general finding cannot be confirmed for the less developed countries, thereby giving some support to the conclusions derived from the theoretical modeling. --financial development,economic growth,financial sector,causality

Sovereign risk in a structural approach: Evaluating sovereign ability-to-pay and probability of default

We quantify the probability that a sovereign defaults on repayment obligations in foreign currency. Adopting the structural approach as first introduced by Merton, we consider the sovereigns ability-to-pay, characterised by the sum of discounted future payment surpluses, as the underlying process. Its implicit volatility is inferred from market spreads. We demonstrate for the case of Latin America and Russia that our approach indicates default events well in advance of agencies and markets. --Sovereign Risk,Probability of Default

Deriving the term structure of banking crisis risk with a compound option approach: The case of Kazakhstan

We use a compound option-based structural credit risk model to infer a term structure of banking crisis risk from market data on bank stocks in daily frequency. Considering debt service payments with different maturities this term structure assigns a separate estimator for short- and long-term default risk to each maturity. Applying the Duan (1994) maximum likelihood approach, we find for Kazakhstan that the overall crisis probability was mainly driven by short-term risk, which increased from 25% in March 2007 to 80% in December 2008. Concurrently, the long-term default risk increased from 20% to only 25% during the same period. --Banking crisis,bank default,option pricing theory,compound option,liability structure

The cost efficiency of German banks: a comparison of SFA and DEA

We investigate the consistency of efficiency scores derived with two competing frontier methods in the financial economics literature: Stochastic Frontier and Data Envelopment Analysis. We sample 34,192 observations for all German universal banks and analyze whether efficiency measures yield consistent results according to five criteria between 1993 and 2004: levels, rankings, identification of extreme performers, stability over time and correlation to standard accounting-based measures of performance. We find that non-parametric methods are particularly sensitive to measurement error and outliers. Furthermore, our results show that accounting for systematic differences among commercial, cooperative and savings banks is important to avoid misinterpretation about the status of efficiency of the total banking sector. Finally, despite ongoing fundamental changes in Europe?s largest banking system, efficiency rank stability is very high in the short run. However, we also find that annually estimated efficiency scores are markedly less stable over a period of twelve years, in particular for parametric methods. Thus, the implicit assumption of serial independence of bank production in most methods has an important influence on obtained efficiency rankings. --Cost Efficiency,Banks,Stochastic Frontier Approach,Data Envelopment Analysis

The Spatial Agenda Karlsruhe

The Karlsruhe Spatial Agenda is a comprehensive plan for the entire city (Fig. 1) and its future spatial development, jointly developed and supported by citizens, select committees and administration. It wasadopted by the council at the end of 2016 and thereby gained binding status. The Spatial Agenda defines parameters for future planning decisions and provides guidance for planning practice. It covers the range from abstract visions to specific plans. Administration and elected members refer to the Spatial Agenda in making objectives and decisions fully transparent

Country Default Probabilities: Assessing and Backtesting

We address the problem how to estimate default probabilities for sovereign countries based on market data of traded debt. A structural Merton-type model is applied to a sample of emerging market and transition countries. In this context, only few and heterogeneous default probabilities are derived, which is problematic for backtesting. To deal with this problem, we construct likelihood ratio test statistics and quick backtesting procedures. --Sovereign default,Country risk,Default probability,Likelihood ratio test

Sovereign risk in a structural approach: Evaluating sovereign ability-to-pay and probability of default

We quantify the probability that a sovereign defaults on repayment obligations in foreign currency. Adopting the structural approach as first introduced by Merton, we consider the sovereigns ability-to-pay, characterised by the sum of discounted future payment surpluses, as the underlying process. Its implicit volatility is inferred from market spreads. We demonstrate for the case of Latin America and Russia that our approach indicates default events well in advance of agencies and markets

Contagion of currency crises: Some theoretical and empirical analysis

This paper investigates contagion effects. In a model with highly and lowly informed investors we show that a currency crisis in one country can trigger a crisis in another country. Portfolio losses of the highly informed investors in one country will force them to withdraw capital from the other country. The behavior of the lowly informed investors multiplies this effect and the other country becomes more and more vulnerable. In the empirical part we focus on the Asian crisis (1997/98). Using a LOGIT approach we can show that contagion, in the sense of a crisis not explainable by economic fundamentals but by exchange rate losses resulting from investment in other countries, seems to have caused the currency crises of the Philippines and especially of Singapore. --Contagion,Currency crises,Asian crisis

Does financial activity cause economic growth?

To clarify the causal links between financial activity and economic growth, three theoretical models are analyzed and a structural equation path models is estimated. In the modeling part, poverty traps result from large fixed costs or high proportions of real investment to run a financial sector. Human capital allocated to financial activities will improve long-run levels but may reduce growth rates in the short run. Empirically, based on data for 93 countries during the 1980-90 period, it is shown that during the 1980s finance was predominantly a supply-leading determinant of economic growth. Our analysis suggests, however, that this general finding cannot be confirmed for the less developed countries, thereby giving some support to the conclusions derived from the theoretical modeling

Size and Development of the Shadow Economy and of Do-it-yourself Activities in Germany

This paper presents the first MIMIC (multiple indicator multiple causes) model estimate of the size and development of the shadow economy and of do-it-yourself (DIY) activities in Germany from 1970 to 2005. By 2005, they reached a level of about 17% and 4.94%. While the shadow economy has regularly increased over the years, DIY activities – though quite sizeable – have remained more or less constant since the early 1990s. The driving forces for the shadow economy are regulation and tax burden whereas for DIY activities, the level of unemployment is the main factor.shadow economy, do-it-yourself activities, tax burden, regulation, domestic currency in circulation, unemployment, MIMIC models