A descriptive analysis of economic indicators

Economic indicators

Oil and coal price shocks and coal industry returns: international evidence

This paper examines the effect of energy price shocks on coal sector stock returns and supplements studies evaluating the effect of oil prices on the stock price of oil and gas companies. A 1% increase in coal price return raises coal sector returns by between 0.22% and 0.30%. This result is robust across developed, emerging and differing groups of Asia-Pacific and Pacific countries, and is analogous with findings that a 1% increase in oil price raises the return of oil and gas companies by between 0.14% and 0.38% depending on country and time period studied. Oil price return also significantly influences coal sector return even controlling for coal price return. Relatively large increases in coal and oil price returns have statistically significant and disproportionate effects on raising coal sector returns. Market return, interest rate premium, and foreign exchange rate risk are also significant risk factors for excess coal sector stock returns. The sensitivity of coal sector returns to oil price shocks suggest a role for investment in stocks that rise when energy prices increase in a well balanced portfolio and in pursuing profitable investment strategies. Natural gas price returns do not influence coal sector returns in the presence of coal price returns

Heterogeneous Information and Investment under Uncertainty

A sudden change in investment environment shifts objective uncertainty (characterized by parameters that determine the distribution of returns) and at the same time heightens subjective uncertainty (about the data generating parameters) unevenly across investors. For a given state of economy, the uncertainty facing the investor is the sum of the uncertainty in the data and the uncertainty of the investor's assessment of the expected return distribution. In this model the option value of waiting to invest depends not only on the objective uncertainty as in the traditional theory but varies systematically with investor information and Bayesian updating of outlook for the project. Simulation of the model suggests that during a state characterized by greater uncertainty and higher potential expected return investment will be by an abnormally high percentage of informed investors and may increase overall. For over 10,000 instances of firm-level FDI data for Korea from 1996 to 2001, regression results are consistent with the hypothesis that disproportionably more FDI is made by experienced (hence more informed) investors during heightened uncertainty

Time-varying effect of oil market shocks on the stock market

AbstractA mixture innovation time-varying parameter VAR model is used to examine the impact of structural oil price shocks on U.S. stock market return. Time variation is evident in both the coefficients and the variance–covariance matrix. The standard deviations of the demand side structural shocks reached forty year peaks during the global financial crisis and have remained high since. In the real stock return equation the coefficient of global real economic activity has declined since the late 1990s and that of oil-market specific demand oil shock has been lower since the early 1990s than before. The structural oil shocks account for 25.7% of the long-run variation in real stock returns overall, with substantial change in levels and sources of contribution over time. The contribution of shocks to global real economic activity to real stock return variation rose sharply to 22% in 2009 (and remains 17% over 2009–2012). The contribution of oil-market specific demand price shocks rose unevenly from 5% in the mid-1970s to about 15% in 2007, with a subsequent decline. The contribution of oil supply shocks has trended downward from 17% to 5% over 1973–2012

Oil shocks, policy uncertainty and stock market return

Oil price shocks and economic policy uncertainty are interrelated and influence stock market return. For the U.S. an unanticipated increase in policy uncertainty has a significant negative effect on real stock returns. A positive oil-market specific demand shock (indicating greater concern about future oil supplies) significantly raises economic policy uncertainty and reduces real stock returns. The direct effects of oil shocks on real stock returns are amplified by endogenous policy uncertainty responses. Economic policy uncertainty and oil-market specific demand shock account for 19% and 12% of the long-run variability in real stock returns, respectively. As a robustness check, (domestic) economic policy uncertainty is shown to also significantly influence real stock returns in Europe and in energy-exporting Canada

Structural oil price shocks and policy uncertainty

Increases in the real price of oil not explained by changes in global oil production or by global real demand for commodities are associated with significant increases in economic policy uncertainty. Oil-market specific demand shocks account for 30% of conditional variation in economic policy uncertainty and 21.5% of conditional variation in CPI forecast interquartile range after 24 months. Positive shocks due to global real aggregate demand for commodities significantly reduce economic policy uncertainty. Structural oil price shocks appear to have long-term consequences for economic policy uncertainty, and to the extent that the latter has impact on real activity the policy connection provides an additional channel by which oil price shocks have influence on the economy. As a robustness check, structural oil price shocks are significantly associated with economic policy uncertainty in Europe and energy-exporting Canada

Structural oil price shocks and policy uncertainty

Increases in the real price of oil not explained by changes in global oil production or by global real demand for commodities are associated with significant increases in economic policy uncertainty. Oil-market specific demand shocks account for 30% of conditional variation in economic policy uncertainty and 21.5% of conditional variation in CPI forecast interquartile range after 24 months. Positive shocks due to global real aggregate demand for commodities significantly reduce economic policy uncertainty. Structural oil price shocks appear to have long-term consequences for economic policy uncertainty, and to the extent that the latter has impact on real activity the policy connection provides an additional channel by which oil price shocks have influence on the economy. As a robustness check, structural oil price shocks are significantly associated with economic policy uncertainty in Europe and energy-exporting Canada

Taxation of Domestic Dividend Income and Foreign Investment Holdings

In this paper it is argued that the heavier is domestic taxation of domestic dividend income, the more attractive is foreign investment to domestic agents. Dividend imputation schemes play an important role in this discussion. Dividend imputation eliminates the double taxation of domestic income, reduces the effective tax rate on domestic investment and makes investment in foreign securities less attractive. A fall of 10% in effective tax rate on domestic dividend income reduces foreign equity investment by about 5%. Domestic investors paid dividends under a dividend imputation system receive a credit for the tax paid at the company level and this reduces the effective tax rate. Cross-border equity investment is increased if tax credit rises for taxes paid overseas. Empirical analysis is based on bilateral investments among 23 mature economies over 2001-2011. Results are robust to consideration of the global financial crisis and the role of double taxation treaties