Remittances and the Dutch disease in Sub-Saharan Africa. A Dynamic Panel Approach

This paper investigates the effect of remittance inflows on the real exchange rate in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) using annual data from 1980 to 2008 for 34 SSA countries, generalised method of moments by Arellano and Bover (1995) andfeasible generalised least squares by Parks (1967) and Kmenta (1971, 1986). We find that when cross-sectional dependence and individual effects are controlled for, remittances to SSA as a whole appreciate the underlying real exchange rate ofrecipient countries. However the Dutch-disease effect is not experienced via the loss of export competitiveness, because the exchange rate appreciation is mitigated by monetary policy positioning and overdependence on imports due to low levels of domestic production in these countries. We also find reverse causality between remittances and the real exchange rate.Dutch disease, remittances, real exchange rate, Sub-Saharan Africa

Intertemporal portfolio allocation and hedging demand: an application to South Africa

This paper analyses the intertemporal hedging demand for stocks and bonds in South Africa, the United Kingdom and the United States. The analysis is done using an approximate solution method for the optimal consumption and wealth portfolio problem of an infinitely long-lived investor. Investors are assumed to have Epstein-Zin-Weil-type preferences and face asset returns described by a first-order vector autoregression in returns and state variables. The results show that the mean intertemporal hedging demands for stocks are considerably smaller in SA than in the UK or the US, whilst the mean intertemporal hedging demand for bonds are not significantly different from zero in any of the countries considered. Furthermore, it is found that stocks in the US and the UK do not present a useful hedging opportunity for an investor in SA, nor do SA stocks present a useful hedging opportunity for investors from the UK or the US

The impact of oil price on South African GDP growth : A Bayesian Markov Switching - VAR analysis

Abstract: One characteristic of many macroeconomic and financial time series is their asymmetric behaviour during different phases of a business cycle. Oil price shocks have been amongst those economic variables that have been identified in theoretical and empirical literature to predict the phases of business cycles. However, the role of oil price shocks to determine business cycle fluctuations has received less attention in emerging and developing economies. The aim of this study is to investigate the role of oil price shocks in predicting the phases of the South African business cycle associated with higher and lower growth regimes. By adopting a regime dependent analysis, we investigate the impact of oil price shocks under two phases of the business cycle, namely high and low growth regimes. As a net importer of oil, South Africa is expected to be vulnerable to oil price shocks irrespective of the phase of the business cycle. Using a Bayesian Markov switching vector autoregressive (MS-VAR) model and data for the period 1960Q2 to 2013Q3, we found the oil price to have predictive content for real output growth under the low growth regime. The results also show the low growth state to be shorter-lived compared to the higher growth state

Impact of oil price volatility on state-level consumption of the United States: The role of oil dependence

In this study, we analyse the impact of oil price uncertainty (as measured by an observable measure of oil price volatility, i.e. realised volatility) on United States state-level real consumption by accounting for oil dependency. We account for both the long- and short-run dynamics of the state-level consumption function using the panel Pooled Mean Group estimator. The analysis makes use of a novel dataset including housing and stock market wealth at the state level covering the quarterly period 1975:Q1 to 2012:Q2, supplemented with an annual dataset up to 2018. We simultaneously estimate the long-run relationship and short-run impact of oil price volatility at the state-level conditional upon their oil dependency. We find that the negative impact of volatility is most severe for the states of Wyoming, Alaska and New Mexico, while the negative impact is least for Illinois, New York and Nebraska. States with lower per capita income and consumption expenditure, notably in the Southeast and Southwest region of the country are exposed to be more vulnerable to the negative impact of adverse developments and uncertainty in the oil market, as they may have less access to a stock of wealth and other means as recourse. Heterogenous responses, therefore, necessitate additional state-level response besides the national response to oil uncertainty

Testing the Out-of-Sample Forecasting Ability of a Financial Conditions Index for South Africa

Après le « Corps témoin du religieux : preuves et épreuves » qui avait fait l’objet des séminaires de 2011 et 2012, le CIER (Centre interdisciplinaire d’Etude du Religieux), créé en 2006 dans le cadre de la MSH de Montpellier, a commencé au cours de l’année 2013 à explorer une nouvelle thématique : « Le fait religieux interrogé par les chercheurs. Constructions disciplinaires ». Il nous avait semblé opportun de faire un « pas de côté », laissant pour un temps la précision des objets circonscr..

CAPITAL MOBILITY IN SUB-SAHARAN AFRICA: A PANEL DATA APPROACH

In this paper we are primarily concerned with assessing the degree of capital mobility in sub-Saharan Africa. Using the methodology as proposed by Feldstein and Horioka (1980)-later termed the "Feldstein-Horioka puzzle"-we test the hypothesis of perfect capital mobility against the alternative of imperfect capital mobility. Following Vamvakidis and Wacziarg (1998) and Isaksson (2000), provision is made in our model to show the dependency of the lesserdeveloped countries on international finance and aid and how a more open economy contributes towards improving the level of capital movement in these countries. We also assess the change in the degree of capital mobility over the time period in an effort to see whether institutional and political changes have been successful. We show that, compared to the region, South Africa is, to a large extent, more developed and should therefore play a leading role in the "African Renaissance". Copyright 2005 Economic Society of South Africa.

Remittances and the Dutch Disease in Sub-Saharan Africa: A Dynamic Panel Approach

This paper investigates the effect of remittance inflows on real exchange rates in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) using annual data from 1980 to 2008 for 34 countries, the method of moments estimator developed by Arellano and Bover (1995) and the feasible generalized least squares estimator developed by Parks (1967) and Kmenta (1986). We find that when cross-sectional dependence and individual effects are controlled for, remittances to sub-Saharan Africa as a whole increase the underlying real exchange rates of recipient countries. However, this real exchange rate appreciation is mitigated by monetary policy interventions and the direction of fiscal expenditures towards tradable goods. Thus, the real exchange rate appreciation does not lead to the loss of export competitiveness or a worsening of the trade deficit in the countries in the panel

TESTING FOR PPP USING SADC REAL EXCHANGE RATES

This paper attempts to provide evidence indicating that the purchasing power parity (PPP) puzzle is becoming less of a puzzle. It present the results of Augmented Dickey-Fuller test, non-linear tests of non-stationarity and Bayesian unit root tests, applied to 10 Southern African Development Community countries. The Bayesian tests were found to be biased in favour of a trend stationary model in all cases. It is argued that non-linear approaches to exchange rate adjustments are likely to provide a firmer basis for inference and stronger support for the PPP in the long-term. This is more so at 1 and 5% levels of significance. Copyright (c) 2009 The Authors. Journal compilation (c) 2009 Economic Society of South Africa.

The impact of disaggregated oil shocks on state-level consumption of the United States

We analyse the impact of oil supply, global economic activity, oil-specific consumption demand and oil inventory demand shocks on state-level consumption of the United States (U.S.) over the period of 1975:Q1 to 2012:Q2. We find that positive economic activity shocks and oil production shocks (associated with increase and decrease in oil prices, respectively) increase consumption growth. At the same time, oil-specific consumption and inventory demand shocks raise oil prices and reduce the growth rate of state-level consumption. Across the shocks, the strongest effect originates from the global demand shock. In addition, our above observations are virtually invariant to the degree of oil dependency (oil consumed minus oil produced as a ratio of oil consumed) of the states. Our results have important policy implications