Productivity growth in the Greek banking industry: A non-parametric approach

This paper investigates productivity growth and technical efficiency in the Greek banking industry for the period 1982-1997. It also compares the 1982-92 and 1993-97 sub-periods, since after 1992 the Greek banking sector experienced substantial changes. The Malmquist productivity index and the DEA method are used to measure and decompose productivity growth and technical efficiency, respectively. Productivity growth is higher after 1992. Recent growth is mainly attributed to technical progress, while until 1992 growth is mainly attributed to improvements in efficiency. Furthermore, after 1992, pure efficiency is higher, and scale efficiency is lower, indicating that although banks achieved higher pure technical efficiency, they moved away from optimal scale. Finally, Tobit results show that size and specialization have positive effects on both pure and scale efficiency.Greek banking, efficiency, productivity growth, Malmquist index, DEA

Food Price Volatility and Macroeconomic Factors: Evidence from GARCH and GARCH-X Estimates

This article examines food price volatility in Greece and how it is affected by short-run deviations between food prices and macroeconomic factors. The methodology follows the GARCH and GARCH-X models. The results show that there exists a positive effect between the deviations and food price volatility. The results are highly important for producers and consumers because higher volatility augments the uncertainty in the food markets. Once the participants receive a signal that the food market is volatile, this might lead them to ask for increased government intervention in the allocation of investment resources and this could reduce overall welfare.relative food prices, volatility, macroeconomic factors, GARCH and GARCHX models, Demand and Price Analysis, Marketing, E60, Q10, Q19,

Greek meat supply response and price volatility in a rational expectations framework: A multivariate GARCH approach

This paper examines supply response models in a rational expectations framework for each one of the four major Greek meat markets, i.e. beef, broiler, lamb and pork. A multivariate GARCH model with Cholesky decomposition is used to incorporate price volatility into the rational expectations supply response model for each meat category and as a result the conditional covariance matrix remains positive definite without imposing any restrictions on the parameters. The empirical results confirm the existence of rational behaviour by meat producers in the four examined markets and indicate that price volatility is a major risk factor in Greek meat production while feed prices and veterinarian medicine prices are both important cost factors. Furthermore, the last Common Agricultural Policy reform is found to have a negative impact on the beef and lamb production in Greece.meat supply, price volatility, rational expectations, MGARCH., Agricultural and Food Policy,

Measuring market power in the Greek food and beverages manufacturing industry

This paper measures the degree of market power of the Greek food and beverages manufacturing industry over the period 1983–2007 at the three-digit SIC level. The present study also estimates the “deadweight” loss and the reduction of consumers’ income due to the possible existence of market power in the Greek food and beverages manufacturing industry. Based on Bresnahan’s (1989) conjectural variation model, three different approaches are used to investigate competitive conditions of the Greek food and beverages manufacturing industry. The first approach assesses the extent of market power of the whole industry over the period 1983–2007; the second approach tests the degree of market power in each one of the nine sectors of the industry over the whole period, i.e. 1983–2007; and the third one estimates the extent of market power for the whole Greek food and beverages manufacturing industry for specific sub-periods of the period 1983–2007. The methodology of Dickson and Yu (1989) is adopted to measure the welfare losses. The empirical results indicate the presence of some degree of market power in the whole Greek food and beverages manufacturing industry as well as in each one sector of the industry during the period 1983– 2007 and, as a result, the existence of welfare losses. In addition, the empirical findings support the presence of some degree of market power for each sub-period of the period 1983– 2007 in the whole Greek food and beverages manufacturing industry and the existence of welfare losses.Conjectural variation, Greek food and beverages manufacturing industry, Market power, Welfare losses, Agribusiness, D43, D60, L66, Q10,

Commodity Food Prices: Review and Empirics

The present paper provides a literature review of studies examining the potential causes and consequences of recent surges in food and agricultural commodity prices. Furthermore, this paper uses the structural trend methodology proposed by Koopman et al. (2009) to analyze movements in the IMF monthly commodity food price index for the period 1992(11)–2012(10) and to provide forecasts for the period 2012(11)–2014(12). The empirical results indicate that commodity food prices present seasonality and cyclicality with the longest periodicity of two years. The empirical findings identify certain structural breaks in commodity food price series as well as outliers. These structural breaks seem to capture the trend component of the price series well, while the outliers take account of temporal effects, that is, short-lived spikes. Finally, the presented forecasts show high and volatile commodity food prices

Assessing the asymmetric volatility linkages of energy and agricultural commodity futures during low and high volatility regimes

This study investigated the volatility linkages between energy and agricultural futures, including possible causes for these co-movements, such as external macroeconomic and financial shocks during low and high volatility regimes. A combination of Markov-switching regressions and quadrivariate VAR-DCC-GARCH and VAR-BEKK-GARCH modelling revealed that external shocks have an asymmetric effect on the relationship of these assets with higher cross-correlations reported during high volatility regimes. This co-movement effect outweighs the substitution effect between energy and agricultural products. Furthermore, the quadrivariate VAR-BEKK-GARCH model provides strong evidence of a bidirectional price volatility spillover between the agricultural and energy markets during periods of high volatility. Overall, the results suggest that energy futures can be effectively used for hedging in a portfolio comprising agricultural futures (and vice versa), while a combination of macroeconomic and financial index futures can serve as an effective hedging tool in investment portfolios comprising both energy and agricultural commodities

Empirical Analysis of Agricultural Commodity Prices, Crude Oil Prices and US Dollar Exchange Rates Using Panel Data Econometric Methods

This study examines the long-run relationship between crude oil prices, US dollar exchange rates and the prices of thirty selected international agricultural prices and five international fertilizer prices using panel econometric methods with and without unobserved heterogeneous effects on data sets of the period from June 1983 to June 2013. The empirical results indicate that in the long run the impact of crude oil price changes on agricultural prices is positive and statistically significant, while the impact of US dollar exchange rate changes is negative and statistically significant. Furthermore, the effect of US dollar exchange rate changes on commodity prices is stronger than that of crude oil price changes. The present study estimates the speed of adjustment of agricultural commodity prices towards the long-run equilibrium and the empirical results indicate that agricultural commodity prices adjust slowly towards the long-run equilibrium. Furthermore, the results of this study indicate that when unobserved heterogeneous effects with common factors are considered, the effects of oil prices and US dollar exchange rates on agricultural commodity prices are much weaker than in the case in which such effects are not considered. Finally, the persistent movements of agricultural prices are mostly attributed to the first common factor, which is closely related to the US dollar exchange rates, while the short-lived deviations of agricultural commodity prices away from their long-run equilibrium level might be due to the remaining four stationary common factors, which are capturing factors affecting the world supply and demand conditions of the international agricultural prices.       Keywords: Agricultural commodity prices; Oil prices; Exchange rates; Panel cointegration; Panel error correction; Unobserved heterogeneity; Common factors JEL Classifications: C01; C32, O1

Investigating market structure of the Greek food and beverages manufacturing industry: A Hall-Roeger approach

This paper investigates the market structure of the Greek food and beverages manufacturing industry over the period 1984–2007 at the three-digit SIC level. Based on the Hall-Roeger approach (1995), three models are used to investigate the competitive conditions in the industry. The first model (Hall-Roeger model) assesses the markup in the whole industry over the period 1984–2007. The second model (HallRoeger cross-sectional model) tests the extent of the markup for each of the nine sectors of the industry over the period 1984–2007, whereas the third (Hall-Roeger time-series model) estimates the markup for the whole industry for certain sub-periods of the period 1984–2007. The present paper also investigates factors affecting the markup in the Greek food and beverages manufacturing industry during the period 1984–2007. The empirical results indicate that the whole Greek food and beverages manufacturing industry, as well as each sector of the industry, operates in non-competitive conditions during the period 1984–2007. Furthermore, the industry operates in non-competitive conditions for certain sub-periods of the period 1984–2007. The findings also support the view that the sector size, capital intensity and the number of establishments influence the markup in Greek food and beverages manufacturing during the period 1984–200

Africa's Performance in Leaving No Child Behind in Poverty

How is Africa performing in leaving no child behind in poverty? Disparities exist in child poverty issues across countries: millions of children’s lives are blighted for no other reason than the country, the community, the gender, or the circumstances into which they are born. Due to uneven progress, we compared under-five mortality rates (U5MR), primary school enrolment (PSE), and child underweight (CU) across country clusters of low and middle income, and low U5MR and high U5MR in Africa. Endogeneity issues led to the use of Three Stages Least Squares simultaneous equations, and we applied elasticity to allow direct comparisons between elasticities across country clusters. African countries in low income and high U5MR clusters are far from leaving no child behind. These clusters display common causes of child poverty, including low gender parity index, low PSE, high CU, high numbers of out-of-school children, and poor governance. The estimated elasticities indicate that ethnolinguistic fractionalisation (women’s access to credit) and CU have the greatest effect on U5MR (child poverty), while crop production index (CPI), U5MR and CU have the greatest effect on PSE. CPI and female enrolment in secondary and vocational school have the greatest effect on CU. These findings imply that economic and social policies should consider allocating more resources to low-income and high-U5MR countries. Furthermore, the results tend to point to agriculture as a solution to child poverty issues in Africa. This occurs through an enabling environment for women in agriculture to access productive resourcesPeer reviewe

Child poverty, status of rural women and education in sub Saharan Africa

Africa’s disadvantaged children are often rural, malnourished, out of school, child brides or child labourers. Moreover, they tend to have illiterate mothers who have been denied access to productive resources. Our objective is to analyse the factors affecting child poverty. To this end, we studied the endogenous variables of under-five mortality rate, primary-school enrolment and child underweight. Endogeneity led to the use of Three Stages Least Squares simultaneous equations and fixed effects methods. The estimated elasticities indicate that female employment in agriculture has the greatest effect on under-five mortality rates, while the crop production index exerts the greatest effect on primary school enrolment and child underweight. The elasticity ranking demonstrates that what is at issue is not the effect of education on reducing child poverty or the effect of child poverty on reducing education, but the improvement of the status of women, particularly in the agricultural sector. Furthermore, policies for long-lasting solutions should highlight institutional quality as a prerequisite in child poverty reduction and present children and women with equal opportunities to satisfy basic needs and access productive resources.Peer reviewe