Smooth Transition Regression Models in UK Stock Returns

This paper models UK stock market returns in a smooth transition regression (STR) framework. A variety of financial and macroeconomic series are employed that are assumed to influence UK stock returns, namely GDP, interest rates, inflation, money supply and US stock prices. STR models are estimated where the linearity hypothesis is strongly rejected for at least one transition variable. These non-linear models describe the in-sample movements of the stock returns series better than the corresponding linear model. Moreover, the US stock market appears to play an important role in determining the UK stock market returns regime.smooth transition regression models, linearity tests, forecasting, stock returns.

Environmental Kuznets curves for carbon emissions: A critical survey

The empirical finding of an inverse U-shaped relationship between per capita income and pollution, the so-called Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC), suggests that as countries experience economic growth, environmental deterioration decelerates and thus becomes less of an issue. Focusing on the prime example of carbon emissions, the present article provides a critical review of the new econometric techniques that have questioned the baseline polynomial specification in the EKC literature. We discuss issues related to the functional form, heterogeneity, “spurious” regressions and spatial dependence to address whether and to what extent the EKC can be observed. Despite these new approaches, there is still no clear-cut evidence supporting the existence of the EKC for carbon emissions.

Income inequality and growth: A regime-switching approach.

This paper explores the methodology of regime-switching in the analysis of the income inequality-economic growth relationship. The underlying idea is that when some income determinant passes a certain threshold introduces a new relationship between inequality and income and/or income determinants. There are three implications of the estimated models. First, inequality decreases with economic growth when government consumption as share of GDP is ‘low’. Second, in a ‘low’ inflation environment government consumption increases inequality. Third, in countries with ‘strict’ rule of law openness to international trade and government consumption are associated with lower inequality, while financial development implies higher inequality.Kuznets curve, regime-switching, growth determinants, thresholds

Regime-switching behaviour in European

This paper examines the empirical relationship between five European stock market indices and the US market in a smooth transition regression (STR) framework. Due to globalization of economies the motivation is that the New York market has exerted substantial influence on international markets in post-October 1987 period. The results show that the US market plays indeed an important role and determines stock market asymmetric behaviour in Europe, though non-linearity is not particularly strong.smooth transition regression models, linearity tests, stock returns.

Smooth ‘inverted-V-shaped’ & smooth ‘N-shaped’ pollution-income paths

We explore the idea of regime switching as a new methodological approach in the analysis of the emission-income relationship. A static smooth transition regression model is developed with fixed-effects. The basic idea is that when some threshold is passed, then the economy could move smoothly to another regime, with the emission-income relationship being different between the old and the new regime. We motive our methodology by proving that the quadratic or cubic polynomial model used in the literature derives from the smooth transition regression specification. The methodology is applied a panel dataset on US state-level sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxide emissions covering 48 states over the period from 1929 to 1994. We find robust smooth N-shaped and smooth inverse-V-shaped pollution-income paths for the sulfur dioxide. For the nitrogen oxide emissions environmental pressure tends to rise with economic growth in the early stages of economic development then slows down but does not decline with further income growth.Environmental Kuznets Curve, smooth transition regression, regime switching, thresholds

Leading indicator properties of the US corporate spreads

The focus of this paper is on the leading indicator properties of high-yield corporate spreads regarding the level of real economic activity. This is motivated by both the financial accelerator mechanism underlying business cycle fluctuations as suggested by Bernanke and Gertler (1989). We examine the out-of-sample forecast performance of the high-yield spreads regarding employment and industrial production in the US, using both a point forecast and a probability forecast exercise. Our main findings suggest the use of few factors obtained by pooling information from a number of sub sectors high-yield credit spreads. This can be justified by observing that there is a substantial gain from using a Dynamic Factor fitted to credit spreads compared to the prediction produced by benchmarks, such as an AR and ARDL models, where the exogenous regressor is either the term spread, or the aggregate high-yield spread.credit spreads, dynamic factor, forecasting

Testing for two-regime threshold cointegration in the parallel and official markets for foreign currency in Greece

This paper models the short-run as well as the long-run relationship between the parallel and official markets for US dollars in Greece in a threshold VECM framework. Modeling exchange rates within this context can be motivated by the fact that the transition mechanism is controlled by the parallel market premium. The results show that linearity is rejected in favour of a TVECM specification, which forms statistically an adequate representation of the data. Two regimes are implied by the model; the “typical” regime, which applies most of the time and the “unusual” one associated with economic and political events t hat took place in Greece during the 1980s. Another implication is that in the parallel exchange rate there are strong asymmetries between the two regimes in the speed of adjustment to the long-run equilibrium. Finally, Granger causality runs from the official to the parallel market in both regimes but not vice versa.Parallel market premium, nonlinearity, threshold cointegration, regime switching,

Regime Switching and the Shape of the

We explore the idea of regime switching as a new methodological approach in the analysis of the emission - income relationship. We formalize the idea by using a simple static model of profit maximization where above a threshold income level a more stringent environmental policy induces a decreasing emission-income relationship. At the empirical level we estimate such a regime switching model and we find an inverse-V-shaped emission - income relationship. .Our findings are in line with the original papers in this literature. We estimate thresholds which can be viewed as turning points, and which occur at reasonable values.Environmental Kuznets Curve, environmental policy,

Major Directions in Populism Studies: Is There Room for Culture?

The article highlights the absence of a cultural dimension in the academic literature of populism and advocates in favor of studying grassroots social movements as the primary milieu where culture interacts with populist mobilization. Beginning with an original classification of existing schools of thought on populism that uses the historical figure of William Jennings Bryan as a conceptual yardstick, it moves on to lay out a framework for cultural analysis through the lens of collective action frame theory, based on an understanding of populism as a discursive mode of political identification