The determinants of foreign direct investment: a panel data study for the OECD countries

This study examines panel data evidence concerning empirical relevance between Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) attraction and its determinative effects. The main bulk of FDI is among the developed countries. Indeed, OECD countries has probably been the most potential group in undertaking FDI by caring out about 95% of the total outward FDI while, on average, 75% of the world FDI was directed into OECD countries. In this paper, we first present and analyse the theoretical/empirical findings on FDI, then we focus on assessing the relative significance of the factors that may attract FDI via a panel data regression analysis for a sample consisting of 20 OECD countries for 23 years (1975-1997). Our findings suggest that certain variables such as human capital and trade regime, as well as, the density of infrastructure appear to be robust under different specifications. Positive significance of the agglomeration factor is also observed, confirming the relevant theoretical propositions. However certain deferential variables, such as the governmental policy effect, could not be fully captured due to the statistical homogeneity of the sample

Testing The Convergence Hypothesis Using Time Series Techniques: The Case Of Greece 1971-1996

Over the last five years, few issues have proven more controversial in empirical economics than the so-called convergence hypothesis.  This paper considers the issue of convergence across Greek regions, using time series techniques.  Our empirical results support the popular view prevailing in Greece about the existence of dualism across the Southern and Northern regions of Greece.  A possible explanation for this may be the lack of experience that the poor countries (like Greece) have in comparison with the rich ones.  The rich countries have the combined ability to educate themselves as they grow rich and the endogenous ability to accumulate the knowledge upon which these efforts are made.  Also, the same argument can be used as an explanation for the regional differences -the fact that the poor regions do not have previous experience and knowledge for efficient investments

Essays on economic growth: convergence, financial development, education and uncertainty

This dissertation deals with the issue of economic growth, specifically with the examination of the determinants of economic growth, from both a theoretical and empirical perspective. The first chapter introduces the issue and summarizes the main results. The dissertation is divided into three parts. The first part comprises of two chapters (chapters 2 and 3) considering the issue of per capita income convergence. The first chapter presents the theoretical background and re-examines the convergence debate among the neoclassical and endogenous growth models while the second chapter examines empirically the convergence hypothesis using both cross-sectional and time series econometric techniques for the case of Greek regions. The second part comprises of three chapters examining the unexplained factors affecting economic grwoth. The two first chapters (chapters 4 and 5) of this part deal with the neglected role of finance and financial intermediation in the process of economic growth of a country. One chapter presents the theoretical literature on this subject. Most of the empirical studies on the determinants of economic growth use cross-country analysis. Such an analysis, however, ignores dynamic information that can explain part of the variation in growth rates. In our empirical analysis, which is conducted in the fifth chapter, we employ time series techniques for the examination of the relationship among financial development and economic growth, using UK data. The third chapter of the second part (chapter 6) examines empirically the role of education, for the case of the greek economy. Finally, the last part examined the role of uncertainty on economic growth. Specifically, chapter 7 deals with the role of uncertainty steming from political instability on UK's economic growth using time series data and techniques while chapter 8, considers the role of uncertainty on investments and economic growth examining empirically its effects for a panel of 59 developed and developing countries

Political instability and stock market returns: Evidence from OECD countries

This paper examines the relationship between political instability and stock market returns using quarterly time series data from 1993 to 2013. In this paper, stock market returns are defined as the returns of the general stock market index and banking index for 18 OECD countries. Five different political instability indicators are constructed in order to measure political uncertainty. The empirical part utilizes the EFA, PCA and GARCH-M methodologies. The findings indicate a direct and an indirect impact between the PI indicators and the returns of the Banking Index and the Overall Stock Market Index. The research contributes to the literature by providing empirical evidence to policy makers on the effects that political instability has on stock markets

Does ESG investing pay-off? An analysis of the Eurozone area before and during the Covid-19 pandemic

We examine whether the stock return performance of 620 Eurozone companies based on their environmental, social and governance (ESG) ratings both before and during the Covid-19 pandemic on both a nominal and risk adjusted basis. We also look at how country level governance indicators interact with our samples of ESGHigh and ESGLow companies to affect both nominal and risk adjusted investment returns. We use both panel data and cross-sectional regressions as well as the difference-in-differences approach to derive the empirical results. We generally find some evidence that highly rated ESG firms performed slightly worse than lower rated ESG both overall and during the pandemic. However, once we control for governance at the country level, we find that in high governance scoring countries ESGHigh companies perform better than ESGLow companies. Finally, when we examine the relative performance of EU companies compared to companies in economies less impacted by the Covid-19 pandemic, namely South Korea and Australia, we find that during the pandemic, the South Korean and Australian companies performed much better than their counterparts in Europe

Exchange rate volatility and international trade: International evidence from the MINT countries

This paper examines the effect of exchange rate volatility on international trade volumes for Mexico, Indonesia, Nigeria, and Turkey. We use volatility predicted from GARCH models for both nominal and real effective exchange rate data. To detect the long-term relationship we use the autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) bound testing approach, while for the short-term effects, Granger causality models are employed. The results show that, in the long term, there is no linkage between exchange rate volatility and international trade activities except for Turkey, and even in this case, the magnitude of the effect of volatility is quite small. In the short term, however, a significant causal relationship from volatility to import/export demand is detected for Indonesia and Mexico. In the case of Nigeria, unidirectional causality from export demand to volatility is found, while for Turkey, no causality between volatility and import/export demand is detected

Public Debt and Economic Growth: Panel Data Evidence for Asian Countries

This study examines the relationship between public debt on both short and long-run economic growth, in a panel of selected Asian countries for the period of 1980-2012. We employ several econometrics methods: pooled mean group, mean group, dynamic fixed effects and also allow for common correlated effects. The impact of a change in public debt is also analysed using asymmetric panel ARDL method. Our results indicate that an increase in government debt is negatively associated with economic growth in both the short and long-run

The Behaviour of Banking Stocks During the Financial Crisis and Recessions. Evidence from Changes-in-Changes Panel Data

This paper examines the impact of the financial crisis and economic recessions on bank shares compared to the overall stock market index for 18 OECD countries from 1993 to 2015. The empirical methodology utilizes the changes-in-changes approach. We compare and contrast the returns of the bank ing stock price index (treatment group) in each country with their general stock price index (control group), which experiences smaller changes. Our results suggest that bank returns on average perform significantly worse than that of the general stock pr ice index during recessions. In addition we also find significantly greater volatility in bank share returns