Search

This paper, using the most recent dataset, examines the government expenditure's effects on the economic growth of Nepal. In doing so, a particular focus is made on disaggregated government expenditures to identify the importance of sector-specific public expenditure. The methodology adopted in this paper considers the scenario of government budget constraints while allocating resources in specific sectors and attempts to find the elasticity of those expenditures in the country's economic growth. The results from the estimation employing Auto-regressive distributed lag (ARDL) approach to cointegration for the data from 1981 to 2020 are threefold. First, both capital and current expenditures in aggregate forms are not the contributors to economic growth unlike our assumption that capital expenditure is more important than current expendtirue for economic grwoth. Second, spending more on education, either in the form of capital or current expenditure, would make a meaningful contribution to accelerating economic growth. Third, the public expenditure in the health sector should be very rational, focusing more on capital health expenditure rather than spending current health expenditure. Therefore, the primary policy recommendation from this study is that Nepal should invest more in education and health. Moreover, spending on education to expand the area with wider coverage and quality logistics and infrastructure are both important, while such expenditure in health is to be focused on solid health logistics and infrastructures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates whether the size of the shadow economy increases income inequality in Uganda. This p3aper applies the autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) bounds testing approach to cointegration, to test the long- and short-run relationship between the shadow economy and income inequality. The results indicate a positive and statistically significant relationship between the size of the shadow economy and income inequality in both the long-run and short-run, all else equal. The results show that a large size of the shadow economy significantly increases income inequality, in both the long- and short-run. This suggests that people who fail to be absorbed into the formal economy face fewer livelihood opportunities, giving them the incentive to operate in the shadow economy as a means of survival, for them and their families since there are fewer chances of success in the formal economy. Our findings suggest that income inequality could be partially driven by increasing informality in the country. The practical implication of these results is that policies aimed at tackling income inequality should also be directed at addressing the underlying factors that drive the shadow economy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the impact of mining foreign direct investment on economic growth in Ghana using quarterly time series data from 1996–2015. The study employs the Autoregressive Distributed Lag bounds testing approach to cointegration and the error correction model to investigate the existence of a long-run and short-run equilibrium relationship between foreign direct investment into the mining sector and economic growth. The study established that foreign direct investment into the mining sector hurts economic growth in Ghana in the long run but a positive in the short run. The study also finds that private sector credit, capital stock, government spending, and labour participation rate have a statistically significant positive relationship with economic growth in the long run. Trade openness exhibited a statistically significant negative long-run relationship with economic growth, while inflation had a positive but insignificant impact on economic growth for the study period. The study recommends that government should encourage research and development in the mining sector and align mining and other environmental policies to ensure sustainable growth. It is further recommended that government tactfully provide investment incentives to ensure the development of other sectors to avoid the Dutch disease. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper sought to explore the effect of capital flight on the economic growth nexus in Ghana. The study used quarterly time series data from 1976 to 2020 to test three hypotheses. The paper used non-linear autoregressive distributive lagged employing unit root test, co-integration test, and Wald test to assess the asymmetrical relationship among the variables. The study posits that both the positive and negative changes in capital flight affect economic growth significantly. Again, the study revealed that capital flight and other macroeconomic variables explain about 75.28% of economic growth. Furthermore, the model can restore the short-run relationship to the dynamic long-long equilibrium at the speed of 35.6%. The study recommends that government economic policymakers build economic confidence by stabilizing economic conditions in the country to reduce the incentives for capital outflows. Further, as a priority, the government must formulate strategies to recover looted public funds by corrupt public officials stacked in foreign accounts and inject them into the economy to boost economic growth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Africa is still struggling to mitigate its electricity insecurity issues. This situation renders foreign direct investment in the renewable electricity industry (FDIREI) and renewable electricity production (REP) to become simultaneously important to Africa. Using a novel dataset of FDIREI, this paper examines the existence and nature of cointegration and causality nexuses among FDIREI, REP, and economic growth (GDP) in 32 African countries over 2003–2019. For methodological robustness purposes; GDP is added. By applying the panel vector autoregression model based-Granger causality test and a static panel data model, which are followed by robustness tests, more informative results are reported. Importantly, we find evidence of the growth hypothesis between REP and GDP, as a unidirectional Granger causality is seen from REP to GDP. Further, the neutrality hypothesis is confirmed among the remaining variables. This left us with the importance of REP in revitalizing African countries' economic growth. All facets of REP thus should be enhanced. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyzes the contribution of foreign direct investment (FDI) to economic growth in Côte d'Ivoire, for the period 1980–2019. We use the World Development Indicators (World Bank) database. The Autoregressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) cointegration approach results show that, in the short and long-run, FDI negatively impacts economic growth in Côte d'Ivoire. We conjecture that these results are due to the predominance of extractive FDI in Côte d'Ivoire. Indeed, the extractive sector is weakly linked to the national economy and is subject to practices of fraud and corruption. Our results also show the importance of education (human capital) in the country's economic growth. All of these findings suggest the need for selective FDI attraction policies, the integration of the enclave extractive sector into the national economy and the strengthening of the education system for a more efficient human capital capable of absorbing and using new knowledge and high technologies transferred by FDI. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper, using the most recent index of financial development as developed in an IMF publication by Svirydzenka, examines the role of overall financial development, financial institutions, and financial markets in the export performance of Nepal employing the Autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) approach of cointegration using the annual datafrom 1980 to 2017. The results show that financial development does not have a strong long-run positive relationship with the export performance of Nepal. Financial institutions and financial markets also indicate a negative association with exports. Therefore, it can be suggested based on the results that there is a need for developing strategies for the proper financial development improving the financial institution quality, and widening the financial market targeting to facilitate more meaningfully to the exporters and manufacturers to boost export performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines the potential relationship between inflation and remittance outflows in Saudi Arabia over the period 1971–2019 by applying the autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) model. As a pioneering study in Saudi Arabia, the paper addresses an important literature gap. The statistical tests reveal the model's reliability and the existence of a long-run equilibrium among the variables. Moreover, the empirical results show a significant negative impact of inflation has on remittance outflows, and the short-run and long elasticities of remittance with respect to inflation are 0.26% and 0.32% respectively. These results suggest that despite the weak elasticity of remittance outflows to the inflation rate, an increase in general prices would reduce remittance outflows in Saudi Arabia. Moreover, we find that the capital investment indicator has a more significant effect on the volume of remittance outflows. Therefore, policymakers in Saudi Arabia should apply appropriate actions to reduce the outflows of foreign workers by urging private companies to hire more Saudi workers, increasing capital investment and encouraging foreign workers, especially those with high incomes, to invest in Saudi Arabia by facilitating their ownership of financial market shares and real estate units. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this paper is to estimate the dynamic impact of trade openness on economic growth in Botswana using the ARDL bounds testing approach. The study employs four different proxies for trade openness, which include trade-based measures and a composite index. The trade-based measures capture the effects of total trade, exports, and imports while the composite index takes country size and geography into account. The use of four different indicators in this study enables a broader analysis of how different forms of trade openness affect economic growth. Evidence from the results points to the significance of total trade and exports in promoting economic growth in Botswana, but also the lack of growth impetus from imports. Specifically, the results reveal that when the ratio of total trade to GDP, the ratio of exports to GDP, and the trade openness index are used as proxies of trade openness, then trade openness has a significant, positive impact on economic growth in both the short run and the long run. However, when the ratio of imports to GDP is used as a proxy for openness, the study fails to find any significant impact of trade openness on economic growth in both the short run and the long run. Based on these findings, this study recommends that Botswana should pursue policies that boost the exports and total trade. However, there is a need for the country to revisit its combination of imports to enable significant growth-enhancing effects from the imports sector. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the long-run equilibrium relationship between economic growth and trade openness in India during the period 1960–2018 using the asymmetric error-correction model with threshold cointegration. To evaluate the robustness impact of trade openness on economic growth under different regimes, we divide the full sample period into two sub-periods, i.e., pre-trade reforms period 1960–1990, and post-trade reforms period 1991–2018. The study indeed confirms the evidence of asymmetric cointegration between economic growth and trade openness in India during the period under evaluation and over the different sub-periods. The estimated asymmetric error-correction model exhibits a different speed of adjustment in trade openness in response to positive and negative economic growth shocks in the short-run. More specifically, during the pre-reforms period, deviations from the long-run equilibrium due to a relative increase in economic growth have a lower speed of adjustment in comparison to deviations caused by a corresponding decrease in economic growth in India. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigated the impact of trade openness on economic growth volatility of Ghana from 1970 to 2013, using cointegration and error correction techniques. Our findings show that both the long and short run economic growth volatility is positively influenced by changes in trade openness. Volatility in domestic credit to private sector, shocks after the economic liberalization and financial openness contributed negative to economic growth volatility in the short run. The major policy implication of our paper is that developing economies should take into consideration their own realities in their trade policies to limit economic growth volatility. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper empirically examines the long-run pass through of the official exchange rates into trade balance in Nigeria by means of threshold cointegration and asymmetric error correction modeling. The study provides evidence for non-linear cointegration between our variables of interest. The estimated asymmetric error correction models provide new evidence for slower transmission of exchange rate depreciations into the country's trade balance, which in turn appears to offer partial support for the Dutch disease hypothesis. This finding suggests that policy-makers cannot hope to use currency devaluation to improve the trade balance. It is recommended that policy-makers focus attention on diversification of the economy away from dependence on crude oil exports into productive manufacturing and non-oil exports, which will be vital in making the economy more competitive. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper investigates the impact of exchange rate depreciation on the balance of payments (BOP) in Nigeria over the period 1961-2012. The analysis is based on a multivariate vector error correction framework. A long-term equilibrium relationship was found between BOP, exchange rate and other associated variables. The empirical results are in favour of bidirectional causality between BOP and other variables employed. Results of the generalized impulse response functions suggest that one standard deviation innovation on exchange rate reduces positive BOP in the medium and long term, while results of the variance decomposition indicate that a significant variation in Nigeria's BOP is not due to changes in exchange rate movements. The policy implication is that exchange rate depreciation which has been preponderant in Nigeria since the mid-1980s has not been very useful in promoting the country's positive BOP. It is recommended that growth in the real sector should be improved to enhance exports, create employment, curb inflation and reduce poverty, while cutting non-productive imports, attracting foreign private investment and implementing well coordinated macroeconomic policies that impact inflation positively and stimulate exchange rate stability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study strengthens the frontiers of research on the drivers of dollarization in emerging economies by exploring the case of Ghana using the autoregressive distributed lag modelling framework. The data for the study spanned from January 2002 to March 2016. The evidence suggests that dollarization shares a common stochastic trend with exchange rates, inflation, interest rate differential, real output, and financial development. The analysis points to the important roles of exchange rate depreciation and financial development in the evolution of dollarization. Whereas depreciation induces a switch to the use of foreign currency, financial development diminishes the trend. Some policy recommendations to curtail the rising dollarization of the Ghanaian economy have been provided. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

AbstractThis paper investigates the impact of mining foreign direct investment on economic growth in Ghana using quarterly time series data from 1996–2015. The study employs the Autoregressive Distributed Lag bounds testing approach to cointegration and the error correction model to investigate the existence of a long-run and short-run equilibrium relationship between foreign direct investment into the mining sector and economic growth. The study established that foreign direct investment into the mining sector hurts economic growth in Ghana in the long run but a positive in the short run. The study also finds that private sector credit, capital stock, government spending, and labour participation rate have a statistically significant positive relationship with economic growth in the long run. Trade openness exhibited a statistically significant negative long-run relationship with economic growth, while inflation had a positive but insignificant impact on economic growth for the study period. The study recommends that government should encourage research and development in the mining sector and align mining and other environmental policies to ensure sustainable growth. It is further recommended that government tactfully provide investment incentives to ensure the development of other sectors to avoid the Dutch disease.

The study examined the effects of agricultural trade openness on economic growth in the EAC. We empirically analyzed the issue in five countries from 2000 to 2021. Panel data estimation methods were used in the study. The variables were found to be integrated of order one and zero. There was presence of cointegration, cross-sectional heterogeneity and cross-sectional dependence. The CS-ARDL results revealed that agricultural trade openness and economic growth enjoyed a long-run relationship. The empirical results indicated that the effect of agricultural trade openness on economic growth was positive and significant in the long run. Bootstrap panel granger causality analysis was applied in testing the nature and direction of causal relationships between variables. The results indicated that a unidirectional causal relationship existed between agricultural trade openness and economic growth. This implies that an increase in trade openness promotes economic growth. Based on the findings of the study, we recommend that strategies aimed at promoting trade openness should be complemented with strong policies to enable EAC countries to reap more growth benefits associated with open trade. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The relationship between financial development and economic growth has been widely debated in the economics literature, but the results have been inconsistent and vary between the short and long run. In this study, we investigate the causal relationship between financial development and economic growth in Ethiopia using annual data from 1980 to 2021. We employ the Toda-Yamamoto causality test and the nonlinear autoregressive distributed lag (NARDL) modeling framework to analyze the data. Our results show that none of the variables are stationary at the level, but after applying first differences, all variables become stationary. Using the Toda-Yamamoto causality test, we find no causality running from financial development to economic growth, but there is evidence of reverse causality from economic growth to financial development. Furthermore, the NARDL model results suggest that economic growth drives financial development, and the relationship between financial development and economic growth in Ethiopia is nonlinear and asymmetric. Specifically, neither positive nor negative shocks to economic growth affect financial development in the short run, but both affect it in the long run and in joint short run and long run effects. We conclude from our study that financial development may not guarantee economic growth without building better institutions and following sound and stable fiscal policies. Consequently, constructing an effective economic growth strategy that maintains financial development is crucial. Our findings have significant implications for policymakers, academics, and investors and underscore the importance of informed decision-making based on a thorough understanding of the relationship between financial development and economic growth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims to investigate the long-run relationship between financial development and economic growth using panel unit root and panel cointegration analysis in 16 selected low-income countries for the period of 20 years from 1995 to 2014. The long-run relationship has been estimated using fully modified and dynamic OLS techniques. The results show that there exists a cross-sectional dependence across the countries. The Pedroni's panel cointegration analysis provides clear support for the hypothesis that there exists a long-run cointegrating relationship between financial development and economic growth. The long-run panel estimates indicate that financial development has a positive and significant impact on economic growth. For the robustness of the results, this paper has also performed time-series analysis on a single country basis. The results also show the positive impact of financial development on economic growth in the majority of the countries. Likewise, it is found that flow of credit to the private sector is very low in this region of the world. Thus, one of the important policy implications of this study finding is that policy-makers should give more emphasis on the policies that provide a favourable environment for private sector to grow. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyses the influence of the real effective exchange rate (REER) and relative prices on South Africa’s import demand function both in the long run and the short run. The ARDL bounds testing approach is employed to test the long-run relationship hypothesis. The estimation of both the long-run and short-run import demand models is based on the ARDL error correction methodology. All the tests are applied to South Africa’s secondary quarterly data covering the period 1980Q1–2014Q4. Real GDP and Foreign reserves were also added to the models as control variables. The Bounds test proved cointegration and the results show that in the long run, South Africa’s import demand is negatively related to the REER, while being positively related to Real GDP (used as a proxy for national income) and relative prices. The coefficient of the relative price variable is greater than 1 in absolute terms, thus also confirming the Marshal Lerner condition. In the short run, import demand is found to be negatively related to the REER, while being positively related to Real GDP, relative prices and the stock of foreign reserves. The result gives hope that a policy aimed at depreciating the currency may help bring down the surge in import demand. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The stable money demand function is a crucial policy tool of the monetary policy of any central bank, which links the monetary sector of an economy to its real sector. Notably, after the global financial crisis of 2007–08, the role of money has come to be envisaged as an essential issue while formulating and conducting the monetary policy, especially at zero lower bound. It is crucial to know whether money demand is stable for inferring a sound monetary policy. To this end, the present study examines the short- and long-run money demand relationship and its stability in India from 2006:Q3 to 2019:Q4. The study has employed a dynamically simulated autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) cointegration approach, which shows a well-specified and stable money demand in India after incorporating the inflation forecast variable as one of the essential determinants along with other covariates. Furthermore, the dynamically simulated impulse response also supports the economic relationship among variables. The current finding of stable money demand implies a policy implication in terms of focusing on monetary aggregate, in the ongoing flexible inflation targeting framework, as one of the essential information or indicator variables, which acts as a long-term assessment of short-term interest rate setting behaviour to achieve the macroeconomic goals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The current study investigates the impact of foreign direct investment on the growth of Namibia's economy from 1990 to 2020 using the ARDL cointegration method. The results reveal that FDI, the interactive variable of FDI and trade openness, and other macroeconomic variables such as domestic investment, government consumption expenditure, human capital, a proxy for economic stability, and return on investment are responsible for Namibia's economic growth. The article confirms the FDI-led growth and the Bhagwati hypotheses for Namibia as shown by the FDI and the interactive variable of FDI and trade openness, respectively. To reap the full benefits of FDI on economic growth in Namibia, the government must focus on improving physical infrastructure and the quality of human resources. It should also facilitate the development of an entrepreneurship culture, create a stable macroeconomic environment, and improve conditions for productive investments to accelerate economic growth and development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study empirically investigates the dynamics of the relationship between import demand and foreign exchange reserves for an oil-rich and high-income developing country, Oman. This study employs the Autoregressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) model to investigate the impact of real income, domestic prices, and foreign exchange reserves on aggregate and disaggregated import demand function. Results reveal that total imports are significantly affected by domestic prices only; whereas, demand for goods import is influenced by income. The level of foreign exchange reserves does not influence import demand function. These findings indicate that currency peg stabilization efforts, foreign asset leakages and varying sources of foreign currency could have weakened the link between foreign reserves and import levels. Considering domestic prices and income, competition and efficient production of local goods and services should be further encouraged, especially concerning ongoing issues like food security. Understanding import dynamics enhances robust import forecasts, international trade planning and policy formulation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines the potential relationship between inflation and remittance outflows in Saudi Arabia over the period 1971–2019 by applying the autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) model. As a pioneering study in Saudi Arabia, the paper addresses an important literature gap. The statistical tests reveal the model’s reliability and the existence of a long-run equilibrium among the variables. Moreover, the empirical results show a significant negative impact of inflation has on remittance outflows, and the short-run and long elasticities of remittance with respect to inflation are 0.26% and 0.32% respectively. These results suggest that despite the weak elasticity of remittance outflows to the inflation rate, an increase in general prices would reduce remittance outflows in Saudi Arabia. Moreover, we find that the capital investment indicator has a more significant effect on the volume of remittance outflows. Therefore, policymakers in Saudi Arabia should apply appropriate actions to reduce the outflows of foreign workers by urging private companies to hire more Saudi workers, increasing capital investment and encouraging foreign workers, especially those with high incomes, to invest in Saudi Arabia by facilitating their ownership of financial market shares and real estate units.

In this paper, we investigate the Harrod–Balassa–Samuelson (HBS) hypothesis in 11 Central and Eastern European transition countries. Unlike previous research, we test the HBS hypothesis with NACE 6 quarterly data which enables us to divide data into tradable and nontradable sectors without requiring unrealistic assumptions on the nature of the data. Contrary to previous results, we are only able to find evidence for univariate HBS effects in Bulgaria, Croatia, Hungary, and Poland. However, using panel cointegration tests, we find strong statistical evidence for the HBS hypothesis within countries and across countries. Our results also demonstrate that cross-country HBS holds under the assumption that the law of one price for tradables does not hold. Finally, we find, contrary to theory, that government consumption negatively impacts relative prices. The policy implications are that failing to acknowledge the peculiarities of the transition process results in suboptimal monetary policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The relationship between trade openness and economic growth has been extensively investigated yielding to mixed and inconclusive results. This might be attributed to the omission of the role of capital stock and labor in the trade-growth nexus. This paper examines the impact of trade openness on economic growth for Cote d’Ivoire over the period 1965–2014 in a multivariate framework including capital stock, labor and trade openness as regressors. It uses the Autoregressive Distributed Lag bounds test to cointegration and the Toda and Yamamoto Granger causality tests. The results show that trade openness has positive effects on economic growth both in the short and long run. Furthermore, they reveal a positive and strong complementary relationship between trade openness and capital formation in promoting economic growth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

World coffee prices may have crucial implications on domestic prices of coffee. However, empirical evidence on the effect of world coffee prices on the price of coffee traded at the Ethiopian Commodity Exchange (ECX) is very scant. The main objective of this study is to analyze the response of the price of coffee traded at ECX to change in world coffee price. Monthly time series data ranging from July 2009 to June 2020 were used to address the objectives of this study. The result of the Kapetanios and Shin unit root test shows that majority of the series are stationary at first difference while some variables are stationary at level. The ARDL bounds test was applied to examine whether co-movement exists between the world coffee price and the price of coffee traded at ECX and the result reveals that the two prices are cointegrated. The nonlinear ARDL was applied to test the presence of asymmetric price transmission from the world coffee price to the ECX coffee price. The result reveals that there is an asymmetric price transmission both in the short-run and long-run. ECX coffee prices respond more to a positive shock in world coffee prices than a negative shock in the same variable. Results from the dynamic ARDL simulations reveal that a counterfactual shock in world coffee price has a long-lasting short-and long-term effect on ECX coffee price. The TY and frequency-domain Granger causality test results indicate that all variables except the exchange rate the world coffee price Granger cause ECX coffee price. The frequency-domain Granger causality test results show that world coffee price, economic growth, and money supply granger cause ECX coffee price in the long-run while trade openness and volume of coffee exported granger cause ECX coffee price in the short term. Policymakers should focus on improving competitiveness and transaction cost prevailing in the coffee market in Ethiopia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Africa is still struggling to mitigate its electricity insecurity issues. This situation renders foreign direct investment in the renewable electricity industry (FDIREI) and renewable electricity production (REP) to become simultaneously important to Africa. Using a novel dataset of FDIREI, this paper examines the existence and nature of cointegration and causality nexuses among FDIREI, REP, and economic growth (GDP) in 32 African countries over 2003–2019. For methodological robustness purposes; GDP is added. By applying the panel vector autoregression model based-Granger causality test and a static panel data model, which are followed by robustness tests, more informative results are reported. Importantly, we find evidence of the growth hypothesis between REP and GDP, as a unidirectional Granger causality is seen from REP to GDP. Further, the neutrality hypothesis is confirmed among the remaining variables. This left us with the importance of REP in revitalizing African countries’ economic growth. All facets of REP thus should be enhanced.

The Japanese economy experienced a prolonged period of quantitative easing (QE) over the five years from March 2001 to March 2006. The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the direct and exclusive effects of this rather unconventional monetary policy on financial markets, economic activity, and labor markets in Japan empirically by employing exactly the same testing period with the QE period in most of our examinations. Using a range of variables, we first estimate vector error correction models (VECMs) that consider the cointegrating relations between the Japanese monetary base and other variables in our data-set. We also use Markov-switching dynamic regression (MSDR) models, Bayesian vector autoregressive (VAR) models, and causality analyses to test for robustness. Together, all the above analyses consistently provide a number of interesting findings. First, QE lowered short- and medium-term credit spreads and improved Japanese credit market conditions. Second, QE increased stock prices in Japan and improved market expectations. Third, the QE policy recovered labor market conditions and economic productivity in Japan. Finally, additional analyses of fund flows and economic survey data suggest that the primary transmission channel of this period of Japanese QE policy was the expectations channel. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the relationship among real GDP, CO2 emissions, and energy use in the six Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries. Using annual data for the years 1960–2013, stationarity, structural breaks, and cointegration tests have been conducted. The empirical evidence strongly supports the presence of unit roots. Cointegration tests reveal the existence of a clear long-run relationship only for Oman. Granger causality analysis shows that for three GCC countries (Kuwait, Oman, and Qatar) the predominance of the "growth hypothesis" emerges, since energy use drives the real GDP. Moreover, only for Saudi Arabia a clear long-run relation has not been discovered. Finally, the results of the variance decompositions and impulse response functions broadly confirm our previous empirical findings. Our results significantly reject the assumption that energy is neutral for growth. Notwithstanding, since the causality results are different for the six GCC countries, unified energy policies would not be the good recipe for the whole area. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study attempts to estimate the optimum government size in the kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) using annual data covering the 1971–2019 period by applying the linear and nonlinear Autoregressive Distributed Lag A R D L Model. The main focus is whether the Armey curve is valid for KSA. The statistical diagnostic tests provide an evidence for the model adequacy and that the estimation results are reliable. Moreover, the ARDL short-run estimation results revealed that the speed of adjustment is (−0.82) indicating that it takes about 14 months to correct toward the long-run equilibrium due to a short-run shock. The NARDL estimation results revealed asymmetric relationship between government expenditures and economic growth. Further, a positive shock has a positive impact while a negative shock reduces economic growth. Based on the long-run estimation results, the optimum government size is 26.9 as a share of GDP, which is greater than the average share (24.2) during the study period. Based on such result, it is obvious that Saudi Arabia has a room to increase the expenditures share up to the optimal size estimated in the study. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In any economy, the financial sector plays a fundamentally important role in achieving economic growth and thus achieving sustainable economic development. Therefore, interest in this sector and the improvement of its performance is considered a strategic goal for any country. Accordingly, this study aims to analyze the short- and long-run impacts of inflation on the development of this sector on the Jordanian economy for the period from 1993 to 2018. To do so, the study uses an auto-regressive distributed lag bound testing approach, which is considered an advanced analytical model. Empirical findings confirmed that there is a statistically significant long- and short-run negative effect of inflation on financial sector development. On the contrary, there is a statistical significant long- and short-run positive impact of economic growth on financial sector performance. In addition, results confirmed that there is a positive support of the previous financial sector policies on financial sector performance in the current period. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study attempts to fill the prior knowledge gap in the nexus between trade openness and economic growth in Nigeria by incorporating the role of institutional quality. The study covers the period from 1984 to 2017 and employs three indicators of trade openness including total trade, import trade, and export trade. Cointegration among the variables is examined using the ARDL bounds testing approach. The results provide evidence of a long-run relationship among the variables. The estimates suggest that export trade has a significant positive impact on economic growth while the impact of import trade on economic growth is negative and significant. The results also show that the negative long-run effects of import trade on economic growth in Nigeria decreases as institutional quality (quality of governance) improves. These empirical results have important policy implications for Nigeria. Among others, this study highlights the needs to improve the quality of governance in the country. Good governance and quality institutions can help channel the dividends of trade openness into growth-enhancing activities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this paper is to estimate the dynamic impact of trade openness on economic growth in Botswana using the ARDL bounds testing approach. The study employs four different proxies for trade openness, which include trade-based measures and a composite index. The trade-based measures capture the effects of total trade, exports, and imports while the composite index takes country size and geography into account. The use of four different indicators in this study enables a broader analysis of how different forms of trade openness affect economic growth. Evidence from the results points to the significance of total trade and exports in promoting economic growth in Botswana, but also the lack of growth impetus from imports. Specifically, the results reveal that when the ratio of total trade to GDP, the ratio of exports to GDP, and the trade openness index are used as proxies of trade openness, then trade openness has a significant, positive impact on economic growth in both the short run and the long run. However, when the ratio of imports to GDP is used as a proxy for openness, the study fails to find any significant impact of trade openness on economic growth in both the short run and the long run. Based on these findings, this study recommends that Botswana should pursue policies that boost the exports and total trade. However, there is a need for the country to revisit its combination of imports to enable significant growth-enhancing effects from the imports sector.

Based on the present value model for stock prices, we utilise a pooled mean group estimator for panel ARDL cointegration to estimate the long-run relationship between G7 stock prices and macroeconomic variables over the last 40 years. We find a positive long-run relation between stock prices, industrial production and consumer prices as well as a negative relationship with real 10-year interest rates. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To find out if gold remains to be unlinked with the crude oil market after the 2008 financial crisis, we investigated how long-run price linkages and price causalities among crude oil and gold markets changed before and after the crisis. To have a good reference, we also tested the same issue for the oil-platinum relationship. Using the cointegration methods, we found little evidence that gold began to have a price linkage with the crude oil market after the 2008 financial crisis. Conversely, we identified a long-run relationship between the crude oil and platinum markets after the crisis. Hence, we found that compared to the platinum market, the gold market remained unlinked with the oil market after the 2008 financial crisis indicating that it continued to be independent of the crude oil market. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigates the nexus between shadow banking, bank risk and monetary policy in emerging economies. The importance of this topic arises from its impact on the relationship between price and financial stability objectives of the regulator. In essence, the existence of financial market channels of monetary policy distorts the dichotomy between price and financial stability objectives of central banks. We employ panel cointegration techniques and find a negative association between monetary policy and shadow banking. Specifically, an increase in the central bank policy rate results in a decrease in shadow bank asset growth. In addition, we find a positive association between shadow banking and bank risk. Monetary policy effectiveness increases when bank risk is high. In sum, our results show that shadow banks are an element of the bank risk-taking channel of monetary policy. We suggest policy coordination between monetary and macro-prudential policy, and close monitoring of shadow banking activities to reduce risky undertakings in the financial sector. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The last two decades have seen a sharp increase in shadow banking activities in both advanced and emerging economies. Shadow banks have therefore become an important part of financial markets due to their credit creation and capital allocation roles. This study investigates the impact of shadow banking on firm profitability in South Africa and evaluates the linkages between shadow banking and real economic activity. We employ single-equation cointegration methods and three measures of firm profitability in our analyses, and several macroeconomic and bank-specific variables are used as control variables. Our results are mixed showing that shadow banking has a negative impact on traditional banks' profitability whilst on the other hand it positively impacts non-financial firms and the overall measures of firm profitability. Our results indicate that both non-financial firms and non-bank financial institutions could be benefiting from the expansion in shadow banking activities. Targeted, functional regulation is suggested in order to promote economic activities in the shadow banking sector whilst at the same time limiting possible risks that may arise. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article investigates price transmission mechanism and volatility impact between Chinese cornstarch futures market and relevant markets through Johansen cointegration test, VEC model and GARCH model. The empirical results indicated that the Chinese cornstarch futures price could guide cornstarch spot price uni-directionally and there are long-term cointegration relationships between them. There is a co-integration and bi-directional lead relationship between cornstarch futures price and corn futures price. The launch of cornstarch futures market can slightly reduce volatility of domestic corn futures market. However, the launch of cornstarch futures market has no significant impact on the spot market. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The relationship between trade openness and economic growth has been extensively investigated yielding to mixed and inconclusive results. This might be attributed to the omission of the role of capital stock and labor in the trade-growth nexus. This paper examines the impact of trade openness on economic growth for Cote d’Ivoire over the period 1965–2014 in a multivariate framework including capital stock, labor and trade openness as regressors. It uses the Autoregressive Distributed Lag bounds test to cointegration and the Toda and Yamamoto Granger causality tests. The results show that trade openness has positive effects on economic growth both in the short and long run. Furthermore, they reveal a positive and strong complementary relationship between trade openness and capital formation in promoting economic growth.

The Japanese economy experienced a prolonged period of quantitative easing (QE) over the five years from March 2001 to March 2006. The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the direct and exclusive effects of this rather unconventional monetary policy on financial markets, economic activity, and labor markets in Japan empirically by employing exactly the same testing period with the QE period in most of our examinations. Using a range of variables, we first estimate vector error correction models (VECMs) that consider the cointegrating relations between the Japanese monetary base and other variables in our data-set. We also use Markov-switching dynamic regression (MSDR) models, Bayesian vector autoregressive (VAR) models, and causality analyses to test for robustness. Together, all the above analyses consistently provide a number of interesting findings. First, QE lowered short- and medium-term credit spreads and improved Japanese credit market conditions. Second, QE increased stock prices in Japan and improved market expectations. Third, the QE policy recovered labor market conditions and economic productivity in Japan. Finally, additional analyses of fund flows and economic survey data suggest that the primary transmission channel of this period of Japanese QE policy was the expectations channel.

The paper investigates the impact of exchange rate depreciation on the balance of payments (BOP) in Nigeria over the period 1961–2012. The analysis is based on a multivariate vector error correction framework. A long-term equilibrium relationship was found between BOP, exchange rate and other associated variables. The empirical results are in favour of bidirectional causality between BOP and other variables employed. Results of the generalized impulse response functions suggest that one standard deviation innovation on exchange rate reduces positive BOP in the medium and long term, while results of the variance decomposition indicate that a significant variation in Nigeria’s BOP is not due to changes in exchange rate movements. The policy implication is that exchange rate depreciation which has been preponderant in Nigeria since the mid-1980s has not been very useful in promoting the country’s positive BOP. It is recommended that growth in the real sector should be improved to enhance exports, create employment, curb inflation and reduce poverty, while cutting non-productive imports, attracting foreign private investment and implementing well coordinated macroeconomic policies that impact inflation positively and stimulate exchange rate stability.

In this study, we investigate the existence of long-term co-movements among the prices of commodity futures contracts. We use a cointegration test, which accounts for the presence of a structural break. We show that while there is a long-term relationship among agricultural and among non-agricultural commodity futures prices when a structural break is taken into account, there is no such relationship without allowing for a structural break. We also show that these break points, in fact, occur a few months before the recent global financial crisis. Although the previous literature broadly casts doubt on such price co-movements, our results confirm that market performance improved during the sample period. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The existing literature finds conflicting results on the magnitude of price linkages between equity mutual funds and the stock market. The study contends that in an optimal lagged model, the expectations of future prices using knowledge of past price behaviour in a particular equity mutual fund category will improve forecasts of prices of other equity mutual fund categories and the stock market index. The evidence shows that the long-run pricing of equity mutual funds are cointegrated with the stock market index. In the short-run, the results indicate that some equity mutual fund categories possess both long-run and short-run exogeneity with the stock market. Therefore, the short-run dynamic indicates short-run Granger causal links running between different equity mutual fund categories. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigates the causal relationship between poverty reduction and foreign direct investment (FDI) inflows in South Africa using time-series data from 1980 to 2014. The main objective of this study is to establish the direction of causality between FDI and poverty reduction, which is important to policy-makers as it identifies which variable to target first. Gross domestic product is included as an intermittent variable giving a trivariate framework. Employing the autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) bounds testing approach to cointegration and ECM-based causality tests, the results from this study reveal a distinct unidirectional causality from poverty reduction to FDI in both the short run and the long run when poverty reduction is measured by life expectancy and infant mortality rate. However, the study failed to find any causality, irrespective of the time considered, when poverty reduction is measured by household consumption expenditure. It can be concluded therefore, that the causal relationship between FDI and poverty reduction is sensitive to the proxy used to measure the level of poverty reduction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For over a decade now, various efforts have been put in place by various governments of the developing economies to promote economic growth, financial development and expand trade with mixed results. The ability of financial development and/or trade openness to influence economic growth in the developing economies has been a subject of hot debate and remains inconclusive. While a number of scholars are of the view that compelling cointegration exists among each of these constructs, another set of substantial authors have documented that economic growth, trade openness and financial development do evolve independent of each other. Drawing from four financial developments–growth nexus theories, this study used the ARDL bound estimation techniques to examine the existence of cointegration among economic growth, financial development and trade openness in Nigeria. We intend to know what policy instruments need to be manipulated so as to achieve economic growth and financial stability. Our results show that a two-way cointegration exists between economic growth and financial development, on the one hand, as well as between economic growth and trade openness, on the other hand. We therefore recommend that in order to achieve economic growth, policy-makers should pursue strong financial development and increase trade openness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The study investigates the status of international capital mobility in West Africa using the saving retention coefficient of Feldstein–Horioka hypothesis. The hypothesis is predicated on the fact that, with perfect capital mobility, domestic investment does not depends on domestic savings but depends on the pool of international savings. Panel data on domestic savings and domestic investments of 13 West African countries, spanning from 1980 to 2011 are used to run a series of long-run relations. After establishing the presence of cointegration relationship between the two variables, the saving retention coefficient is estimated using the pooled mean group (PMG), fully modified OLS (FMOLS) and the dynamic OLS (DOLS). The results from these long-run estimators show low value of saving retention coefficient, signifying low association between domestic savings and domestic investment and hence higher capital mobility in West Africa. The result also confirmed that the Feldstein–Horioka puzzle does not hold for West Africa. However, the presence of free and higher capital mobility in the continent could be a signal that the use of monetary policy in domestic economic stabilization is increasingly becoming ineffective, especially in the long-run. The finding suggests the establishment of monetary union in the region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this study, the causal nexus between child mortality rate, fertility rate, GDP, household final consumption expenditure, and food production index in Ghana was investigated spanning from 1971 to 2013 using the Autoregressive and Distributed Lag (ARDL) method. The study tested for unit root, ARDL bounds cointegration test, ARDL long-run elasticities, Granger causality, and Variance Decomposition Analysis using Cholesky technique. There was evidence of long-run equilibrium relationship running from fertility rate, food production index, GDP, and household final consumption expenditure to the mortality rate. There was evidence of a bidirectional causality running from household final consumption expenditure to fertility rate. Evidence from the Variance Decomposition Analysis shows that, almost 6% of future fluctuations in mortality rate are due to shocks in the food production index, while 2% of future fluctuations in mortality rate are due to shocks in fertility rate. Evidence from the study shows that the increasing levels of social determinants like Gross Domestic Product and Household final consumption expenditure will help reduce child mortality rates in Ghana. In order to reduce child mortality rates among children under-5, infants and vulnerable in Ghana, there is the need to end hunger and ensure access to safe and nutritious food. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]