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Purpose: This paper explores whether data back the claim that imports of armaments are inherently bad for economic growth. Regardless of one's point of view, the production and trade of weaponry is a significant industry with serious economic implications that warrant investigation. The financial repercussions of military spending have been extensively studied, but the economic effects of arms importation remain unknown. Design/methodology/approach: This study adopts a pooled mean group approach to investigate the nexus between arms imports, military expenditure and per capita GDP for a balanced panel of twenty-five of the top arms importers in the world from 2000 to 2021. Findings: The authors find that arms imports and military spending negatively impact GDP per capita in the short run, but military spending is beneficial over the long run. The authors also used the Dumitrescu Hurlin Granger causality test, which revealed a unidirectional causation between per capita GDP and military expenditure, and a unidirectional causal relationship from military spending to arms imports. Research limitations/implications: This paper is deficient in a few aspects: first, it looks at only those countries comprising the top 70% of arms imports. Second, it omits many political, technological and legal factors that impact arms imports and military expenditures. Originality/value: This paper looks into the impact of defense spending and arms imports on economic growth for twenty-five nations with the highest share of arms imports in recent times. It is a significant addition to the literature as it resolves the debate of whether or not the military expenditure is wasteful and whether arms imports significantly harm the nation's economic growth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: The literature mostly investigates the business cycle transmission of the United Kingdom (UK) and France as a part of a wider group (e.g. European Exchange Rate Mechanism or G7), despite their historical links and regional significance. Thus, herein paper aims to analyse the inter-dependence of these economies and how a shock from one of them affects the other for the data since 1978 to 2019. Design/methodology/approach: In this paper, first, preliminary statistics were calculated in order to describe the historical relationship between these countries. The econometric part estimates the vector auto-regression model (VAR) to assess the inter-dependence of the economies. VAR model allows further to inspect the impulse response functions that shows the shock dynamics from one country to another. In order to verify if a shock from one of the economies is important to another, the study uses granger causality test. Findings: The study establishes a strong link between these countries. A business cycle is transmitted significantly between the economies of France and UK, with a single standard deviation shock from France resulting in a long term effect of 0.4% change in gross domestic product (GDP) of UK and 1% vice versa. Additionally changes in GDP of both of the countries significantly Granger-cause change to GDP of the corresponding economy. Originality/value: This is the first empirical study investigating the business cycle transmission between France and UK and providing a quantitative assessment of their inter-dependence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: Since financial sector plays a critical economic role in Hong Kong, the current research aims to comprehensively analyze the association between financial development and economic growth in the country to draw correct conclusions about the impact that financial sector's development has on the growth of the economy. This requires both using of more comprehensive data that includes all or nearly all elements of the country's financial sector and utilizing advanced econometrics techniques to provide more reliable evidence based on the findings. In the study, both issues have been addressed more academically to aid the relevant authorities better. Design/methodology/approach: This study empirically examines the financial development-economic growth nexus in Hong Kong employing data covering 1980–2019. The quantile-on-quantile (QQ) approach of Sim and Zhou (2015) is utilized to investigate certain subtle aspects of the association linking financial development and economic growth. In addition, the authors benefit from applying the nonlinear Granger causality test of Diks and Panchenko (2006) to assess the variables' nexus in a nonlinear manner. Findings: In contrast to the evidence of a unidirectional linkage documented in many related studies, the empirical findings suggest that a bi-directional relationship exists between financial development and economic growth for Hong Kong. This is a helpful input for the relevant policymakers and implies that they can set appropriate policies and regulations to balance financial development and economic growth in this country. Originality/value: The originality of this study can be divided into two parts. Methodologically, unlike past studies that utilized mostly linear and parametric methods, the paper contributes to the literature by applying the more robust nonparametric and nonlinear methodologies. Theoretically, most researchers have used various financial development indicators, which led to very different conclusions. Therefore, this study attempts to resolve this deficiency in the literature by using a more comprehensive index for financial development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to examine the impact of remittance inflows (remittances) on electricity consumption and electric power losses in Jamaica. Design/methodology/approach: The authors use annual data from 1976 to 2014 and apply vector error correction modelling, Granger causality testing and impulse response analysis. Findings: First, the authors find that there is co-integration between remittances and the energy variables, namely electricity consumption and electric power losses. Second, short-run Granger causality exists between the energy variables and remittances. This causality is bidirectional between the energy variables and positive changes in remittances, but it is unidirectional running from the energy variables to negative movements in remittances. Third, the authors find that in the long-run remittances have a negative relationship with electric power losses and a positive relationship with the consumption of electricity. Practical implications: Findings from this paper will help to elucidate the relationship between electricity consumption, and electric power losses, and remittances. Social implications: The problem of electric power losses is acute in Jamaica and it is mostly due to theft. At the same time, Jamaica receives significant remittances. Social policy could have a role to encourage the use of remittances to help stem the theft of electricity. Originality/value: This is the first study that examines the relationships between remittances, electricity consumption and electric power losses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: The primary purpose of this study is to examine whether the classification of industries into the tradable and nontradable matters for the Balassa–Samuelson (BS) effect. Design/methodology/approach: The study uses annual data for 38 countries from 1995 to 2014. To examine whether the classification of industries matter, the study proceeds with two approaches, that is, "traditional" and "benchmark". Findings: First, by applying panel cointegration tests of Pedroni and Westerlund, the results validate the BS hypothesis. However, the coefficients of long-run elasticities show appreciation of real exchange rate (RER) due to increase in productivity in the case of "traditional approach", whereas depreciation of RER in the case of "benchmark approach". Second, by applying the Dumitrescu-Hurlin panel Granger causality test, the results reveal the bi-directional causality among RER and productivity for both the approaches. Further, to provide more insights, the study employs a fixed-effects panel threshold model. The results indicate that increase in productivity leads to both appreciation and depreciation of RER depending on threshold regimes. Practical implications: The study ascertains that the evidence of BS effect depends on the choice of approach considered. However, irrespective of the classification, there exists a BS effect beyond a threshold. Originality/value: Although the BS effect is well established in the literature; there is no study examining the importance of classification of industries at a disaggregated level. Furthermore, there is no consideration of threshold effects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to explore the effect of growth in different sectors of the economy of developing countries on income inequality and analyze how inflation, as a proxy for monetary policy, makes a proportionate contribution for setting a binding national target for reducing income inequality. The paper examines the existence of a linear or nonlinear effect of inflation and sectoral economic growth on income inequality using a balanced panel data of 92 developing countries for the period of 1990–2014. Design/methodology/approach: Methods section includes several steps as below: first, the functional form of the model using panel data for investigating the contribution of economic sectors in income inequality; second, to estimate the relationship between income inequality and sector growth: testing the Kuznets hypothesis; third, to estimate the relationship between inflation and income inequality base on general functional form of the model proposed by Amornthum (2004); fourth, a panel Granger causality analysis based on a VECM approach. Findings: The statistically significant finding shows that first agricultural growth and then industrial growth have a dominate impact in reducing income inequality in our sample. But, the service sector growth has positive effects. The results confirm the existence of Kuznets inverted "U" hypothesis for industry growth and Kuznets "U" hypothesis for service sector growth. The findings show that sector growth and inflation affect income inequality in the long-run. Originality/value: This research is an original paper which analyzes the effect of growth in different sectors of the economy of developing countries (agriculture, manufacturing and services sectors) on income inequality and test the Kuznets hypothesis in terms of sector growth and at the same time, examine the existence of a linear/nonlinear effect of inflation and sectoral economic growth on income inequality and test Granger causality relationship between income inequality and sector growth and inflation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to identify the arbitrage opportunities between US industry-level credit and stock markets with a focus on dynamic lead-lag relationships given that these markets involve heterogeneous agents operating over various time horizons.Design/methodology/approach The authors use daily data of 11 US industries stock markets and their credit counterparts to model the dynamic dependence and casual nexuses using time-frequency approach, namely, wavelet squared coherence (WTC).Findings The WTC estimation results show that credit and stock markets are out of phase (counter cyclical) and stock markets lead their credit counterparts. The coherence between two markets increases during financial crises. The banks (utilities) industry credit and stock markets have relatively high (low) dependence.Research limitations/implications The casual nexuses between stock and credit markets have multilateral dimensions. Greater interest in examining the relationship between stock markets and credit default swap (CDS) spreads emerged as an important albeit a complex area of research, and gained prominence especially at the onset and following the global financial crises of 2007-2008 which clearly showed that the positive views of CDSs contribution in creating a resilient and efficient financial sector was nothing further from the truth.Practical implications The arbitrage and hedging opportunities between stock and credit markets are industry dependent and vary over investment time horizons. The utilities industry seems attractive for the investment with the objective to exploit arbitrage, but not for hedging.Originality/value The paper, for the first time, employs time-frequency approach to assess the arbitrage opportunities between US industry-level credit and stock markets. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose -- The purpose of this paper is to examine asymmetric co-integration effects between nutrition and economic growth for annual South African data from the period 1961-2013. Design/methodology/approach -- The authors deviate from the conventional assumption of linear co-integration and pragmatically incorporate asymmetric effects in the framework through a fusion of the momentum threshold autoregressive and threshold error correction (MTAR-TEC) model approaches, which essentially combines the adjustment asymmetry model of Enders and Silkos (2001); with causality analysis as introduced by Granger (1969); all encompassed by/within the threshold autoregressive (TAR) framework, a la Hansen (2000). Findings -- The findings obtained from the study uncover a number of interesting phenomena for the South Africa economy. First, in coherence with previous studies conducted for developing economies, the authors establish a positive relationship between nutrition and economic growth with an estimated income elasticity of nutritional intake of 0.15. Second, the authors find bi-direction causality between nutrition and economic growth with a stronger causal effect running from nutrition to economic growth. Lastly, the authors find that in the face of equilibrium shocks to the variables, policymakers are slow to responding to deviations of the variables from their co-integrated long run steady state equilibrium. Originality/value -- In the study, the authors make a novel contribution to the literature by exploring asymmetric modelling in the correlation between nutrition intake and economic growth for the exclusive case of South Africa. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose – In all existing theoretical papers on causality it is assumed that the lag length is known a priori. However, in applied research the lag length has to be selected before testing for causality. The purpose of this paper is to suggest that in investigating the effectiveness of various Granger causality testing methodologies, including those using bootstrapping, the lag length choice should be endogenized, by which we mean the data-driven preselection of lag length should be taken into account. Design/methodology/approach – The size and power of a bootstrap test with endogenized lag-length choice are investigated by simulation methods. A statistical software component is produced to implement the test, which is available online. Findings – The simulation results show that this test performs well. An application of the test provides empirical support for the hypothesis that the UAE financial market is integrated with the US market. Social implications – The empirical results based on this test are expected to be more precise. Originality/value – This paper considers a bootstrap test for causality with endogenous lag order. This test has superior properties compared to existing causality tests in terms of size, with similar if not better power and it is robust to ARCH effects that usually characterize financial data. Practitioners interested in causal inference based on time series data might find the test valuable. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationship between stock prices and exchange rates in 12 OECD countries. Design/methodology/approach – The authors examine the nexus of stock prices and exchange rates for 12 OECD countries by using the vector error correction model, the bounds testing methodology and linear and non-linear Granger causality methods. Findings – The empirical results substantiate that a long-run level equilibrium relationship among the exchange rates and stock prices exists in only seven out of twelve countries. The results of the linear causality tests indicate that significant short-run and long-run causal relationships exist between the two financial markets. The results of the tests for non-linear Granger causality suggest that unidirectional and bidirectional non-linear causal relationships exist between stock prices and exchange rates among these OECD countries. Originality/value – The findings from this paper suggest the causal relationships between stock prices and exchange rates are not only linear, but also non-linear. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]