Impact of fiscal integration on eurozone members (The case of Slovakia)

The eurozone is both a unique project and an unprecedented case in the history of monetary unions. It has the characteristic of a single monetary policy but with sixteen national fiscal policies. The national fiscal policy measures that are aimed at compensating for the absence of a more complete fiscal union have been orientated mainly toward domestic fiscal policy and follow domestic fiscal policy discipline. The aim of the paper is to outline polemical views on fiscal integration, identify potential forms of deeper fiscal integration and simulate its impact on the integration of the Slovak economy using the computable general equilibrium (CGE) model. The collected evidence shows that either deeper fiscal integration taking the form of transfers or a common European tax would be beneficial for the eurozone Member States. Member States would thus have a tool to address unexpected developments in and asymmetric shocks to the eurozone.

Is Financial Innovation Bestowed or a Curse for Economic Sustainably: The Mediating Role of Economic Policy Uncertainty

The study’s motivation is to gauge the impact of financial innovation on economic growth from 2004M1 to 2018M12 in India and Pakistan’s economy with the mediating role of economic policy uncertainty. For instituting the possible association between financial innovations, economic policy uncertainty, and economic growth study considered both symmetric and asymmetric frameworks following autoregressive distributed lagged (ARDL) and nonlinear ARDL (NARDL). Furthermore, asymmetric causal relationships were evaluated by performing non-granger causality tests with asymmetric shocks of financial innovation and economic policy uncertainty (EPU). The results of Fpss, Wpss, and tBDM under symmetry framework established the long-run link between EPU, financial innovation, and economic growth in both countries. The results of standard Wald tests demonstrated the asymmetry effects furring from EPU to economic growth and financial innovation to economic growth both in the long-run and short-run. The asymmetry effects of positive and negative shocks in financial innovation revealed a positive linkage with economic growth and a negative tie between asymmetric shocks in EPU and economic growth in the long-run, but short-run magnitudes negligible. Refers to directional causality estimation, the study revealed evidence supporting the feedback hypothesis between EPU and financial innovation in all sample countries.

Stock prices and economic activity nexus in OECD countries: new evidence from an asymmetric panel Granger causality test in the frequency domain

This study investigates the stock price–economic activity nexus in 12 member countries of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) by employing monthly data over the period 1981:1–2018:3. For this purpose, the study uses Granger causality in the frequency domain in the panel setting by decomposing the symmetric and asymmetric fluctuations. This methodology determines whether the predictive power of interested variables is concentrated on quickly, moderately, or slowly fluctuating components. Our findings show that the stock prices have predictive power for future long-term economic activity in the panel setting. However, economic activity has more reliable information for stock prices for negative components. Additionally, empirical findings for asymmetric shocks are not fully consistent with those of symmetric ones. Besides, the country-specific results provide different causal linkages across members and frequencies. These findings may provide valuable information for policymakers to design proper and effective policies in OECD countries regarding the stock market and economic activity nexus.

Labour mobility as an adjustment mechanism to asymmetric shocks in Europe: evidence from the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia

This paper assesses the nature and correlation of shocks in Visegrad countries and investigates the role of labour mobility in the process of adjustment to the effects of asymmetric shocks. Structural vector autoregression (SVAR) models are employed to assess the nature and correlation of shocks while dynamic cointegrated panel autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) models are used to determine the role of labour mobility in the adjustment process. The dataset for the SVAR models is quarterly time series and covers the period 2000–2020. The dataset for the cointegrated panel ARDL models is annual and covers the period 2000–2019. The results show more asymmetries in external supply, domestic supply, demand and monetary shocks before the financial crisis. The findings also show that more symmetries occurred in Visegrad countries after the financial crisis in relation to external and domestic supply shocks. Asymmetries persisted with regard to demand and monetary shocks after the financial crisis. With labour mobility as an adjustment mechanism to asymmetric shocks, the paper finds that the capacity of labour mobility is very low. The percentage of net migration in the total population is less than 1% in the four countries compared to 15% in the United States. The size of the adjustment coefficients shows that it takes 3–5 years for countries to adjust to asymmetric shocks through labour mobility.

Asymmetric Shocks Patterns in the Central African Economic and Monetary Community

Assessing the economic efficiency of countries’ participation to a currency union has become a relevant topic since the introduction of the Optimum Currency Area (OCA) theory by Mundell (1961). This paper attempts to evaluate the performance of the Central African Economic and Monetary Community (CAEMC) as a currency union in the context of exposure to asymmetric shocks. We first identify structural macroeconomic shocks within the region using the Blanchard and Quah Method. We find that aggregate demand shocks fluctuations display more symmetric patterns than those of aggregate supply shocks. Chad is the apparent outlier, as it is the only economy in the monetary union to experience negative supply shocks. This suggests that the loss of monetary sovereignty might result in significant adjustment costs.

Identification of exchange rate shocks with compositionaldata and written press

The evolution of exchange rates results from events that affect different countries differently, that is, asymmetric shocks. Being value ratios, exchange rates constitute what is known as compositional data. The compositional data analysis methodology transforms exchange rates in a way that ensures the validity of their subsequent statistical analysis. In this paper we submit the daily exchange rates of the US dollar, the yen, the pound sterling, the euro, the Brazilian real, and the yuan to transformation by centred log-ratios. We then use the residuals from a Box-Jenkins analysis to estimate shocks and represent them in statistical control charts for a simple visual identification of both significant revaluations and devaluations, and periods of greatest volatility, which we then relate to news stories in the written press.

Thoughts on a Fiscal Union in EMU

Using an estimated large-scale New Keynesian model, we assess the consequences of introducing a fiscal union within EMU. We differentiate between three different scenarios: public revenue equalisation, tax harmonisation and a centralised fiscal authority. Our results indicate that no country would significantly benefit from introducing any form of fiscal union. Comparing long-term, that is, steady state, effects we have winners and losers depending on the scenario. Differences in terms of business cycle statistics as well as in terms of risk sharing of asymmetric shocks are minor. This also explains why welfare differences are small across the fiscal union scenarios. A counterfactual exercise indicates that with a fiscal union regime already installed at the start of EMU, key macroeconomic variables would have reacted very similarly while debt dynamics would have changed notably.