Ahmed M. Khalid

Was financial market contagion the source of economic crisis in Asia?: Evidence using a multivariate VAR model

Abstract The episodes of financial crises in many parts of the world during the 1990s have sparked interest in identifying channels through which such crises spread from one country to another. Researchers have identified several factors that may have sparked and induced contagion. This study further extends the existing research by identifying and testing three financial market variables to trace the alleged origin and the subsequent path of the contagion during the 1997 Asian Crisis. Foreign exchange rates, stock market prices and interest rates are three main financial market indicators, representing the currency, stock and money markets, respectively. We use a sample of nine East Asian countries, including Japan, construct a VAR model and use daily observations for empirical estimation. We investigate the interlinkages among different markets and different countries within the Asian region using the Granger causality. The empirical evidence, in this paper, does not find strong support for contagion. We further extend the analysis by looking at the impulse responses. The results still do not find strong support for a contagion case.

Socio-economic development and software piracy. An empirical assessment

The high rate of software piracy is a growing concern for software developers as well as businesses and governments. It is argued here that the piracy rate is influenced by expected benefits and costs to the pirates. A model is developed using a set of variables that may affect such benefits and costs and hence piracy rate in a country, and tested for a large sample of 53 countries. The results of this paper suggest that the existing socio-economic conditions and the lack of proper institutions in developing and emerging economies may be responsible for high software piracy rates. One may, therefore, infer that the current trends of globalization and socio-economic development may help software piracy in developing countries.

Ricardian equivalence: Empirical evidence from developing economies☆

Abstract The strong underlying assumptions of the Barro/Ricardo equivalence proposition (REP) raise doubts on its validity especially for developing countries. This paper attempts to analyze the validity of the REP and the sources of deviation from REP for a large sample of developing countries. Although the results are of a mixed nature, they suggest that the presence of liquidity-constrained individuals may be the source of deviation from the REP. The analysis also indicates that public spending is a poor substitute for private consumption and hence implies that temporary increases in public spending may have some expansionary effect on aggregate demand.

Testing Twin Deficits Hypothesis using VARs and Variance Decomposition

ABSTRACT This paper examines the twin deficits hypothesis in the ASEAN countries. The major findings of this paper are the following. (1) Long run relationships are detected between budget and current account deficits. (2) The Keynesian view fits well for Thailand since the causality runs from budget deficit to current account deficit. For Indonesia, the causality runs in an opposite direction while the empirical results indicate that a bidirectional pattern of causality exists for Malaysia and the Philippines. (3) We also found support for an indirect causal relationship that runs from budget deficit to higher interest rates, and higher interest rates leading to the appreciation of the exchange rate, which in turn leads with the widening of the current account deficit. The results of the variance decompositions and impulse response functions suggest that the consequences of large budget and current account deficits become noticeable only over the long run.

Modelling money demand in open economies: the case of selected Asian countries

While early work on money demand estimation focused primarily on the importance of domestic variables, many studies in later years have suggested that foreign variables also influence the domestic demand for money in an open economy. With the rapid financial market liberalization in some of the Asian economies in the last couple of decades, open economy factors have become very important in the determination of money demand. Therefore, this paper aims to ascertain the degree to which foreign opportunity cost variables influence money demand in the Philippines, Singapore and South Korea. Cointegration analysis is performed and an error correction model estimated using quarterly time-series data. The empirical results support the inclusion of foreign opportunity cost variables in the money demand function.

Money supply behaviour in emerging economies: A comparative analysis

This paper reports new evidence consistent with the post-Keynesian hypothesis of money endogeneity for hitherto unexplored 10 emerging economies. These results were obtained using a vector error correction model to test for long-run and short-run causalities with data from 1996 to 2007. The evidence suggests that money supply is endogenous in five countries, namely China, the Czech Republic, India, Malaysia and Turkey; it is exogenous in Mexico, while there was no causality found in Indonesia, Russia and Taiwan. Thailand showed endogeneity in the long-run causality. Some suggestions are made to explain the mixed results, and we also discuss the limitations arising from our narrow specifications of the money supply and the models.

Money supply endogeneity and bank stock returns

This article presents results of tests on two related hypotheses on money supply. The first relates to an unresolved issue of money endogeneity while the second centres on the yet-explored relationship between money supply and bank stock returns if money is found to be endogenous. Our results, using long-horizon data of Group of Seven (G-7) economies, supports causality in money supply as running from bank lending to bank deposits, a result that is predicted by the post-Keynesian money supply endogeneity (bank-credit-driven) theory. Thus, the result is not consistent with exogeneity proposition. A new evidence of positive relationship between endogenous money supply and aggregate bank stock return is statistically significant on this hitherto unexplored topic. These findings are consistent with the post-Keynesian money supply theory and the dividend valuation theory, which predicts money supply changes to induce changes in bank earnings, so bank share prices change.

Trade liberalisation and growth: a threshold exploration

Openness and trade liberalisation variables are consistently estimated to have significant positive coefficients in panel growth regressions. Many arguments have been advanced as to why and how more open or liberalised economies might grow faster, but the specific channels this process uses have begun to be investigated only recently. We continue these efforts by including a variable identifying the date of trade liberalisation in a system of equations that captures the determinants of growth in per capita income. Four ‘channels’ are considered: capital formation, the share of government, the economys openness to trade and its price distortions. We include the liberalisation variable in the equation explaining each channel, and allow for thresholds on its coefficient depending on the ‘years since liberalisation’. These estimated coefficients can also differ by region. In this way, we can identify the channels through which trade liberalisation affects growth and uncover the timing of the adjustments involved.

EXOGENOUS OR ENDOGENOUS MONEY SUPPLY: EVIDENCE FROM AUSTRALIA

This paper investigates the nature of money supply in Australia over two separate monetary policy regimes: monetary and inflation targeting. The post-Keynesian theory on endogenous money was tested with the aim of investigating whether endogenous money supply, if it did exist, followed the accomodationist, structuralist or liquidity preference viewpoints. Data used are quarterly series from 1977 to 2007 and we used vector error-correction model for long-run and short-run causality tests. We found that money supply is endogenous in Australia even when the central bank targeted monetary aggregates during the period 1977 to 1993.

Regulatory Failure and the Global Financial Crisis

This fascinating book presents a lively discussion of key issues resulting from the recent financial crisis. The expert contributors explore why the global financial crisis occurred, how it destroyed wealth, triggered mass unemployment and created an unprecedented loss of control on employment, monetary policy and government budgets.