Alenka Kavkler

European stock market comovement dynamics during some major financial market turmoils in the period 1997 to 2010 -- a comparative DCC-GARCH and wavelet correlation analysis

This article examines the comovement dynamics between the developed European stock markets of the United Kingdom, Germany, France and Austria. After applying a Dynamic Conditional Correlation-Generalized Autoregressive Conditional Heteroskedastic (DCC-GARCH) and wavelet multiscale analysis on a daily return series for the period 1997 to 2010, we found that (1) comovements between stock market returns are time varying and scale dependent; (2) financial crisis in the observed period did not uniformly increase comovement between stock market returns across all scales; (3) the global financial crisis of 2007–2008 only slightly and temporarily increased the already high level of comovement between the observed stock markets.

The overheating of five EU new member states and cyclicality of systemic risk in the banking sector

Rapid credit growth has been one of the most pervasive developments in recent years in Central and Eastern Europe. We tested for the significance of macroeconomic and banking sector variables that condition non‐performing loan ratios and the hypothesis of procyclicality between economic activity and improving banking‐sector results in the Baltic States, Bulgaria and Romania. The theory of procyclicality between economic activity and the non‐performing loan ratio was proven. The increased economic activity improved the loan portfolio quality of the banking sector, as indicated by a lower NPL ratio. Due to a high share of loans denominated in a foreign currency and the fact of productivity gains in the tradable sector, the appreciation of the real exchange rate contributed to an improvement in loan portfolio quality. The procyclicality of banking sector performance and high economic activities growth could be a signal of an economy overheating and therefore a slowdown in economic activity is likely to accelerate the growth of the non‐performing loan ratio in the Baltic States, Bulgaria and Romania.

The Up-Coming Crisis and the Banking Sector in the Baltic States

We tested for the significance of macroeconomic variables that condition nonperforming loan (NPL) ratios. The hypothesis of procyclicality between economic activity and improving NPL ratio in the Baltic States was proved. The increased economic activity improved the NPL ratio. Due to a high share of loans denominated in a foreign currency and the fact of productivity gains in the tradable sector, the appreciation of the real exchange rate contributed to an improvement in NPL ratio. The procyclicality of banking sector performance and high economic activities growth could be a signal of an economy overheating in the Baltics.

Multiscale test of CAPM for three Central and Eastern European stock markets

This paper examines the systematic risk and validity of the basic capital asset pricing model of Sharpe (1964), Lintner (1965) and Mossin (1966) in three Central and Eastern European stock markets (i.e. Slovenia, Hungary and Czech Republic). The CAPM is tested on a multiscale basis, building on the Fama and MacBeth (1973) methodology and applying two modern econometric techniques -- wavelet analysis and generalized method of moments estimation. Empirical results indicate that the systematic risk and validity of CAPM implications are multiscale phenomena. Empirical evidence in support of CAPM implications in the investigated Central and Eastern European stock markets is found to be weak. The most commonly violated CAPM hypotheses are the zero Jensens alpha condition, positive market premium, and the non-systematic influence of non-observable variables on the excess returns of stocks in these stock markets.

PPP and nonlinearity of real exchange rates: new evidence from transition economies

In this article, we investigate the Purchasing Power Parity (PPP) concept by utilizing a database of monthly real exchange rates from 12 Central and Eastern European economies with respect to different numeraire currencies. Owing to the elaborated limitations of linear specifications by verifying this exchange rate theory, we apply a nonlinear unit root test based on the Exponential Smooth Transition Autoregressive (ESTAR) model proposed by Kapetanios et al. (KSS; 2003). Our analysis shows that after taking into account the nonlinear reversion of real exchange rates of European transition economies with respect to the euro, the validity of PPP is confirmed for the majority of countries in the sample.

Growth Effects of Cross-border Mergers and Acquisitions in European Transition Countries

Abstract This paper deals with the economic effect of cross-border mergers and acquisitions on GDP per capita in European transition countries for the 2000- 2014 period. Our analysis shows that cross-border mergers and acquisitions have a negative effect on GDP per capita in the current period, whereas their lagged level positively impacts output performance. We found that transition countries characterized by a higher quality of institutional setting have achieved a positive impact on GDP per capita.

Gender Disparities in the Duration of Unemployment Spells in Slovenia

Gender Disparities in the Duration of Unemployment Spells in Slovenia The paper offers an overview of labor market characteristics in Slovenia with an emphasis on gender disparities. A survival analysis is conducted based on an extensive database obtained from the Employment Office of the Republic of Slovenia of more than 450,000 unemployment incidences between January 2004 and July 2008. Kaplan-Meier estimates of survival functions show specific disparities among unemployed women and men in Slovenia. Unemployed men are better off when re-entering the labor market as they are re-employed more quickly than women.

Investigating Purchasing Power Parity in Central and Eastern European Countries: A Panel Data Approach

The goal of this paper is to investigate the validity of PPP for a heterogeneous group of 12 transition countries with respect to dollar and euro. The analysis relies on monthly data frequency covering the period of 1994-2008. The first generation of panel unit root tests is based on the cross-sectional independency hypothesis. This paper applies five first generation unit root tests. The cross-sectional independency hypothesis is rather restrictive and somewhat unrealistic in the majority of macroeconomic applications of unit root tests. Thus, the second generation of panel unit root tests is characterized by the rejection of the cross-sectional independence hypothesis. Within this second generation of tests, two main approaches are distinguished. The first one relies on the factor structure approach. The second approach consists of imposing few or none restrictions on the residuals covariance matrix and has been adopted the use of nonlinear instrumental variables methods or the use of bootstrap approaches to solve the nuisance parameter problem due to cross-sectional dependency. We employ several second generation panel unit root tests in this paper to scrutinize the validity of PPP theory.

Effects of cross-border mergers and acquisitions on GDP per capita and domestic investment in transition countries

The study investigates the impact of cross-border mergers and acquisitions on GDP per capita and domestic investment in 22 European transition countries from 2000 to 2014 by using the system Generalized Method of Moments estimator. The main implications are that cross-border mergers and acquisitions have a negative effect on GDP per capita in the year of merger or acquisition, while their lagged level shows a positive impact. From long-term perspective, this type of FDI has negative and significant effect on GDP per capita. The results show that one-year lagged cross-border mergers and acquisitions positively affects domestic investment, suggesting that spillover effects of this type of investment can be expected not earlier than one year after the merger or acquisition. The value of this paper is that our results show how the advances in structural reforms enhance GDP per capita whereas their influence on domestic investment activity is insignificant. We found that there is insignificant impact of the relationship between overall structural reforms and cross-border mergers and acquisitions on GDP per capita and domestic investment both in short and long run. The originality of this study lies in investigation of the dynamic nature of cross-border mergers and acquisitions and their economic effects depending on the quality of structural reformss.

Dimensions of Decision-Making Process Quality and Company Performance: A Study of Top Managers in Slovenia

Abstract This paper investigates the relationship between the dimensions of the decisionmaking process quality and company performance of top managers’ in Slovenia. We found out that companies whose managers exhibit an above-average dimension of openness of spirit in the quality of the decision making process, on average, have a higher stance on foreign markets as companies in which managers show a below-average open spirit. For the managers who work in companies that are present in foreign markets, we could confirm that there is a low/weak correlation between the dimension of effort of the decision-making process quality and the number of employees in a company.