Anita Čeh Časni

Tourism spending behaviour before and after the 2008 financial crisis A dynamic panel investigation

This research note analyses the long-run and short-run relationships between tourism expenditure, income and transportation costs based on quarterly data for European countries spanning the period from 1996Q1 to 2014Q1. As the first macroeconomic study to explore how tourist spending behaviour potentially reacted to the 2008 financial crisis, this article uses the heterogeneous panel data technique of Pesaran et al. The results of this pilot study reveal interesting differences in the long-run relationships between the examined variables before and after 2008Q3. Since this study uses a rather simple expenditure model, future studies might extend their focus to other demand variables to obtain a better understanding of changed tourist spending behaviour induced by the crisis.

The panel VAR approach to modelling the housing wealth effect : evidence from selected European post-transition economies

Abstract Following Friedman’s permanent income hypothesis and Ando and Modigliani’s lifecycle hypothesis, this paper empirically studies the role of house prices and income in determining the dynamic behaviour of consumption in selected European post-transition economies using the panel vector autoregression (PVAR) approach and quarterly data covering the period from the first quarter of 2002 until the second quarter of 2012. With the shocks being recognized using the customary recursive identification scheme, we found that the response of personal consumption to the housing wealth shock is initially positive, but short lived.

Multivariate analysis of determinants of Internet banking use in European Union countries

The main objective of the paper is to analyse the determinants of Internet banking use in European Union countries based on EUROSTAT data for 2011. The considered determinants of Internet banking use are selected in line with relevant theoretical and empirical research and submitted to factor analysis which yielded two factors. The first extracted factor comprises Information and Communication Technology (ICT) infrastructure, i.e. broadband penetration rate and level of Internet access. The second factor comprises individuals’ level of Internet skills and GDP per capita. On the basis of the two mentioned factors, European Union countries are grouped into two clusters using cluster analysis. In order to analyse the impact of selected variables, a multiple regression analysis of Internet banking use is performed using extracted factors as independent variables. The regression analysis shows that an increase in ICT infrastructure leads to an increase in Internet banking use.

Long-Term Trends in Croatian GDP Growth

We analyze the long-term trends in Croatian income convergence with respect to the EU. Croatia is the worst performer among new EU members in terms of β-convergence. Stochastic income convergence tests with breaks suggest Croatia is not able to catch up to old EU members, but could still diminish the difference between Croatian and new EU members’ income levels over the long term. Analysis of Croatian gross domestic product (GDP) and gross value added (GVA) growth drivers suggests services-led growth fueled by investments in nontradable sector and government consumption contributed to the observed income divergence as new EU members grew faster, dominantly drawing from the personal consumption, international trade and manufacturing growth. Deindustrialization and technological downgrading of the tradable sector also contributed to slower GDP growth in the observed period.

Evaluating forecasting models for unemployment rates by gender in selected European countries

The unemployment can be considered as one of the main economic problems. The aim of this article is to examine the differences in male and female unemployment rates in selected European countries and to predict their future trends by using different statistical forecasting models. Furthermore, the impact of adding a new data point on the selection of the most appropriate statistical forecasting model and on the overall forecasting errors values is also evaluated. Male and female unemployment rates are observed for twelve European countries in the period from 1991 to 2014. Four statistical forecasting models have been selected and applied and the most appropriate model is considered to be the one with the lowest overall forecasting errors values. The analysis has shown that in the period from 1991 to 2014 the decreasing trend of unemployment rates in the short-run is forecasted for more Eastern Balkan than the EU-28 countries. An additional data point for male and female unemployment rates in 2014 led to somewhat smaller forecasting errors in more than half of the observed countries. However, the additional data point does not necessarily improve forecasting performances of the used statistical forecasting models.

The impact of China's imports on European Union industrial employment

As the EUs biggest supplier of imported goods and a second trading partner, China has become an increasingly important actor on the global economic scene. This paper reports new evidence through analyzing whether the EU labour market is affected by exposure to imports from China. Drawing on a panel dataset of 27 EU countries, over the 2003–2013 period, and using the pooled mean group estimator, the results show that imports from China have a negative effect on industrial employment. This result holds separately for the all analyzed categories: all products, manufactured products as well as for the sub‐groups.

Is there a housing wealth effect in European countries

Abstract In this study, a housing wealth effect on personal consumption is assumed and tested on 16 selected European countries using an estimator developed for dynamic heterogeneous panel data analysis. Empirical estimates have shown that there is a long-run and a short-run housing wealth effect in analysed countries. The elasticity of real private consumption to changes in real disposable income has shown to be positive and statistically significant as well as the elasticity of consumption to changes in real housing wealth. Therefore, the research hypothesis of this paper of a statistically significant and positive long-term relationship between housing wealth and private consumption in the analysed countries was confirmed.

The short-run and long-run behaviour of personal consumption in Croatia

In this paper cointegration and error correction models are used to explore the long run and short run behavior of personal consumption in Croatia as a function of income, house prices and total credit to households. The results of the analysis showed that income (approximated by net real wage), house price and total credits to households play an important role in determining personal consumption. Also, lagged values of house prices showed significant impact on consumption, suggesting house price persistence. The most likely factors driving the house price persistence may include expectations and idiosyncratic institutional characteristics like illiquid real estate markets, inadequate property rights protection, high transaction costs, and underdeveloped financial instruments.