Erdal Özmen

Budget deficits, money growth and inflation: the Turkish evidence

The paper investigates the long-run relationships between budget deficits, inflation and monetary growth in Turkey considering two alternative trivariate systems corresponding to the narrowest and the broadest monetary aggregates. While the joint endogeneity of money and inflation rejects the validity of the monetarist view, lack of a direct relationship between inflation and budget deficits makes the pure fiscal theory explanations illegitimate for the Turkish case. Consistent with the policy regime of financing domestic debt through the commercial banking system, budget deficits lead to a growth not of currency seigniorage but of broad money in Turkey. This mode of deficit financing, leading to the creation of near money and restricting the scope for an effective monetary policy, may not be sustainable, as the government securities/broad money ratio cannot grow without limit.

Exchange rate regimes and the Feldstein-Horioka puzzle: the French evidence

This paper investigates whether the Feldstein and Horioka (Economic Journal, 90, 314-329, 1980) argument on domestic saving-investment relationship is supported by the French data when an endogenous structural break corresponding to a major policy regime change is taken into account. The evidence suggests that the saving-investment cointegration disappears after the estimated endogenous structural break point in 1973 coinciding with the end of the Bretton Woods system of fixed exchange rates. Consistent with a current account targeting policy, an investment-driven saving process appears to be the case for the fixed exchange rate regime period.

Financial development, exchange rate regimes and the Feldstein-Horioka puzzle: evidence from the MENA region

This article investigates whether the Feldstein and Horioka (1980) argument on domestic saving-investment relationship is supported by the data of the countries in the Middle East and North Africa region when financial development levels and exchange rate regimes are taken into account. To this end, we employ both the Auroregressive Distributed Lag bounds cointegration test and panel mean group procedures. The results support the view that a successful international financial integration requires compatible levels of financial intermediation. The evidence also suggests that saving-investment cointegration is not invariant to exchange rate regimes.

Macroeconomic and institutional determinants of current account deficits

This study empirically investigates the effects of institutional and macroeconomic policy variables on current account deficits (CAD). Based on cross-section data for a broad number of countries, the results suggest that better governance increases whilst ‘original sin’ decreases the ability of an economy to sustain CAD. Exchange rate flexibility and openness appear to put a discipline on CAD. Consistent with the equity home bias and Feldstein–Horioka puzzle, CAD decrease with country size. The net impacts of the financial deepening and monetary credibility on CAD are found to be insignificant.

Is currency seigniorage exogenous for inflation tax in Turkey

This paper discusses the implications of the validity of the conditioning hypothesis for the maintained money demand equation for an inflation tax analysis. We also test the validity of the quantity-theoretical inflation tax model for the post-1980 quarterly Turkish data by using Johansen cointegration techniques. The results suggest that the tax rate (inflation) is weakly exogenous for the parameters of the long-run money demand (tax base) equation. This result, consistent with a Keynesian endogenous seigniorage-exogenous inflation tax rate theory prior, does not support the hypothesis that the Turkish inflation can be explained by the conventional inflation tax revenue-maximizing motive alone.

Deviations from PPP and UIP in a financially open economy: the Turkish evidence

This paper investigates the interrelations between purchasing power parity (PPP) and uncovered interest parity (UIP) in Turkey using Johansen cointegration analysis for a system containing Turkish and US inflation rates, interest rates, and exchange rate. The results of a structural model obtained by data-acceptable over-identifying restrictions over the cointegration space suggest the existence of two cointegration vectors representing UIP and PPP with proportionality and symmetry conditions, respectively. Consistent with the capital enhanced equilibrium exchange rates (CHEERs) approach, each of the international parity hypotheses is rejected when formulated independently. This is a theiry-consistent result for a financially open economy for which equilibrium conditions of asset and commodity markets may not be independent of each other.

Corporate sector liability dollarization and exchange rate balance sheet effect in Turkey

In this study, we investigate the causes and balance sheet effect consequences of Liability Dollarization (LD) of nonfinancial sectors in Turkey. The dynamic panel data Generalized Method of Moments (GMM) results suggest that both sector specific and macroeconomic variables are significant in explaining the corporate sector LD. Industries appear to partially match the currency composition of their debt with their income streams. Devaluations are found to be contractionary, in terms of investments and profits, for sectors with higher LD. Macroeconomic instability affects the performance of the industries negatively. Our results also stress the importance of strong macroeconomic policy stance for an endogenous dedollarization process.

Testing the quantity theory of money in Greece

This paper investigates whether the Greek data actually support the monetarist hypotheses as argued by Karfakis. The results based on both ARDL and Johansen procedures consistently suggest that money and nominal income (prices) are endogenous for the parameters of the long-run evolution of velocity (real money balances). Thus, the basic postulation of monetarism, the exogeneity of money, appears not to be supported by the Greek data.

Policy regime change and structural break in the velocity of money: the Turkish evidence

The integration properties of Turkish velocity series are investigated by employing recently developed procedures (Zivot and Andrews (1992) and Perron (Journal of Econometrics, 80, 355–85, 1997)) which allows stationarity around an endogenously estimated structural break point under the alternative hypothesis. The evidence suggests that real currency balances and currency velocity are stationary around a broken trend. The estimated break point coincides with a major policy regime change in Turkey. Broad money velocity and real broad money balances are found to be nonstationary even after allowance for a broken mean and trend.

Original Sin Mystery Trinity and Unequal Blessings

We investigate whether the fact that most countries cannot borrow internationally in their own currencies, referred to as “original sin” by Eichengreen and Hausmann (1999), may remain as a “mystery” when an alternative variable set and estimation procedure are taken into account. Our results suggest that flexible exchange rates and strong macroeconomic policy stance with sound institutions are necessary but not sufficient for redemption from original sin. Original sin appears to be persistent and determined also by the variables which are beyond the sole control of individual countries. Consequently, redemption from it and satisfying the blessed trinity of international currency, flexible exchange rates and sound institutions requires a new international financial system allowing complete markets for all currencies meeting the necessary conditions.