Evangelia Papapetrou

Oil price shocks, stock market, economic activity and employment in Greece ☆

Abstract Using a multivariate vector-autoregression (VAR) approach, this paper attempts to shed light into the dynamic relationship among oil prices, real stock prices, interest rates, real economic activity and employment for Greece. The empirical evidence suggests that oil price changes affect real economic activity and employment. Oil prices are important in explaining stock price movements. Stock returns do not lead to changes in real activity and employment.

Energy consumption and economic growth: assessing the evidence from Greece

Abstract This paper attempts to shed light into the empirical relationship between energy consumption and economic growth, for Greece (1960–1996) employing the vector error-correction model estimation. The vector specification includes energy consumption, real GDP and price developments, the latter taken to represent a measure of economic efficiency. The empirical evidence suggests that there is a long-run relationship between the three variables, supporting the endogeneity of energy consumption and real output. These findings have important policy implications, since the adoption of suitable structural policies aiming at improving economic efficiency can induce energy conservation without impeding economic growth.

Assessing competitive conditions in the Greek banking system

Abstract This paper uses the Rosse-Panzar statistic to assess empirically competitive conditions in the Greek banking system over the period 1993–1995. The competitiveness of the banking system is evaluated using a non-structural estimation technique. The results indicate that bank revenues were earned as if under conditions of monopolistic competition. The gradual elimination of exchange controls, the capital movement liberalisation, the enactment of the Second Banking Directive of the European Union and the supervisory arrangements have been related to the competitive conditions of the Greek banking system.

Macroeconomic influences on the stock market

The paper studies the dynamic interactions among indicators of economic activity, such as industrial production, interest rate and exchange rate, the performance of the foreign stock market, oil prices, and stock returns to examine whether economic activity movements affect the performance of the stock market for Greece. The empirical evidence suggests that stock returns do not lead changes in real economic activity while the macroeconomic activity and foreign stock market changes explain only partially stock market movements. Oil price changes explain stock price movements and have a negative impact on macroeconomic activity.

An examination of the causal relationship between government spending and revenue: A cointegration analysis

This paper tests the validity of the proposition that there is a causal relationship between government expenditure and government revenue for Greece over the period 1957–1993. The empirical analysis employs tests of cointegration as pre-tests for Granger tests of causality. The empirical evidence suggests that there is a long-run relationship between government spending and government revenue and expenditures cause revenues.

The unequal distribution of the public-private sector wage gap in Greece: evidence from quantile regression

Quantile regression analysis is used to estimate the public-private sector wage differential in Greece. The results suggest that wage differences between sectors are mainly attributed to the employees endowment. The decomposition of the wage differential shows that the endowment component (characteristics differential) increases as we move up to the upper quantiles and the unobserved components decrease at higher quantiles. (The views expressed in this paper are those of the author and not those of the Bank of Greece.)

The Public-Private Sector Pay Differential in Greece

This article examines the earnings differential between the public and private sectors pay in Greece employing quantile regression analysis and using micro data. The results suggest that average earnings are higher in the public sector than in the private sector for both genders but earnings in the public sector show a smaller dispersion with respect to the private sector. The findings indicate that employees in the public sector at the lower end of the earnings distribution earn a higher wage gap compared with their counterparts in the private sector but this gap decreases at higher quantiles. In addition, quantile regression estimation reveals that the earnings differences in the low quantiles are mainly attributed to the unobserved characteristics and partly to the differences in endowment. By contrast, in the highest quantiles the differences in earnings between sectors for both genders are mainly attributed to the observed differences in the endowment characteristics.

Public-Private Wage Differentials in Euro Area Countries: Evidence from Quantile Decomposition Analysis

We evaluate the public-private wage differential in ten euro area countries for men in the period 2004-2007. Using the most recent methodologies on a Mincerian equation, we assess how much of the pay differential between public and private sector workers depends on differences in endowments and how much on differences in the remuneration of such skills. For the first time, we look at the contribution of specific covariates at different quantiles of the wage distribution and decompose the variance into an explained and an unexplained component. We find that the pay gap is often decreasing over the distribution, and it is mostly determined by higher endowments in the upper tail of the wage distribution and by higher returns of such endowments at the low tail, with considerable heterogeneity across countries. We further find that the wage distribution in the public sector is more compressed than in the private sector in some countries but not in all countries. This is the results, for all countries, of more dispersed distributions of endowments in the public sector and of returns in the private sector.

Are budget deficits inflationary? A cointegration approach

This paper investigates the direct and indirect effects of budget deficit on inflation in Greece for the period 1957-93. The empirical analysis employs tests of cointegration, as suggested by Johansen and Juselius, as pretests for Granger tests of causality. The empirical evidence suggests that the indirect effects of budget deficits on inflation exist while the direct effects are not present.

International banking activity in Greece: The recent experience

Abstract This paper develops two models to explain the growth of assets of foreign banks and the number of branches in Greece by country of origin. The empirical results indicate that foreign trade with Greece, countrys creditworthiness, the size of the banking sector in the foreign country and the geographic distance of the foreign country from Greece are directly related to foreign bank presence in Greece.