Hamid Raza

Exploring the link between household debt and income inequality: an asymmetric approach

ABSTRACT We investigate the relationship between household debt and income inequality in the USA, allowing for asymmetry, using data over the period 1913–2008. We find evidence of an asymmetric cointegration between household debt and inequality for different regimes. Our results indicate household debt only responds to positive changes in income inequality, while there is no evidence of falling inequality significantly affecting household debt. The presence of this asymmetry provides further empirical insights into the emerging literature on household debt and inequality.

Asymmetries exist in the Feldstein–Horioka relationship

ABSTRACT Most studies assume symmetry between saving and investment changes. They are wrong to do so. We model the response of investment to positive and negative changes in saving for 17 OECD countries from 1960 to 2015. We use both panel and time series methods. We find that negative changes in saving have a stronger effect on investment than positive changes in saving do. In the short run, causality only runs from negative changes in saving to investment. In the long run, both negative and positive changes in saving Granger cause investment. Models relying on saving-investment symmetry in the long run are called into question. Policies assuming symmetric effects throughout the business cycle are similarly flawed.

Two thorns of experience: financialisation in Iceland and Ireland

We explain the 2008 crisis in Iceland and Ireland with an emphasis on the role financialisation played in destabilising these countries’ economies. The two small open economies share similarities in that both countries had capital inflows before the crisis, ending with a sudden stop. However, the mechanisms of the crisis, which induced the capital flows, the factors that influenced them and their effects on the real economy differed due to differences in currency regimes and the response to the crises. We investigate the link between financialisation and the transmission channels of financialisation on the macroeconomy, using ARDL methodology. Finally, we suggest policy prescriptions to limit the scale and scope of similar crises in the future while highlighting the institutional differences between the two economies.