Kalvinder Shields

Modelling macroeconomic shocks in the CFA Franc Zone

In this paper we modify the method of Blanchard and Quah (1989) in order to estimate a structural VAR model appropriate for a small open economy. In this way we identify shocks to output and prices in the members of the two monetary unions that make up the African CFA Franc Zone. The costs of monetary union membership will depend on the extent to which price and output shocks are correlated across countries, and the degree of similarity in the long run effects of the shocks on the macro-economy. The policy conclusions depend on the relative importance of different macroeconomic variables to policymakers, and the speed with which a policymaker is able to respond to a shock.

Measuring the response of macroeconomic uncertainty to shocks

Recent research documents the importance of uncertainty in determining macroeconomic outcomes, but little is known about the transmission of uncertainty across such outcomes. This paper examines the response of uncertainty about inflation and output growth to shocks documenting statistically significant size and sign bias and spillover effects. Uncertainty about inflation is a determinant of output uncertainty, whereas higher growth volatility tends to raise inflation volatility. Both inflation and growth volatility respond asymmetrically to positive and negative shocks. Negative growth and inflation shocks lead to higher and more persistent uncertainty than shocks of equal magnitude but opposite sign.

The Impact of Monetary Union on Macroeconomic Integration: Evidence from West Africa

Data from 19 African nations is used to investigate the hypothesis that monetary union-represented in this case by the CFA Franc Zone-augments the extent of macroeconomic integration. The paper covers two key dimensions of integration: the volume of bilateral trade, and the magnitude of cross-country business cycle correlation. Restricting our attention to a part of the world in which (for historical reasons) monetary union membership is exogenous to economic characteristics, we can test whether the large single-currency effects claimed by A. Rose apply within a sample of less developed countries. Copyright (c) The London School of Economics and Political Science 2005.

Expectations Formation and Business Cycle Fluctuations: An Empirical Analysis of Actual and Expected Output in UK Manufacturing, 1975-1996

Direct measures of expectations, derived from survey data, are used in a Vector Autoregressive (VAR) model of actual and expected output in eight industries in the UK manufacturing sector. No evidence is found with which to reject rationality in the derived expectations series when measurement error is appropriately taken into account. The VAR analysis illustrates the importance of intersectoral interactions and business confidence in explaining the time profile of industrial outputs, examines the mechanisms by which shocks are propagated across sectors and over time and investigates the relative importance of sectoral and aggregate shocks of different types.

Do Currency Unions Deliver More Economic Integration than Fixed Exchange Rates? Evidence from the Franc Zone and the ECCU

In this article we develop a model to identify determinants of macroeconomic integration in the African Franc Zone and in Dollar-pegging Caribbean countries (including members of the East Caribbean Currency Union). These two groups of countries each comprise states using several different local currencies: on the one hand the UEMOA CFA Franc and the CEMAC CFA Franc (both pegged to the Euro), on the other the ECCU Dollar and other national Dollar-pegged currencies. The purpose of the analysis is to distinguish the effect of monetary union on macroeconomic integration from the effect of pegging to a common OECD currency.

Regional Asymmetries in the Impact of Monetary Policy Shocks on Prices: Evidence from US Cities

Variations in real exchange rates across US cities are smaller than corresponding international variations, but nevertheless substantial. We find that a proportion of these variations can be explained by asymmetric responses to federal monetary policy shocks, and that a large part of the asymmetry can be explained by city-specific economic characteristics including the composition of local industry, bank size, house prices and the age distribution of the population.

Threshold Modelling of Stock Return Volatility on Eastern European Markets

A common finding for developed stock markets is that negative shocks entering the market lead to a larger return volatility than positive shocks of a similar magnitude. The following paper considers two emerging Eastern European Markets where the first point of investigation is whether an analogous asymmetric characteristic is reflected in emerging markets. The second point of investigation is whether the findings differ depending on the institutional microstructure of the exchange being examined. Hence, econometric techniques are adjusted and a ‘double-censored tobit GARCH’ model is developed. This paper finds that no asymmetry exists on either markets and possible reasons for this are proposed. JEL Classification: G14, G15, P21, P34.

Meta Taylor Rules for the UK and Australia; Accommodating Regime Uncertainty in Monetary Policy Analysis Using Model Averaging Methods

This paper provides a characterisation of UK and Australian monetary policy within a Taylor rule framework, accommodating uncertainties about the nature and duration of policy regimes in a flexible but easy-to-implement analysis. Our approach involves estimation and inference based on a set of Taylor rules obtained through linear regression methods, but combined into a ‘meta’ rule using model averaging techniques. Using data that were available in real time, the estimated version of the meta Taylor rule provides a useful and detailed characterisation of monetary policies in the UK and Australia over the last thirty years.

Overcoming Measurement Error Problems in the Use of Survey Data on Expectations

Survey data frequently requires conversion from qualitative responses to quantitative series. A commonly cited criticism of the use of the survey data is that the conversion procedures incorporate measurement errors which render the series unusable. In this paper, we provide a novel contribution to the literature by paying attention to the nature of, and the treatment of, the measurement error that arises when such a conversion takes place. Such an error is frequently ignored or assumed to be orthogonal to known information. The contributions of this paper are three-fold. Firstly, simulation experiments show that the conversion error is systematic in its relation to known information and show that need for the adequate treatment of conversion errors is essential. Secondly, this paper formally shows that the procedure proposed by Lee (1994), which employs a relatively weak assumption, is extremely successful in circumventing the problems. Finally, in contrast to previous findings, these results provide strong support for the view that expectations are formed rationally in the case of Australian total manufacturing output

Predictability of stock markets with disequilibrium trading

This paper analyses the predictability of a hypothetical market with freely negotiated prices on which exists a censoring of one-period returns which are in excess of an arbitrary level (‘floor’ and ‘ceiling’). It is shown that the expected value of returns (adjusted for drift) conditional on last period information regarding the censoring are equal to zero (and therefore the market is not predictable in mean) if there is no intertemporal spillover on the market. A simple simulation model is proposed and applied for the analysis of the effects of intertemporal and cross-spillovers resulting from quantity constraints. Statistical predictability tests are proposed, based on the corrected Student-t statistic of a regression of returns of some information concerning the previous censoring. An illustrative empirical analysis of six main time series of returns on the Warsaw Stock Exchange confirms their ex-ante, but not ex-post, predictability.