Lucian-Liviu Albu

The Effect of ECB's Quantitative Easing on Credit Default Swap Instruments in Central and Eastern Europe

Abstract This paper focuses on the quantitative easing policies launched by the European Central Bank (ECB), analysing their effects on the dynamics of a series of five-year sovereign credit default swap instruments that belong to seven Central and Eastern European States. In an econometric event study setup that follows the methodology developed in Albu et al. (2014) , we calibrate an ARMA-GARCH model and analyse the abnormal and squared abnormal returns for each CDS instrument. The results indicate that the quantitative easing events issued by the European Central Bank have a significant effect on the evolution of the analysed sovereign credit default swap instruments.

Estimating the Size of Underground Economy in Romania

Based on two Romanian household surveys, we analyse the structure of households’ income by sources: main job, secondary job, and hidden activities. After conceptual clarification and explanation of the methodology we used, we estimate the size of informal economy, analyse the relationship between variables related to different types of income, and explore the dynamics of the informal economy. We find that the main participants in the informal economy are the poor people: the survival motive is dominant in the Romanian informal economy. We estimate that both in September 1996 and in July 2003 the income from the informal economy amounted to about 1/4 of the total household income (23.6% in 1996 and 22.7% in 2003, respectively). Also, we estimate the share of income from the informal economy in the cases of various categories of population (defined according to the dimension of the official declared income per person in the household). The extension of our analysis to the entire year using the household population structure by deciles suggests that the informal economy has increased, on average, by about 2-2.5% over the period 1995-2002. Indeed, beside the actual level of income, the households’ involvement in informal activities is probably influenced by occupation, region, age, education, number of children and many other factors. However, certain conclusions could be outlined: a) People perceive taxation as the main cause of the underground economy; b) Separating the main motivations of operating in the informal sector in two groups, “subsistence” and “enterprise” respectively, the surveys suggest that the subsistence represented a relevant reason for the households’ decision to operate in the informal economy, including its underground segment; c) Informal activities supplied a “safety valve” within the surviving strategies adopted by the poorest households; d) Participation in informal economy seems to be not simply correlated with poverty: in the informal economy are involved poor people (having probably a low educational level), as well as rich persons, but their motivations are quite different. The former are practically “forced” to operate in the informal economy (the “subsistence” criterion), but the latter are “invited” to participate in it (the “enterprise” criterion). In both cases, at least during the first stages of transition to a free market system in Romania, the environment was propitious due to legislative incoherence, feeble penalty system in the cases of fraudulent activities, and existence of some accompanying elements of proper informal activity, such as corruption, bureaucracy, etc. However, the household’s behaviour related to the participation in informal economy is sometimes fundamentally different between the two extreme groups of population. This is why in this study we focused on a deeper investigation of the behavioural aspects of different groups of population related to the implication in the informal sector.

Strain and Inflation-Unemployment Relationship in Transitional Economies: A Theoretical and Empirical Investigation

Standard economic theory tells that a command system, like the former eastern economies, allocates resources poorly due to the impossibility of accurate calculation. Therefore, once prices are freed and start to operate at quasi-equilibrium (market-clearing) levels, the hidden inefficiencies come into the open and a possible massive resource reallocation would have to take place. More precisely, the issue refers to the possible and probable intensity of resource reallocation in view of constraints like the balance between exit and entry in the labour market, the size of the budget deficit and the means for its non-inflationary financing, social and political stability, etc. This paper tries to conceptualise the fact that the dynamics of unemployment and inflation are correlated not in a classical sense but in a very complicated mode that suggests the occurrence of some attractors when certain slow parameters are evolving in the neighbourhood of special threshold-values. The start is made with simple models that are based on empirical data and can show to us the traces to discover the steps of transition in eastern economies on the inflation-unemployment relationship space. Then, using economic theory combined with non-linear modelling more refined information is extracted from the statistical standardised data for to evaluate other faces of the eastern transition.

Stock Market Asymmetric Volatility and Macroeconomic Dynamics in Central and Eastern Europe

Abstract The risk on financial markets drives the performance of stock market investments in a national capital market, hence its interpretation in the minds of investors has a large influence on the dynamics of asset prices. The academic inclusion of fear on the financial markets is realized by the use of the concept of utility in a field that became mostly empirical in the development of modern finance. The creation of models on financial markets takes into account the so-called downside volatility reaction, as a stylized fact defined as the negative correlation between the return of a financial asset and the volatility of that asset. Our paper aims to measure this asymmetric volatility effect on the dynamics of Eastern European stock markets by using a wide set of GARCH models with coefficients for the effect of asymmetry and to detect its connection with the development of the macroeconomic environment. The objective is to reflect the differences between this connection and similar ones specific to developed economies.

A Simulation Model of Public Debt Sustainability

There is a long period since the problem of public debt sustainability captures the attention of economists. However, there is no unanimity concerning an adequate unique sustainability indicator or function generally accepted. Just in this line of elaborating new models and improving methodologies in order to quantify the impact of various factors on public debt sustainability is our paper. Moreover, last years, during its pre- and post-accession into EU period, Romanian economy is facing to numerous problems. Among these, the public debt sustainability plays a central role, its implications practically expanding on all fields connected to the economic dynamics.

Non-Linear Models: Applications in Economics

The study concentrated on demonstrating how non-linear modelling can be useful to investigate the behavioural of dynamic economic systems. Using some adequate non-linear models could be a good way to find more refined solutions to actually unsolved problems or ambiguities in economics. Beginning with a short presentation of the simplest non-linear models, then we are demonstrating how the dynamics of complex systems, as the economic system is, could be explained on the base of some more advanced non-linear models and using specific techniques of simulation. We are considering the non-linear models only as an alternative to the stochastic linear models in economics. The conventional explanations of the behaviour of economic system contradict many times the empirical evidence. We are trying to demonstrate that small modifications in the standard linear form of some economic models make more complex and consequently more realistic the behaviour of system simulated on the base of the new non-linear models. Finally, few applications of non-linear models to the study of inflation-unemployment relationship, potentially useful for further empirical studies, are presented.

The impact of standard value added tax on economic growth in CEE-5 countries: econometric analysis and simulations

AbstractThe value added tax (VAT), as an instrument of fiscal policy, might have an important role on economic growth. This study analyzes the impact of standard VAT rate on economic growth in five Central and Eastern European countries (CEE-5) (Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Romania). Different types of panel data models (random effect model, dynamic panel and panel vector-autoregression) over 1995–2015 indicated a positive influence of VAT rate on economic growth. There is a bilateral Granger causality between economic growth and VAT rate. The Bayesian linear models indicate a positive effect of VAT rate on GDP rate only for Hungary. On short-run, the other countries register lower GDP rates when VAT rates increase. Some simulations of economic growth for 2016 and 2018 were made for each CEE-5 country under different assumptions regarding VAT rate values.

Spatial Distribution of Key Macroeconomic Growth Indicators in the EU-27: A Theoretical and Empirical Investigation

Convergence, both nominal and real, is occurring in the EU, especially for new members. Among the macroeconomic variables and correlations closely related to the convergence process are inflation, per capita GDP, the natural rate of unemployment and the inflation-unemployment relationship. This study concentrates on empirical analyses of the spatial distribution of these macroeconomic variables for the EU-27. Moreover, taking into account that the current level of productivity is implicitly influenced by the current unemployment rate, a simple estimate for “pure” productivity is proposed as a solution. Pure productivity must be neutral to short-run changes in employment, but in the long run it is affected by factors including general technological progress, rising education levels, growth of the R&D system and the expansion of the “new economy”. The estimated changes in the pure productivity level are compared to the dynamics of the natural rate of unemployment.

A Dynamic Model to Estimate the Long-Run Trends in Potential GDP

To estimate long-run growth based on the so-called potential GDP became a constant preoccupation among economists. However, one remaining problem in every long-run growth model is to estimate a persistent trend in labour productivity outside of it, in order to avoid the implicit circular relationship between actual productivity growth and potential level of production. Coming from recent literature on natural rate of unemployment estimation we used a specific methodology in order to estimate NAIRU in case of post-communist economies and based on it to evaluate the potential GDP. Taking into account that the “classic” Hodrick-Prescott method is in fact equivalent to an interpolation procedure, we used in our experiment other three filters demonstrating very similar output. Moreover, we conceived a simple autonomous model in order to estimate the growth of a so-called “pure” productivity independently from the actual level of employment and to compare its dynamics with that of natural rate of unemployment.

The impact of biofuels utilisation in transport on the sustainable development in the European Union

The biofuels sustainability in transport depends on the energetic products demand and the limited resources. According to European legislation, the energy consumption in transport from renewable en...