Mamta Banu Chowdhury

Demand for money in the selected OECD countries: a time series panel data approach and structural breaks

Time series panel data estimation methods are used to estimate the cointegrating equations for the demand for money (M1) for a panel of 11 Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) countries for which consistent quarterly data are available. The effects of financial reforms are analysed with structural break tests and estimates for alternative sub-samples. Our results for the post-reform sub-samples show that the income elasticity of the demand for money has decreased and response to interest rate changes has increased.

Growth and dynamics of Australia's education exports

Australia is the third largest global exporter of education services and generated

Effects of Housing Allowances on Housing Prices in Australia: A Cointegration Analysis

18.6 billion in 2009–2010. The education sector ranks as the top services exports and number three of all export earners in recent years after coal and iron ore. This study analyses the major determinants of Australias education exports. Using the Johansen cointegration technique, a stable long run relationship is found between education export earnings, real exchange rate, world income and terms of trade. It is also found that policy reforms relating to opening up the education sector from the mid 1980s had a positive growth effect on the sector.

Does Institutional Quality Affect Foreign Direct Investment? A Panel Data Analysis

This paper investigates the impact of the housing allowance for first homebuyers provided by the Federal government, together with nominal interest rate and employment on housing prices in Australia using cointegration analysis and an error correction model. Granger causality is also tested. Results show that the growth rates in average house prices for established houses and for project homes are Granger caused jointly by employment growth and interest rate increases. The cointegration analysis shows that housing prices are positively affected by falling interest rates and rising employment. The recent housing allowance is found to have a positive and significant effect on housing prices in Australia.

Remittances, Human Capital and Poverty: A System Approach

This study investigates the effects of the institutional quality along with socio-economic factors on foreign direct investment (FDI) of 156 countries using Ordinary Least Square (OLS) and Fixed Effect (FE) method. The findings of the study suggest that while corruption lowers FDI significantly, democracy, government stability, law and order, civil liberty and political rights have significant positive effects on FDI inflows. Results of the study also indicate that increased levels of educational attainment and openness in a trade regime lead to a higher level of FDI. Thus the policy prescription to attract higher FDI requires focussing on ensuring better institutional quality with a lower level of corruption along with raising the skill-base of the labour force in an outward looking external trade regime.

The Importance of Introductory Subjects in Advanced Economics Studies

ABSTRACT:The international remittances sent back home by migrant workers have a profound impact on the developing countries of Asia, Africa, Latin America, and the Middle East. According to World Bank, official international remittances sent home by migrant workers represent the second most important source of external funding in developing countries. Estimated official international remittances are around

Remittances flow and financial development in Bangladesh

440 billion in 2015 and are about twice as large as the level of official aid-related inflows to developing countries. While estimating the effects of remittances on economic growth tend to be rather difficult and controversial, measuring their welfare effects are less so. Remittances have been found to have poverty reducing impact in many studies. The usual methods used in these studies to gauge the effect of remittances on poverty have been OLS or instrumental variable (IV) regression. While these are valid approaches, one of their shortcomings is to overlook that remittances and poverty are both endogenous and jointly determined in a system. This paper estimates the effect of remittances on poverty in an unbalanced panel of 37 economies using a system of equations framework. Although there are some earlier studies that recommend the use of system approach, they tend to impose i.i.d condition on the error term. This paper relaxes the i.i.d. error assumption and adopts the multiple equation generalized method of moments (GMM) estimator because it produces consistent and efficient estimates when non-i.i.d. errors are present. The obtained results show that remittances significantly reduce poverty in the sample of a remittances dependent countries. The point estimates provide a robust estimation of remittances-poverty nexus and are consistent with those found in the literature. Furthermore, since it is likely that poverty itself can be a significant determinant of remittances flows, the estimated elasticities are measured on the basis when both remittances and poverty are jointly determined. The results also suggest that the dynamics of remittances is related to the overall level of human capital of the general population as well as to those living under poverty. Specifically, we find that the flows of remittances decline with improvement in the health factor of the general population but increase as health conditions of the poor people tend to improve. Likewise, there is also some evidence that remittances tend to rise with increases in educational attainments of the general population, but more likely to fall as the poor people become more educated. As a poverty reduction strategy, a stable macroeconomic environment is required so that the migrants are assured of the safety of the use of their money sent back home.

Trade Reforms and Economic Integration in South Asia: SAARC to SAPTA

Academic performance in the introductory year of tertiary education is one of the major predictors of performance in advanced level subjects. This paper investigates the relative importance of introductory economics and quantitative units in higher level economics study. The multi-year data set provide detailed performance scores of students enrolled in a major multi-campus Australian university. Using Ordinary Least Square and Quantile Regression, our results suggest that the performance in introductory macroeconomics and quantitative units significantly influences the students’ performance in advanced level economics study. This suggests that students coming to tertiary education are required to be equipped with adequate skills and attain a certain level of competency to progress well in higher level economics studies. This strategy may assist in achieving greater social inclusion and increased retention rates in university studies.