Marcus Kappler

The macroeconomic effects of large exchange rate appreciations

In this paper we study the macroeconomic aftermath of large exchange rate appreciations. Using a sample of 128 countries over the period 1960–2008, we identify 25 episodes of large nominal and real appreciations shocks. We use narrative identification of exogenous appreciation episodes and study the macroeconomic effects in a dummy-augmented panel autoregressive model.

Does foreign direct investment synchronise business cycles? Results from a panel approach

This study readdresses the determinants of business cycle synchronisation. We test, on the one hand, whether FDI promoting policies may have consequences for the business cycle comovement between countries, and on the other hand, whether more plausible identification strategies change previous results. Our results suggest that linkages through foreign direct investment contribute in most cases positively to the synchronisation between country pairs. In contrast, the beneficial effects of trade integration for the similarity of business cycles are less robust and thus less important for the transmission of idiosyncratic shocks between countries than previously thought. Finally, we find that larger differences in the sector structure between two economies result in a bigger gap between their business cycles.

The Role of Structural Common and Country-Specific Shocks in the Business Cycle Dynamics of the G7 Countries

The study analyses the business cycles of the G7 countries in a structural vector autoregression(SVAR) framework comprising output, nominal interest rate and inflation. Common and country-specific supply, demand and nominal shocks of each G7 country are identified, and the corresponding shock propagation channels are computed. We establish the statistical properties of the cyclical fluctuations and investigate the role of each structural common and country-specific shock in the cyclical fluctuations of the variables of interest as well as the business cycle co-movement in the G7 group of countries.

Projecting the Medium-Term: Outcomes and Errors for GDP Growth

The focus of this paper is the evaluation of a very popular method for potential output estimation and medium-term forecasting - the production function approach - in terms of predictive performance. For this purpose, a forecast evaluation for the three to five years ahead predictions of GDP growth for the individual G7 countries is conducted. To carry out the forecast performance check a particular testing framework is derived that allows the computation of robust test statistics given the specific nature of the generated out-of sample forecasts. In addition, medium-term GDP projections from national and international institutions are examined and it is assessed whether these projections convey a reliable view about future economic developments and whether there is scope for improving their predictive content.

Determinants of Business Cycle Synchronisation

The analysis of the determinants of business cycle synchronisation has been a major topic in research on business cycle synchronisation. At the core of this strand of literature is the effort to identify the underlying factors that shape the symmetry or asymmetry of business cycles across countries. Understanding these factors is crucial for the design of currency areas such as the euro area and for conducting a common monetary policy.

Fiscal Adjustment in Greece: In Search for Sustainable Public Finances

This paper analyses Greek fiscal sustainability from a retrospective and a prospective view. Implications of Greek fiscal (un)sustainability are discussed. In the empirical analysis econometric testing of Greek government solvency during the period 1985-2008 is combined with a scenario analysis of budgetary adjustments during the period 2011-2030 under alternative hypotheses.

Wie genau sind die Konjunkturprognosen der Institute für Deutschland

ZusammenfassungDie vorliegende Arbeit diskutiert Ursachen für Unsicherheiten von Konjunkturprognosen und demonstriert die Berechnung von empirischen Prognoseintervallen. Die Verwendung empirischer Prognoseintervalle für eine Beurteilung der Signifikanz von Prognoserevisionen wird für den Median der Prognosen von vier deutschen Wirtschaftsforschungsinstituten für die Entwicklung volkswirtschaftlicher Kennziffern exemplarisch veranschaulicht. Es zeigt sich, dass vor allem geringfügige Prognoserevisionen meistens keine wesentlich neuen Einschätzungen hinsichtlich der zukünftigen konjunkturellen Entwicklung signalisieren. Für eine Beurteilung der grundsätzlichen Prognoseschwierigkeit wurden die Medianprognosen der Institute in einem weiteren Untersuchungsschritt alternativen Zeitreihenmodellen gegenübergestellt. Die Institutsprognosen weisen gegenüber den Zeitreihenmodellen durchweg eine höhere Güte auf. Allerdings sind deutliche Unterschiede in der Prognosepräzision der betrachteten volkswirtschaftlichen Kennziffern feststellbar.AbstractEconomic forecasts are characterised by uncertainties. This article discusses the causes of such uncertainties and calculates empirical forecast intervals for institutional forecasts for several German economic variables. In addition, it is demonstrated how these intervals can be used to assess the significance of forecast revisions. It turns out that most forecast revisions were not significant and that such revisions usually do not carry important new judgements of the future economic development. Furthermore, it is shown that institutional forecasts outperform forecasts from time series modeis. However, clear differences among economic variables in terms of forecast precision emerge.

Determination of Potential Growth Using Panel Techniques

The aim of this paper is to construct an indicator of potential growth for developed countries using the insights of the theoretical and empirical growth literature. The Pooled Mean Group Estimator of Pesaran, Shin and Smith (1999) that employs a panel data technique is used. This estimator is suited for integrated annual macroeconomic panel data sets to estimate long-run relationships between GDP per capita and its determinants of the underlying cross-section of 12 industrial countries. Since this long-run relationship describes a sort of structural relationship, one can use the fitted model to calculate an indicator of potential growth. The first part of the paper reviews the existing growth literature with a special focus on industrial countries in order to motivate for the used variables in the econometric analysis. The next part explains the concept of panel unit roots and panel cointegration and introduces the underlying empirical approach. Next, empirical results are presented and discussed. Then, the calculation of the potential growth indicator is demonstrated. The last part of this paper concludes.

The Phillips Curve: (In)stability, the role of credit, and implications for potential output measurement

The path of output prior to the financial and economic crisis turned out to be not sustainable and lower than previously estimated in some European crisis countries. Specifically, the output gaps have been underestimated (and inversely potential output overestimated) before the recent crisis. It is fair to say that the employed estimation techniques failed to provide valid real-time assessments of the state of the credit boom driven euro area economies. One reason for this may be the breakdown of the Phillips curve relationship during the last years. Against this backdrop, we comprehensively analyse the validity of the Phillips curve for five European countries with a focus on the recent crisis. We find that a mostly insignificant relation between inflation and the output gap or unemployment gap, which questions the adequacy of the Phillips curve to identify the sustainable level of output in an economy. The credit-driven boom in crisis countries has made clear that (disadvantageous) financial markets conditions may result in structural and long-term real economic distortions that are not yet taken into account in conventional methods for the estimation of potential output and the output gap. Since both, potential output and output gaps, are a key notion in policymaking, incorporating financial factors could improve the reliability of the estimates. Our results point in this direction.

Panel Tests for Unit Roots in Hours Worked

Hours worked is a time series of interest in many empirical investigations of the macroeconomy. Estimates of macro elasticities of labour supply, for example, build on this variable. Other empirical applications investigate the response of hours worked to a shock to technology on the basis of the real business cycle model. Irrespective of the problem being addressed, robust inference of empirical outcomes strongly hinges on the adequately modelling of the time series of hours worked. The aim of the present paper is to provide cross country evidence of the non- stationarity of hours worked for OECD countries. For these purposes, panel unit root tests are employed to improve power against univariate counterparts. Since cross section correlation is a distinct feature of the underlying panel data, results are based on various second generation panel unit root tests which account for cross section dependence among units. If an unobserved common factor model is assumed for generating the observations, there is indication for both a common factor and idiosyncratic components driving the non-stationarity of hours worked. In addition, taking these results together, there is no indication of cointegration among the individual time series of hours worked.