Tsangyao Chang

Defence spending, economic growth and temporal causality: evidence from Taiwan and mainland China, 1952-1995

This paper uses a cointegration analysis and a vector autoregressive model (VAR) to examine the causal relationship between defence spending and economic growth for Taiwan and Mainland China over the period 1952–1995. It is found that these two variables are not cointegrated for both countries studied. The results of the Granger causality tests suggest bidirectional Granger causality (feedback) between defence spending and economic growth for Taiwan, unidirectional Granger causality running from economic growth to defence spending for Mainland China, and unidirectional Granger causality running from Taiwans defence spending to Mainland Chinas defence spending for cross-country studied. These results further indicate that there exists no arms race between two countries from both sides of Taiwan strait. Furthermore, impulse responses and variance decompositions are incorporated into the analysis. The results from the impulse responses and variance decompositions tell a similar story.

The Causal Relationship Between Economic Policy Uncertainty and Stock Returns in China and India: Evidence from a Bootstrap Rolling Window Approach

Abstract This article applies a bootstrap rolling-window causality test to assess the causal relationship between economic policy uncertainty (EPU) and stock returns in China and India. Empirical literature examining causality between two time series may suffer from inaccurate results when the underlying full-sample time series have structural changes. However, the bootstrap rolling-window approach enables us to identify possible time-varying causalities between time series based on sub-sample data. Using a twenty-four-months rolling window over the period 1995:02 to 2013:02 in China and 2003:02–2013:02 in India, we do find that there are bidirectional causal relationships between EPU and stock returns in several sub-periods rather than in the whole sample period. However, the association between EPU and stock returns is, in general, weak for these two emerging countries. Our findings have important implications for policy makers and investors.

Does insurance activity promote economic growth? Further evidence based on bootstrap panel Granger causality test

This study applies the bootstrap panel Granger causality test to test whether insurance activity promotes economic growth, using data from 10 OECD countries over the period of 1979–2006. Empirical results indicate that one-way Granger causality running from all insurance activities to economic growth for France, Japan, Netherlands, Switzerland, and the UK, and economic growth Granger causes insurance activities in Canada (for life insurance), Italy (for total and life insurance) and the USA (for total and non-life insurance). There is a two-way Granger causality between life insurance activity and economic growth in the USA, while no causality between insurance activities and economic growth is found in Belgium (for all insurance), Canada (for total and non-life insurance), Italy (for non-life insurance) and Sweden (for life insurance). Our results also confirm the finding of Ward and Zurbruegg [Does insurance promote economic growth? Evidence from OECD economies. Journal of Risk and Insurance 67, no. 4: 489–506] showing that the insurance–growth nexus varies across countries, since their paper have previously demonstrated heterogeneity in this vein. In an analysis of a broader, though overlapping 17-country sample and taking into account banking activities, the results suggest the importance of including banking activities when investigating the insurance–growth relationship.

Does Military Spending Really Matter for Economic Growth in China and G7 Countries: The Roles of Dependency and Heterogeneity

This study revisits the causal linkages between military spending and economic growth in China and G7 countries (i.e. Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the UK, and the USA) by focusing country-specific analysis for the period 1988–2010. The panel causality analysis, which accounts for both cross-country dependency and heterogeneity across countries, is employed in this study. Our results find evidence of the neutrality hypothesis for Italy, France, and Germany, the military spending–growth detriment hypothesis for both Canada and the UK, and one-way Granger causality running from economic growth to military spending for China. Furthermore, we find a feedback between military spending and economic growth in both Japan and the USA. Thus, our results do not support that one size fits all.

Military Spending and Economic Growth in the Middle East Countries: Bootstrap Panel Causality Test

This study revisits the causal relationship between military spending and economic growth in 10 Middle East countries via a panel causality analysis that accounts for cross-sectional dependence and heterogeneity across countries. Our results indicate unidirectional causality from military spending to growth for Turkey; one-way causality from economic growth to military spending for Egypt, Kuwait, Lebanon, and Syria; bidirectional causality for Israel; and no causality in either direction for Jordan, Oman, and Saudi Arabia. The empirical evidence does not provide consistent results regarding the causal relationship between defense expenditure and economic growth in these countries.

The Causal Relationship between Imports and Economic Growth in the Nine Provinces of South Africa: Evidence from Panel Granger Causality Tests

This paper examines the causal relationship between imports and growth in nine provinces of South Africa for the period 1996-2011, using panel causality analysis, which accounts for cross-section dependency and heterogeneity across regions. Our empirical results support unidirectional causality running from economic growth to imports for Gauteng, Mpumalanga, North West, and Western Cape; a bi-directional causality between imports and economic growth for KwaZulu-Natal; and no causality in any direction between economic growth and imports for the rest of provinces. This suggests that import liberalisation might not be an efficient strategy to improve provincial economic performance in South Africa. Indeed, provincial imports tend to increase in some provinces as economic growth improves.

Does research output cause economic growth or vice versa? Evidence from 34 OECD countries

The causal relation between research and economic growth is of particular importance for political support of science and technology as well as for academic purposes. This article revisits the causal relationship between research articles published and economic growth in Organisation for Economic Co‐operation and Development (OECD) countries for the period 1981–2011, using bootstrap panel causality analysis, which accounts for cross‐section dependency and heterogeneity across countries. The article, by the use of the specific method and the choice of the country group, makes a contribution to the existing literature. Our empirical results support unidirectional causality running from research output (in terms of total number of articles published) to economic growth for the US, Finland, Hungary, and Mexico; the opposite causality from economic growth to research articles published for Canada, France, Italy, New Zealand, the UK, Austria, Israel, and Poland; and no causality for the rest of the countries. Our findings provide important policy implications for research policies and strategies for OECD countries.

Revisiting the Defense–Growth nexus in European countries

This study revisits the long run and dynamic causal linkages between defense spending and economic growth in 15 selected European countries for the period 1988–2010 by utilizing recent developments in non-stationary panel data analysis. To this end, the series properties of per capita defense spending, per capita real capita stocks, and per capita real GDP are investigated by the panel unit root tests with and without breaks that support evidence on unit root. The panel cointegration tests with and without breaks are also subsequently employed to investigate whether there exists a long-run equilibrium relationship between these three variables. Finally, our causality analysis from panel vector error-correction model suggests that there is a feedback relation between real capital stock and real GDP in both short and long run, a one-way Granger causality running from real GDP to defense spending in both short and long run, and defense spending only Granger causes real capital stock in the long run.

The causal nexus between military spending and unemployment in the G7: a bootstrap panel causality test

We revisit the causal relationship between military spending and unemployment in the G7 countries applying a bootstrap panel causality analysis that accounts for both cross-sectional dependence and for heterogeneity across countries. Using per capita real GDP as a controlled variable, we found a unidirectional causality running from military spending to unemployment for Canada, Japan, and the US, one-way causality running from unemployment to military spending for France and Germany, and bidirectional causality for Italy and the UK. The empirical evidence does not seem to provide consistent results regarding the causal relationship between military spending and unemployment in G7 countries.

Mean reversion in G-7 stock prices: Further evidence from a panel stationary test with multiple structural breaks

In this study, we use the newly developed and refined panel stationary test with structural breaks to investigate the time-series properties of stock prices for the G-7 stock markets during the 2000-2007 period. The empirical results from numerous earlier panel-based unit root tests which do not take structural breaks into account indicate that stock prices for all the countries we study here are non-stationary; but when we employ panel stationary test with structural breaks, we find the null hypothesis of I(0) stationarity in stock prices cannot be rejected for any of the G-7 stock markets. Our results indicate that the efficient market hypothesis does not hold in these G-7 stock markets.