JOURNAL OF QUANTITATIVE ECONOMICS最新文献

It is a great honour and privilege to deliver the Presidential Address at the 58th Annual Conference of the Indian Econometric Society (TIES). I am grateful to the Society for conferring this honour on me. TIES is one of the oldest and most reputed professional societies in the country. Eminent econometricians, economists, Trustees, office bearers of the society and other stakeholders have strengthened TIES since 1960. The annual conferences of TIES provide opportunities for young scholars to present research papers and interact with experts from India and abroad. I remember the wide participation of experts, senior and young researchers and students when we organised the 50th annual conference (Golden Jubilee) of TIES at IGIDR, Mumbai in 2013. Personally, I have learned a lot from the activities and publications of the Society in the last four decades. I am happy to note that this conference has a session on the contributions of Prof. C.R. Rao, the doyen of statistics. I would like to acknowledge that my knowledge in econometrics is due to the excellent teaching of Prof. K.L. Krishna and late Prof. A.L. Nagar at the Delhi School of Economics. Keeping in view of the broader interests of TIES, I have chosen to speak on “Regional Dimensions: Economic Growth, Inclusive and Sustainable Development. My Ph.D. topic was on inter-regional disparities in India. I am happy to revisit on regional dimensions after 40 years in a comprehensive way covering growth, inclusion and sustainability.

In the current year of 2024, Portugal celebrates half a century of Democracy. In this paper we test the sustainability of Portuguese fiscal policy during this most recent period of Portuguese history – a time when the principle of sound finance is no longer proclaimed as a dogma. Using data taken from different sources, we conclude that, although Portugal has experienced very troubled periods throughout its Democracy, fiscal policy was sustainable during 1974–2020. This sustainability was, however, weak. Our conclusion is based on a difference stationary public debt ratio, on a stationary budget deficit as a percentage of GDP, and, also on the existence of a long-term relation between public revenues and expenditures ratios with a reduced cointegration coefficients. The findings of this paper reinforce the need for Portuguese policymakers to ensure the sustainability of public finances and public debt which is crucial to sustain the Portuguese welfare state itself.

In empirical studies involving the estimation of structural parameters, a commonly used strategy to identify the CES preference parameter is to assume that firms have a constant marginal cost (MC). This assumption allows one to utilize the link between the total variable cost and total revenue implied by profit maximization to recover the CES preference parameter. This paper explores the robustness of the constant MC assumption in Monte Carlo experiments, where the control group consists of simulated constant MC firms and the treatment group involves different degrees of violation of the assumption. The results of our experiments show that the constant MC assumption indeed has a high identification power. Nevertheless, researchers need to ensure that their samples contain a sufficient proportion of constant MC firms, which, in our experiments, must be around 20 percent. We also find that, irrespective of the actual proportion of constant MC firms in the sample, the constant MC assumption correctly identifies the CES preference parameter if the elasticity of substitution within the industry is 2.5 or lower.

This paper deals with the analysis of road casualties in Great Britain, using annual data since 1926. Based on the persistent nature of the data, fractional integration methods are used that include linear and non-linear (structural breaks) models. The results indicate that when the whole data set is employed the series is nonstationary I(1) implying permanency of shocks. However, considering data starting in 1964 we observe a significant negative time trend along with a lower degree of integration that implies transitory shocks. In order to avoid the abrupt change produced by the break, a nonlinear deterministic trend model based on Chebyshev polynomials in time is also considered with the whole sample, and though the order of integration is much lower than 1, the unit root null hypothesis cannot yet be rejected.

This paper examines the asymmetric impact of monetary policy on central government’s 10-year g-sec yield using a non-linear autoregressive distributed lag model for the period Q1:2001–02 to Q4:2019–20. We find that monetary policy transmission to 10-year g-sec yield is partial and asymmetric in the long-run. A percentage point increase in the weighted average overnight call money rate (WACR) is, on an average, associated with 36–37 basis points rise in g-sec yield, whereas a percentage point fall in WACR leads to decrease in g-sec yield by 29–30 basis points. In the short-run, the asymmetric impact of WACR on the g-sec yield, though less conclusive, ranges between 18 and 20 basis points when WACR increases and 14–18 basis points when WACR decreases. The model includes market borrowings, GDP growth, crude oil price / inflation and yield on 10-year US government bonds as control variables. Our findings bear implications for monetary policy transmission to the real economy as well as for the market borrowing decisions of the fiscal authorities.

Using the nonlinear autoregressive bounds approach, the proposed study highlights that not only upside but also downside (i.e., positive and negative) variations in GDP, globalization index, and capital formation significantly affect energy utilization in India. The present study is based on time series data (i.e. from 1978 to 2014). Therefore, in the energy function, a dummy variable has also been included, which represents the possibility of the series discontinuity or structural break. The NARDL results reveal that the upside variations in national output (GDP) have amplified the scope of energy consumption in the long run, whereas the impact of downside variations is negative and substantial. Similarly, the study has separately captured the impact of upside and downside variations in the globalization index (i.e., economic and socio-political factors) on energy consumption in the country. It is evident from the results that improvement in these factors has intensified energy consumption in the long run, whereas the impact of decreased globalization index is found negative and significant. Further, the study confirms that the upside variation in capital formation has not significantly reduced energy utilization in the region. However, the downside movements (i.e., negative shocks in capital formation) have significantly increased the demand for energy in India. It is evident from the results that besides the increase in national output (GDP), the increase in the socio-political arena has also contributed to raising energy consumption in India. Contrarily, the downside movements in economic and socio-political factors have led to decreased energy consumption. The weak substitutability between upside movements in capital formation and energy consumption reveals that the country needs to generate energy-efficient production techniques. Based on the outcomes, it can be proposed that the government should promote research and development in all spheres of life (i.e., economic and socio-political) where energy is used as an input.

In order to shed light on the possible factors responsible for volatility in the financial performance of Indian banks, we primarily consider four novel variables in the study, including the COVID-19 crisis, NPLs, systemic risk, and government response. For this, we employ bank-level observations of 412 Indian commercial banks spanning 2018–2022. Using fixed-effects and 2SLS methods, we find that government response, COVID-19, and income diversification play a significant role in positively affecting the financial performance of Indian banks. However, non-performing loans, provisioning, systemic risk, and bank size are responsible for their poor performance. Projected macro-economic statistics suggest that the GDP growth rate and inflation have significantly increased the strength and resilience of Indian banks. The main evidence mainly supports the ‘bad-management’, ‘too-big-too-fail’, and ‘diversification opportunity’ hypotheses. The heterogeneity test and robustness check results are nearly identical to those reported in the main evidence. Overall, our findings reduce the concern of policymakers, though not completely eliminated, that tighter government regulation and provisioning for Indian banks may expedite the bank’s ability to withstand their credit risk, systemic risk, and exogenous shocks, which can lead to a rapid improvement in their performance.

The paper explores the significance of a borrower’s socioeconomic network in assessing creditworthiness using a novel theoretical framework. We introduce a method for a lender to consolidate the individuals’ trustworthiness of the borrower within her socioeconomic network. From the borrower’s perspective, we consider the adverse social consequences of default within their socioeconomic network, which acts as a disincentive for the borrower to default on the credit obligation. This social pressure discourages credit default. Building on this connection between trust in a socioeconomic network, our paper develops a model that incorporates aggregate trust, project riskiness, and the social cost of default to evaluate credit risk. In this framework, a borrower with a secure project and a high social cost of default is more likely to honour their credit commitments. Conversely, for a similar project, a borrower with a low social cost of default may be more inclined to wilfully default on their credit obligations.

In this article, we investigate the interrelationships between political stability, corruption, and public governance, in association with foreign direct investment (FDI) and Gross Fixed Capital formation (GFCF), and economic growth (GDP) for a global panel of 46 middle-income countries over the period 1996–2016. A multivariate panel model was employed to evaluate the long-run relationship and the panel Granger causality tests was used to judge the causality direction among different variables. The obtained results reveal that political instability in these countries affect clearly the positive relationship between FDI, GFCF and economic growth. The empirical results from the Granger causality test reveal a bidirectional causality relationship between the FDI, GFCF and GDP in presence of political factors and corruption. Moreover, our empirical findings confirm the existence of unidirectional causality running from GDP, FDI and GFC to corruption, from Government Effectiveness to FDI and GFCF. The policy implications of these results are also proposed and discussed.