Panel cointegration tests of the Fisher hypothesis

Recent empirical studies suggest that the Fisher hypothesis, stating that inflation and nominal interest rates should cointegrate with a unit parameter on inflation, does not hold, a finding at odds with many theoretical models. This paper argues that these results can be explained in part by the low power inherent in univariate cointegration tests and that the use of panel data should generate more powerful tests. In doing so, we propose two new panel cointegration tests, which are shown by simulation to be more powerful than other existing tests. Applying these tests to a panel of monthly data covering the period 1980:1 to 1999:12 on 14 OECD countries, we find evidence supportive of the Fisher hypothesis.

Political connection and cost of debt: Some Malaysian evidence

This paper investigates the association between Malaysian politically connected (PCON) firms and the cost of debt. We extend previous research that finds Malaysian PCON firms are perceived as being of higher risk by the market, and by audit firms, by providing evidence that lenders also perceive these firms as being of higher risk. We also find that PCON firms have a significantly (1) higher extent of leverage, (2) higher likelihood of reporting a loss, (3) higher likelihood of having negative equity, and (4) higher likelihood of being audited by a big audit firm. We suggest that PCON firms are charged higher interest rates by lenders as a result of efficient contracting given their higher inherent risks. Additionally, we find that CEO duality present in PCON firms is perceived by lenders as being more risky, and that a higher proportion of independent directors on the audit committee mitigate this perceived risk. © 2012.

Counter-credit-risk yield spreads: a puzzle in China's corporate bond market

In this paper, using China's risk-free and corporate zero yields together with aggregate credit risk measures and various control variables from 2006 to 2013, we document a puzzle of counter-credit-risk corporate yield spreads. We interpret this puzzle as a symptom of the immaturity of China's credit bond market, which reveals a distorted pricing mechanism latent in the fundamental of this market. We also find interesting results about relationships between corporate yield spreads and interest rates and risk premia and the stock index, and these results are somewhat attributed to this puzzle.

Identifying determinants of demand for construction using an econometric approach

Economic variation and its effects on construction demand have received a great deal of attention in construction economics studies. An understanding of future trends in demand for construction could influence investment strategies for a variety of parties, including construction developers, suppliers, property investors and financial institutions. This paper derives the determinants of demand for construction in Australia using an econometric approach to identify and evaluate economic indicators that affect construction demand. The forecasting contribution of different determinants of economic indicators and their categories to the demand for construction are further estimated. The results of this empirical study suggest that changes in consumer’s expectation, income and production, and demography and labour force are closely correlated with the movement of construction demand; and 14 economic indicators are identified as the determinants for construction demand. It was found that the changes in construction price, national income, size of population, unemployment rate, value or export, household expenditure and interest rates play key roles in explaining future variations in the demand for construction in Australia. Some “popular” macroeconomic indicators, such as GDP, established house price and bank loans produced inconclusive results.

Determination of long-run and short-run dynamics in EC-VARMA models via canonical correlations

This article studies a simple, coherent approach for identifying and estimating error-correcting vector autoregressive moving average (EC-VARMA) models. Canonical correlation analysis is implemented for both determining the cointegrating rank, using a strongly consistent method, and identifying the short-run VARMA dynamics, using the scalar component methodology. Finite-sample performance is evaluated via Monte Carlo simulations and the approach is applied to modelling and forecasting US interest rates. The results reveal that EC-VARMA models generate significantly more accurate out-of-sample forecasts than vector error correction models (VECMs), especially for short horizons.

A practical guide to averaging functions

Averaging is ubiquitous in many sciences, engineering, and everyday practice. The notions of the arithmetic, geometric, and harmonic means developed by the ancient Greeks are in widespread use today. When thinking of an average, most people would use arithmetic mean, “the average”, or perhaps its weighted version in order to associate the inputs with the degrees of importance. While this is certainly the simplest and most intuitive averaging function, its use is often not warranted. For example, when averaging the interest rates, it is the geometric and not the arithmetic mean which is the right method. On the other hand, the arithmetic mean can also be biased for a few extreme inputs, and hence can convey false meaning. This is the reason why real estate markets report the median and not the average prices (which could be biased by one or a few outliers), and why judges’ marks in some Olympic sports are trimmed of the smallest and the largest values.

Examining structural breaks and growth rates in international health expenditures

Over the last decade, there has been a growing interest in examining health expenditures. In this paper, we study the behaviour of health expenditures in the G3 countries (USA, the UK, and Japan) and three European countries (the UK, Switzerland and Spain) over the period 1960–2000 from a different perspective, in that we examine: (1) whether there is a common structural break in health expenditures across the G3 and European countries; (2) whether structural breaks have slowed down health expenditure growth rates in these countries or vice versa. Our main findings are that: (1) health expenditures share a common break in both bivariate and trivariate cases, and structural breaks and break intervals suggest that either one or a combination of events (second oil price shock, the 1987 stock market crash and/or recessions) have contributed to the commonality of break in health expenditures in the G3, while the oil price shocks have been instrumental in the commonality of breaks for the European countries; (2) except for the UK, structural breaks have slowed down growth rates in health expenditures for the USA, Japan, Switzerland and Spain.