Academic literature on the topic 'Saving And Domestic Investment'

The purpose of this study is to determine the relationship between domestic financial resource gaps and current account balance in Indonesia by using data from 2010 to 2014. Gaps in the domestic economy are classified into three types: 1) the domestic absorptive capacity of the national income gap (GNP), 2) gross national savings and investment gap, 3) private sector gap (private saving minus private investment), and public sector gap (tax minus government spending). By using a concept of open economy that is described in a theoretical framework, the study results show that: 1) the gap absorption of domestic and GNP, 2) the gap between gross national saving and gross national investments, 3) the gap in private sector and government sector resulting in deficit in the current account during Indonesia on 2010-2014 periods.

Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) as a growth-enhancing component has received great attention of developed countries in general and less developed countries in particular in recent decades. It has been a matter of great concern for many economists that how FDI affects economic growth of the host country. In a closed economy, with no access to foreign saving, investment is financed solely from domestic savings. However, in open economy investment is financed both through domestic savings and foreign capital flows, including FDI. The investments in form of FDI enable investment-receiving (host) countries to achieve investment levels beyond their capacity to save.

The Mobilisation of domestic resources and their efficient utilisation are two of the most crucial tasks in revitalising the economy of Pakistan. Historically, low saving fotmation and relatively higher targets of investment and economic growth made it imperative to depend on external resources. Despite heavy domestic borrowing from both private and public sectors, there still has remained an unmet resource gap that has necessitated dependence on foreign capital. I In recent years, the sources of foreign assistance have become scarce due to a growing shortage in world saving and growing domestic demand for budget appropriations in the western countries. If economic growth in Pakistan is to be sustained and selfgenerating, investment in physical and human development must be increased and mad more efficient. To meet this challenge, most of the capital will have to come from domestic sources. Hence, the focus of this paper is on harnessing domestic efforts to increase saving formation and to enhance efficiency of capital investments. Traditionally, the government of Pakistan has relied on conventional approaches to increasing domestic saving. First, the government has been encouraging greater saving by the private sector through a package of national saving schemes and by allowing financial institutions to introduce saving incentives. Saving-schemes and saving incentives have not produced satisfying results. Table 1 shows saving and investment in selected South Asian countries. Saving in Pakistan is very low and, indeed, among the lowest even when compared with neighbouring and other developing countries. Explanations of this failure include the low levels of income and high rate of inflation in the country.2 Moreover, the financial institutions have in general remained inefficient.

In the macroeconomic perspective, domestic saving and investment constitute two important wheels that keep the growth process moving on towards stability. But when domestic savings tend to fly away to foreign countries for excess returns, the warranted domestic investment remains unattained thereby which impair the growth trend unless the gap is bridged by the foreign investment inflows. However, excess inflows of foreign investments may deteriorate current account balances, if not appropriately absorbed. In this pretext, this article revisited the Feldstein–Horioka puzzle with the twin-deficit hypothesis for SAARC countries. The results lend to support the validity of the twin-deficit hypothesis along with a low degree of association between domestic savings and investment in the region thereby justifying the argument that international capital movements or financial integration have increased in the post-reform era. This observation has significant policy implications for the sustained growth of the SAARC nations.

The study examined the relationship between financial deepening and investment in Nigeria. Secondary data spanning from 1970 to 2013 was used for the empirical analysis. It adopted the Gregor-Hansen Endogenous structural break methodology and the supply-leading hypothesis in building the model. The study also employed the Unit Root Test, Co Integration Test and Granger Causality Test. It discovered a unidirectional causality, running from financial deepening to investment. It also found that the financial deepening has a statistically significant impact on domestic investment. Based on these empirical findings, the study recommended increased integration of the credit and thrift societies, cooperatives, rural saving organization etc into the mainstream formal financial sector in order to shore up the mobilization of savings for investment. It also recommended subsidizing the operational cost of financial intermediation so as to narrow the gap in interest rate spread. These steps when judiciously executed will ultimately promote financial deepening by easing the rigidities involved in mobilizing and accessing of credit for investment purpose.

Saving and investment are two key macro variables with micro foundations which can play a significant role in economic growth, inflation stability and promotion of employment especially if seen in the context of a developing country. For self-reliance and growth objectives, mobilisation of domestic resources and their efficient utilisation are the two major policy oriented focuses today [Khan (1993)]. National savings are critically important to help maintain a higher level of investment which is a key determinant for economic uplift. Thereby, necessitating the analysis of saving-investment behaviour and its determinants for policy implications; this is a demanding area because of continuing debate on the potential role of their determinants.

Saving, the fraction of national income that is not spent on current consumption, has long been widely regarded as a key factor in economic growth.1 The saving rate along with the incremental capital-output ratio determine the growth rate of the economy in the Harrod-Domar Model framework. The critical role of saving in capital accumulation and economic development is also recognised in the "two-gap" and classical growth models. For capital accumulation to result in sustained growth, it must be supported by adequate domestic/national savings. This has been clearly demonstrated by the extra-ordinary performance of the East Asian economies. While there have been brief periods of significant inflow of external financial resources to some developing countries in the past, foreign savings cannot be expected to provide a sustainable basis for financing domestic investment. Raising' national saving rate is particularly essential to developing countries with a heavy debt service burden and limited capacity to obtain loans in foreign capital markets. The 1995 Mexican crisis showed, among other things, that low domestic savings can raise the probability of sudden capital outflows, and sharpen their negative consequences. In a financially integrated world, high national/domestic savings contribute to macro economic stability which is itself a powerful growth factor. Indeed, any macro economic adjustment programmes oriented to the resumption of long-run growth invariably emphasise the need to expand domestic savings.

The various form of inflow of foreign capital (loans, FDI, grant and portfolio) was welcome in developing countries to bridge the gap between domestic saving and domestic investment and therefore, to accelerate growth [Chenery and Strout (1966)]. Some other have been challenged the traditional view that foreign aid impedes domestic savings growth and mobilisation and have economic growth.1 Much attention have been paid in past 30 years, relationship between foreign capital flows and domestic saving, the main purpose of these studies have been determined whether in less developed countries foreign capital inflow and domestic saving are complementary or substitute. However, there is a controversy at theoretical and empirical levels, over the effects of foreign capital on both economic growth and national saving. A number of studies in Pakistan have been conducted during the early 1990s to examine the relationship between saving and foreign capital inflow.2 All studies shows the inverse relationship between foreign capital inflows3 (aggregate level) and saving rate, but the impact of FCI at disaggregate levels (loans, grants, FDI) on saving rate show different magnitude and signs, similarly impact of FCI on decomposition of saving rate (Public, private, household, corporate) also have different magnitude and sign.

Abstract The aim of this paper is to test the existence of Feldstein Horioka puzzle in the case of Algerian economy for the period 1970-2019 by examining the link between domestic savings and investments, we use in this paper both the co-integration tests under Gregory-Hansen (1996), Hatemi-J (2008) and Maki (2012) tests in the context of structural breaks, and the symmetric and asymmetric causality (hidden causality) proposed by Hacker-Hatemi (2010) and Hatemi (2012) respectively, the results suggest that there is a co-integration relationship between saving and investment with five endogenous structural breaks, and the saving retention coefficient is equal to 0.324 which means the existence of Feldstein-Horioka puzzle in a weaker form and high capital mobility, on the other hand, the results indicate asymmetric causal relationship between savings and investments.

Thesis (MDF)--Stellenbosch University, 2015.
ENGLISH ABSTRACT: This study examined the causal relationship between foreign direct investment and domestic savings in Zambia. Data over the period 1970–2012 was extracted from the World Development Indicator and Global Economic Monitor Databases (2014). The study employed the Johansen cointegration approach to establish the long-standing relationship between domestic savings and foreign direct investment. In addition, the Granger causality test was also carried out to examine the causal relationship between foreign direct investment and gross domestic savings. The results suggest that although foreign direct investment inflow can lead to domestic savings growth in the short run, in the long run it would substitute domestic savings. This implies that the effect of the increased inflows of foreign direct investment experienced in the recent past may in the long run hurt domestic savings growth in Zambia. Policy makers should therefore improve the governance mechanism for the use and monitoring of foreign direct investment inflows in Zambia and promote diversification away from mining, the main economic activity that accounts for more than 60 percent of direct foreign investment in Zambia.
AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: Hierdie studie het ondersoek ingestel na die oorsaaklikheidsverwantskap tussen direkte buitelandse belegging en binnelandse besparing in Zambië. Data vir die tydperk 1970 tot 2012 is uit die Wêreldbank se databasisse World Development Indicators en Global Economic Monitor (2014) bekom. Die studie het die Johansen-benadering van ko-integrasie gevolg om die lank bestaande verwantskap tussen binnelandse besparing en direkte buitelandse belegging te bepaal. Daarbenewens is die Granger-oorsaaklikheidstoets uitgevoer om die oorsaaklikheidsverwantskap tussen direkte buitelandse belegging en bruto binnelandse besparing te ondersoek. Die resultate dui daarop dat hoewel die invloeiing van direkte buitelandse belegging binnelandse besparing op kort termyn ’n hupstoot sal gee, dit binnelandse besparing op lang termyn sal vervang. Dít impliseer dat die verhoogde direkte buitelandse belegging wat in die onlangse verlede ondervind is, op lang termyn ’n skadelike uitwerking op groei in binnelandse besparing in Zambië kan hê. Beleidsvormers behoort dus die beheermeganisme vir die aanwending en monitering van direkte buitelandse belegging in Zambië te verbeter en diversifikasie aan te moedig weg van mynbou, die vernaamste ekonomiese aktiwiteit in die land wat tans vir meer as 60% van alle direkte buitelandse belegging in Zambië sorg.

.Most countries in the SADC region experience low levels of domestic savings. This calls for the need to explore other sources of financial flows to bridge the gap between domestic capital demand and supply, and one such source is external financial flows. It is with this background that this study examined the relationship between the different forms of external financial flows, domestic savings and economic growth in the SADC region for the period from 1980 to 2013. Firstly the study examined the impact of the different forms of external financial flows on economic growth in the region. The empirical results revealed that FDI, CBF and remittances have a significant impact on economic growth in the SADC region. ODA was however found to be insignificant. When the different types of external financial flows were interacted with institutions they all became significant in explaining economic growth in the region. The second aspect was to examine the extent to which external financial flows complement or displace domestic saving. The empirical results revealed that external financial flows with the exception of ODA complement domestic savings in the region. In addition, there is evidence of investment generating additional savings in the region, which is likely to be through the economic growth channel. The last objective of the study was to examine the determinants of external financial flows to the SADC region. The empirical results revealed that both push and pull factors are important in determining external financial flows in the region. Of great importance was the observation that events in the source country determine financial flows to the region. Proxy for financial integration was found to be positive though insignificant, pointing out that the region may not be benefiting from cross-border bank flows due to the region being disintegrated. This suggests that the region may benefit from increased cross-border bank flows if the region is integrated. Overall, the results from the study suggest that external financial flows are important to the region in providing the much needed development finance. However this also suggests that the foreign capital channel is another source in which a crisis from a developed country can be transmitted to the SADC region.

This study is an analysis of the relationship between domestic savings and three economic indicators in the Republic of Korea during the 1950s through 1980s. While domestic saving is affected by many economic phenomena, the analysis is confined to national income, exports, and inflation. The study is divided into five chapters. These are entitled (1) Introduction, (2) Domestic Savings, (3) Income and Domestic Savings, (4) Exports and Domestic Savings, (5) Inflation and Domestic Savings. In chapter I, Korea and the Korean economy are introduced, and the scope of the study is stated. Chapter II reviews the related realm of domestic savings: definition, kinds, and determinants of domestic savings. Chapter III presents the relationship between different incomes and domestic savings, and shows non-labor income contributes more powerfully to the formation of domestic savings than labor income. Chapter IV contains effects of exports, and hypothesis testing. The effect of exports suggests that export expansion affects domestic savings positively via an increase in gross national product. Chapter V deals with the correlation between inflation and domestic savings, and its testing. The correlation between inflation and domestic savings is not generally clear except for some specific cases.

This paper presents a framework for exploring the sustainability of U.S. domestic budget deficits in the presence of the currently experienced capital inflows. A 'sustainable' deficit-financing policy is defined as one in which the combination of debt-financing and seigniorage precludes the creation of a large unanticipated inflation to wipe out the debt in real terms. The model implemented is a rational expectations model of the open economy and two separate cases are analyzed. In Case I, domestic money creation is held 'fixed' and any increases in the deficit are financed by the sale of one-year discounted government bonds to domestic and foreign residents. In Case II domestic money and bonds are both endogenously determined. The asset market, in both the cases, is characterized by perfect capital mobility as defined by uncovered nominal interest parity. Real interest parity, however, does not exist as domestic and foreign goods are not perfect substitutes. In Case I, the solution of the domestic price level exhibits price-neutrality with respect to the deficits. The nominal and real exchange rates, however, are found to appreciate with increases in deficits and the situation is aggravated further by an exodus of domestic real wealth. In Case II, on the other hand, deficits are found to be inflationary and both nominal and real exchange rates depreciate with increases in the deficit. Furthermore, increases in the amount of debt being rolled over cause even greater upward pressures on domestic inflation and result in the further weakening of the dollar. The solutions also provide us with an expression for the maximum amount of debt that can be rolled over without causing the domestic price level to explode or the currency to collapse. This 'critical value' of debt is found to bear an inverse relationship to the rate of growth of the domestic deficit. Bond-financed deficits are therefore non-sustainable in both the cases discussed, and the arithmetic, it seems, is unpleasant indeed.
Ph. D.

Philosophiae Doctor - PhD
Savings is essential for boosting economic growth. Low savings in a country will have negative consequences for both investment and economic growth. South Africa has continued to expe rience declining saving rates and in recent years, accompanied by declining economic growth. The study evaluated savings in South Africa by decomposing it into household saving, cor porate saving and public saving. The focus was to investigate the determinants of household savings, corporate and public savings. In addition to examining the determinants of savings, the research has also analysed the saving-investment relationship for South Africa. The study used a Bayesian vector auto regressive model to investigate the determinants of household sav ing from 1980Q1 to 2017Q4. The results of the investigation on household saving showed that GDP, inflation rate, and financial deepening determine household saving in South Africa. The Bayesian VAR was also used to identify the determinant of budget deficit between 1980Q1 to 2017Q and found Real GDP, inflation rate, total government debt, investment by general government and the inflation rate to be determinants. The Blundel-Bond Generalized Method of Moment (GMM) was used to investigate the determinants of corporate saving in form of cash holding for 80 non-financial firms listed on the JSE between 2007 and 2017. The results showed leverage, cash flow, debt maturity and previous amounts of cash holding to have significant effect on cash holding in SA. Lastly, the study examined the saving-investment nexus for South Africa using yearly data from 1980 to 2016. Using the Autoregressive Distributed lag (ARDL) and the Error Correction Model, (ECM), the study found a cointegrating relationship between domestic saving and domestic investment. It further found a positive relationship between domestic saving and domestic investment in both the short and long run. Causality analysis showed a unidirectional causality from domestic saving to domestic investment.

The financial and exchange rate crisis observed in Argentine at the end of 2001 showed the importance of understanding the factors that explain the evolution of the balance of payments and, in particular, of the current account. The objective of this work is to show recent developments in the theory of the current account and its application to the Argentine case. In the first place, short and long term correlations between national saving and domestic investment is considered through a model of a mechanism of correction of errors. Later, the paper analyzes the main shocks that affect to the current account in agreement with different theories. Finally, the paper shows the intertemporary approach of the current account. In this case, the paper considers a standard version of this approach and a model that makes flexible some of its main basic assumptions.
La crisis financiera y cambiaria que tuvo lugar en la Argentina hacia fines del año 2001 puso de relieve la importancia de entender los factores que explican la evolución de la balanza de pagos y, en particular, de la cuenta corriente. El objetivo de este trabajo es mostrar algunos de los desarrollos relativamente recientes en la teoría de la cuenta corriente y su aplicación al caso argentino. En primer lugar, se estima la correlación de corto y de largo plazo entre las tasas de ahorro nacional y de inversión doméstica, a través de un modelo planteado en la forma de un mecanismo de corrección de errores. Posteriormente, se analizan los principales shocks que podrían afectar a la cuenta corriente, de acuerdo con diferentes teorías. Por último, se describe la propuesta intertemporal de la cuenta corriente. Para ello, se expone, en primer lugar, la versión estándar de esta propuesta y, posteriormente, un modelo que flexibiliza algunos de sus principales supuestos básicos.

Ma thèse aboutit à un programme de recherche qui étudie l'investissement (et l'épargne) sous trois angles différents. Il renseigne sur 1) le comportement d'épargne des pays riches en pétrole, 2) la formation des prix et la dynamique de l'investissement sur le marché pétrolier, et 3) le rôle des rachats d'actions dans l'inhibition de l'effet positif d'une politique monétaire accommodante sur l'investissement au niveau des entreprises. Le point commun sous-jacent de ces trois axes de travail est la compréhension des facteurs qui influencent les décisions d'investissement au niveau de l'entreprise, de l'industrie ou du pays. Le premier chapitre de ma thèse, External Saving and Exhaustible Resource Extraction, aborde précisément la question de la gestion épuisable des ressources face à l'incertitude. En reliant le comportement d'extraction et d'économie dans un cadre théorique cohérent, ce chapitre contribue à deux veines de la littérature qui se sont développées séparément jusqu'à plus récemment. Le deuxième chapitre, L'effet retardateur du stockage sur l'investissement : Les données du secteur pétrolier américain continuent d'explorer le rôle de l'incertitude, mais cette fois-ci, elles analysent à la fois la dynamique des prix et celle des investissements lorsque les décisions d'investissement sont irréversibles. Le dernier chapitre de cette thèse, Rachat d'actions, politique monétaire et coût de la dette, porte sur une étude empirique des déterminants de l'investissement. Partant de la structure du capital des entreprises, cette partie de ma thèse porte sur le rôle des rachats dans le détournement de la dette à faible coût des investissements et de l'emploi
My thesis culminates into a research program that studies investment (and saving) from three different perspectives. It informs on 1) the saving behaviour of oil-rich countries, on 2) price formation and investment dynamics in the oil market, and on 3) the role of share buybacks in muting the positive effect of accommodative monetary policy on firm-level investment. The underlying common thread among these three work streams is understanding factors that mediate the investment decisions at the firm, industry, or country level. The first chapter of my thesis, External Saving and Exhaustible Resource Extraction, addresses precisely the issue of exhaustible resource management in the face of uncertainty. In linking the extraction and saving behavior under a coherent theoretical framework, this chapter contributes to two veins of the literature that have developed separately until more recently. The second chapter, The Delaying Effect of Storage on Investment: Evidence from the US Oil Sector, continues to explore the role of uncertainty but this time analyses both price and investment dynamics when investment decisions are irreversible. The last chapter of this thesis, Share Buybacks, Monetary Policy and the Cost of Debt, turns it attention to an empirical investigation of the determinants of investment. Starting from the capital structure of firms, this part of my thesis focuses on the role of repurchases in diverting low-cost debt away from investment and employment

Thesis (Ph. D.) -- University of Maryland, College Park, 2005.
Thesis research directed by: Animal Sciences. Title from t.p. of PDF. Includes bibliographical references. Published by UMI Dissertation Services, Ann Arbor, Mich. Also available in paper.

This thesis addresses three relevant macroeconomic issues: (i) why

Central Banks behave so cautiously compared to optimal theoretical

benchmarks, (ii) do monetary variables add information about

future Euro Area inflation to a large amount of non monetary

variables and (iii) why national saving and investment are so

correlated in OECD countries in spite of the high degree of

integration of international financial markets.

The process of innovation in the elaboration of economic theory

and statistical analysis of the data witnessed in the last thirty

years has greatly enriched the toolbox available to

macroeconomists. Two aspects of such a process are particularly

noteworthy for addressing the issues in this thesis: the

development of macroeconomic dynamic stochastic general

equilibrium models (see Woodford, 1999b for an historical

perspective) and of techniques that enable to handle large data

sets in a parsimonious and flexible manner (see Reichlin, 2002 for

an historical perspective).

Dynamic stochastic general equilibrium models (DSGE) provide the

appropriate tools to evaluate the macroeconomic consequences of

policy changes. These models, by exploiting modern intertemporal

general equilibrium theory, aggregate the optimal responses of

individual as consumers and firms in order to identify the

aggregate shocks and their propagation mechanisms by the

restrictions imposed by optimizing individual behavior. Such a

modelling strategy, uncovering economic relationships invariant to

a change in policy regimes, provides a framework to analyze the

effects of economic policy that is robust to the Lucas'critique

(see Lucas, 1976). The early attempts of explaining business

cycles by starting from microeconomic behavior suggested that

economic policy should play no role since business cycles

reflected the efficient response of economic agents to exogenous

sources of fluctuations (see the seminal paper by Kydland and Prescott, 1982}

and, more recently, King and Rebelo, 1999). This view was challenged by

several empirical studies showing that the adjustment mechanisms

of variables at the heart of macroeconomic propagation mechanisms

like prices and wages are not well represented by efficient

responses of individual agents in frictionless economies (see, for

example, Kashyap, 1999; Cecchetti, 1986; Bils and Klenow, 2004 and Dhyne et al. 2004). Hence, macroeconomic models currently incorporate

some sources of nominal and real rigidities in the DSGE framework

and allow the study of the optimal policy reactions to inefficient

fluctuations stemming from frictions in macroeconomic propagation

mechanisms.

Against this background, the first chapter of this thesis sets up

a DSGE model in order to analyze optimal monetary policy in an

economy with sectorial heterogeneity in the frequency of price

adjustments. Price setters are divided in two groups: those

subject to Calvo type nominal rigidities and those able to change

their prices at each period. Sectorial heterogeneity in price

setting behavior is a relevant feature in real economies (see, for

example, Bils and Klenow, 2004 for the US and Dhyne, 2004 for the Euro

Area). Hence, neglecting it would lead to an understatement of the

heterogeneity in the transmission mechanisms of economy wide

shocks. In this framework, Aoki (2001) shows that a Central

Bank maximizing social welfare should stabilize only inflation in

the sector where prices are sticky (hereafter, core inflation).

Since complete stabilization is the only true objective of the

policymaker in Aoki (2001) and, hence, is not only desirable

but also implementable, the equilibrium real interest rate in the

economy is equal to the natural interest rate irrespective of the

degree of heterogeneity that is assumed. This would lead to

conclude that stabilizing core inflation rather than overall

inflation does not imply any observable difference in the

aggressiveness of the policy behavior. While maintaining the

assumption of sectorial heterogeneity in the frequency of price

adjustments, this chapter adds non negligible transaction

frictions to the model economy in Aoki (2001). As a

consequence, the social welfare maximizing monetary policymaker

faces a trade-off among the stabilization of core inflation,

economy wide output gap and the nominal interest rate. This

feature reflects the trade-offs between conflicting objectives

faced by actual policymakers. The chapter shows that the existence

of this trade-off makes the aggressiveness of the monetary policy

reaction dependent on the degree of sectorial heterogeneity in the

economy. In particular, in presence of sectorial heterogeneity in

price adjustments, Central Banks are much more likely to behave

less aggressively than in an economy where all firms face nominal

rigidities. Hence, the chapter concludes that the excessive

caution in the conduct of monetary policy shown by actual Central

Banks (see, for example, Rudebusch and Svennsson, 1999 and Sack, 2000) might not

represent a sub-optimal behavior but, on the contrary, might be

the optimal monetary policy response in presence of a relevant

sectorial dispersion in the frequency of price adjustments.

DSGE models are proving useful also in empirical applications and

recently efforts have been made to incorporate large amounts of

information in their framework (see Boivin and Giannoni, 2006). However, the

typical DSGE model still relies on a handful of variables. Partly,

this reflects the fact that, increasing the number of variables,

the specification of a plausible set of theoretical restrictions

identifying aggregate shocks and their propagation mechanisms

becomes cumbersome. On the other hand, several questions in

macroeconomics require the study of a large amount of variables.

Among others, two examples related to the second and third chapter

of this thesis can help to understand why. First, policymakers

analyze a large quantity of information to assess the current and

future stance of their economies and, because of model

uncertainty, do not rely on a single modelling framework.

Consequently, macroeconomic policy can be better understood if the

econometrician relies on large set of variables without imposing

too much a priori structure on the relationships governing their

evolution (see, for example, Giannone et al. 2004 and Bernanke et al. 2005).

Moreover, the process of integration of good and financial markets

implies that the source of aggregate shocks is increasingly global

requiring, in turn, the study of their propagation through cross

country links (see, among others, Forni and Reichlin, 2001 and Kose et al. 2003). A

priori, country specific behavior cannot be ruled out and many of

the homogeneity assumptions that are typically embodied in open

macroeconomic models for keeping them tractable are rejected by

the data. Summing up, in order to deal with such issues, we need

modelling frameworks able to treat a large amount of variables in

a flexible manner, i.e. without pre-committing on too many

a-priori restrictions more likely to be rejected by the data. The

large extent of comovement among wide cross sections of economic

variables suggests the existence of few common sources of

fluctuations (Forni et al. 2000 and Stock and Watson, 2002) around which

individual variables may display specific features: a shock to the

world price of oil, for example, hits oil exporters and importers

with different sign and intensity or global technological advances

can affect some countries before others (Giannone and Reichlin, 2004). Factor

models mainly rely on the identification assumption that the

dynamics of each variable can be decomposed into two orthogonal

components - common and idiosyncratic - and provide a parsimonious

tool allowing the analysis of the aggregate shocks and their

propagation mechanisms in a large cross section of variables. In

fact, while the idiosyncratic components are poorly

cross-sectionally correlated, driven by shocks specific of a

variable or a group of variables or measurement error, the common

components capture the bulk of cross-sectional correlation, and

are driven by few shocks that affect, through variable specific

factor loadings, all items in a panel of economic time series.

Focusing on the latter components allows useful insights on the

identity and propagation mechanisms of aggregate shocks underlying

a large amount of variables. The second and third chapter of this

thesis exploit this idea.

The second chapter deals with the issue whether monetary variables

help to forecast inflation in the Euro Area harmonized index of

consumer prices (HICP). Policymakers form their views on the

economic outlook by drawing on large amounts of potentially

relevant information. Indeed, the monetary policy strategy of the

European Central Bank acknowledges that many variables and models

can be informative about future Euro Area inflation. A peculiarity

of such strategy is that it assigns to monetary information the

role of providing insights for the medium - long term evolution of

prices while a wide range of alternative non monetary variables

and models are employed in order to form a view on the short term

and to cross-check the inference based on monetary information.

However, both the academic literature and the practice of the

leading Central Banks other than the ECB do not assign such a

special role to monetary variables (see Gali et al. 2004 and

references therein). Hence, the debate whether money really

provides relevant information for the inflation outlook in the

Euro Area is still open. Specifically, this chapter addresses the

issue whether money provides useful information about future

inflation beyond what contained in a large amount of non monetary

variables. It shows that a few aggregates of the data explain a

large amount of the fluctuations in a large cross section of Euro

Area variables. This allows to postulate a factor structure for

the large panel of variables at hand and to aggregate it in few

synthetic indexes that still retain the salient features of the

large cross section. The database is split in two big blocks of

variables: non monetary (baseline) and monetary variables. Results

show that baseline variables provide a satisfactory predictive

performance improving on the best univariate benchmarks in the

period 1997 - 2005 at all horizons between 6 and 36 months.

Remarkably, monetary variables provide a sensible improvement on

the performance of baseline variables at horizons above two years.

However, the analysis of the evolution of the forecast errors

reveals that most of the gains obtained relative to univariate

benchmarks of non forecastability with baseline and monetary

variables are realized in the first part of the prediction sample

up to the end of 2002, which casts doubts on the current

forecastability of inflation in the Euro Area.

The third chapter is based on a joint work with Domenico Giannone

and gives empirical foundation to the general equilibrium

explanation of the Feldstein - Horioka puzzle. Feldstein and Horioka (1980) found

that domestic saving and investment in OECD countries strongly

comove, contrary to the idea that high capital mobility should

allow countries to seek the highest returns in global financial

markets and, hence, imply a correlation among national saving and

investment closer to zero than one. Moreover, capital mobility has

strongly increased since the publication of Feldstein - Horioka's

seminal paper while the association between saving and investment

does not seem to comparably decrease. Through general equilibrium

mechanisms, the presence of global shocks might rationalize the

correlation between saving and investment. In fact, global shocks,

affecting all countries, tend to create imbalance on global

capital markets causing offsetting movements in the global

interest rate and can generate the observed correlation across

national saving and investment rates. However, previous empirical

studies (see Ventura, 2003) that have controlled for the effects

of global shocks in the context of saving-investment regressions

failed to give empirical foundation to this explanation. We show

that previous studies have neglected the fact that global shocks

may propagate heterogeneously across countries, failing to

properly isolate components of saving and investment that are

affected by non pervasive shocks. We propose a novel factor

augmented panel regression methodology that allows to isolate

idiosyncratic sources of fluctuations under the assumption of

heterogenous transmission mechanisms of global shocks. Remarkably,

by applying our methodology, the association between domestic

saving and investment decreases considerably over time,

consistently with the observed increase in international capital

mobility. In particular, in the last 25 years the correlation

between saving and investment disappears.

Doctorat en sciences économiques, Orientation économie
info:eu-repo/semantics/nonPublished

AbstractAccess to the domestic market is nowadays the trump card of trade diplomacy. The larger the domestic market, the more effective it is. The euro is thus the decisive pillar of the European single market. The German debt brake is incompatible with the long-term stability of the euro. For as long as it applies, full employment can never be achieved in the eurozone as a whole. Under currentfiscal policy, full employment would require unrealistically high export surpluses. A euro doomed to underemployment will collapse. Hence, the international fiscal order must also be applied among the nation states in the euroarea. Germany’s resulting obligations offer an opportunity for a German demographic renewal by aggressively encouraging the immigration of skilled workers.

Today developed and developing economies have many problems. Some of these problems are created by global conjuncture and the rest of them are originated by problems which can be seen in some specific economies. One of the most important problems of economies is low saving rate. Since low saving rate can cause through to inability to increase investments and inability to reduce current account deficit, to remain below potential growth. The governments which want to increase the level of savings may use the private pension system as a political tool to increase domestic savings and decrease current account deficit. In accordance with this development, the relationships between private pension system, savings rate and current account deficit have been examined by using panel causality test for 14 OECD countries over the period 2005-2014. The findings indicate that developments in the private pension system leads to improvement in the current account balance.

One of the most important goals of developing countries is to materialize sustainable economic growth and development. Foreign external debts play a key role in accelerating economic growth, investment and exports. Insufficient level of domestic capital accumulation generally forces developing countries to source finances by means of debts from foreign countries, banks and international organizations. External debt is also important resource for Turkey. In Turkish economy, external debt is taken generally in order to counter the saving deficit and foreign Exchange deficit and reach the high growth rate. External debts, which are initially taken as additional resources, can accelerate the investments, economic growth and development when they are used efficiently. But if the external debts aren’t used efficiently and the principal and interest payments of the external debts become higher than national income increase, it is required to get debts again to pay debts and thereby it causes to increase external debt burden and decrease the country welfare. In this study, development of external debts has been analyzed, starting from Ottoman Period until today. it is concluded that, external debts have created a negative impact on total investments between 1980 and 2010 in Turkey, and this negative impact on total investments has prevented economic growth. This conclusion suggests that the amount of foreign debt should be reduced so as to increase the level of economic growth in Turkey.

Trade openness has been subject to an important issue many studies in literature. It allows us to analyze potential trade as a percentage of gross domestic product. Total value of international trade in goods and services shows the countries’ integration into the world economy. Generally, small countries are more integrated because of their dependency on imports. On the other hand, there many variables which effects trade integration. Our study focuses on to analyze the effects on trade openness and make inferences for OECD countries. In this paper we aim to examine the relationship between trade openness and macro-economic indicators in OECD countries. To analyze the relationship, we used panel data regression analysis. Data obtained from World Bank, The Heritage Foundation and United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD). The panel data covers 2000-2013 periods and 33 countries. The analysis made through the Stata econometric packet program. We predicted pooled, fixed effects and random effects panel data models and analyzed them. It has been found that gross domestic savings, investment freedom, and unemployment rate are statistically significant. The results found in this paper show that investment freedom and gross domestic savings have positive effect on trade openness as we expected. On the other hand, unemployment rate has positive effect on trade openness. These findings have important policy implications for OECD countries. Our interpretation of these findings is that, integration to world economy has generally positive effects for macroeconomic factors in OECD countries, but it should be limited.

The main purpose of this study is to empirically investigate the validity of McKinnon’s complementarity hypothesis on economic growth of Kyrgyzstan for the period of 1996–2009. McKinnon’s (1973) central thesis argues poorly functioning financial systems in developing countries may effect investment quality and growth rate of the economy in negative direction. McKinnon’s (1973) complementary hypothesis predicts that money and investment are complementary, to the contrast neoclassical and Keynesian theory, due to a self-financed investment in developing economies. In other words, according to McKinnon, financial liberalization should generate positive impacts on growth as consequence of positive relation between money and physical capital in developing countries after financial liberalization. The empirical researches conducted on complementarity hypothesis have found mixed results on the link between money and physical capital. However, empirical analysis of Kyrgyzstan’s economy is very important because of its peculiarities, it has both a trancition and developing economy, which in case of the McKinnon’s complementarity hypothesis is very essential. Thus, Kyrgyzstan, as many developing countries, have undertaken financial liberalization programs during the past twenty years after collapse of Soviet Union. Therefore, the study analyzes long run and short run association among the real rate of interest on deposits, private investments, economic growth, and domestic savings behavior in Kyrgyzstan, using annual time series data for 1996-2009 with techniques of ARDL Cointegration Error Correction Model. The results does not support the McKinnon’s complementarity hypothesis between money and physical capital on the period for 1996-2009 in the Kyrgyzstan’s Economy.

The paper analyzes some aspects of Ukrainian pension system formation. All its three levels taken as a whole are a real source for the formation of domestic investment resources and implementation of their potential through financial market instruments. At the present stage relationship of these two institutes is pronounced in the frameworks of non-state pension funds. Implementation of the accumulative level of pension system has only to accelerate processes at work. Investigation is focused on the problems of integrating pension system investment resource into financial market infrastructure. It is noted that in the current conditions infrastructure of domestic financial market is being formed. Its instruments are developed and are functioning irregularly. However, there exist general problems that require their solution. They are related to insufficient operational capacity and efficiency of financial market regulating mechanism and other factors. Analysis of the quality of implementation of financial market basic macroeconomic function associated with redistribution of pension savings allowed us to make conclusion on the incompatibility of the achieved level of its development with the current needs adjusted for pension reform. Proposals for improvement of the concept of pension system and financial market along the lines of their harmonization and enhancement of the functioning efficiency in the context of social-economic development of Ukraine are worked out.

Foreign direct investment (FDI) are an important external savings resource for the developing countries that have problems with financing of growth and development. The transformation that started in the global economic system from 1980’s substituted other capital types, major of them are FDI, instead of official development aid. Nevertheless, the foreign direct investment pulling competition have started among developing countries. The papers in this side imply that the countries having broad domestic markets, high economic growth potential, an improved infrastructure and human capital level have advantages on pulling FDI. Moreover, some papers in last years reflect that economic freedom is also an important determinative in addition to other determinatives of FDI. The main aim of this paper is to analyze the determination of economic freedom on the FDI that inflow to the Balkan states and Turkey. In the paper using 1994-2012 time dimension, the countries added to the analysis are Turkey, Bulgaria, Greece, Romania, Macedonia, Albania and Croatia. The results with panel regression method showed that some economic freedom indices supported the inflows of FDI in this countries.

International trade is defined the exchange of goods, services, and capital among various countries and regions. Also the potential of imports and exports account for an important part of growth. On the other hand, total value of international trade in goods and services shows the countries’ integration into the world economy. In this paper we focused on to analyze the effects on imports and make inferences for Eurasian Countries. In this paper we aim to examine the relationship between imports and macro-economic indicators in 6 Eurasian economies. To analyze the relationship, we used panel data regression analysis. Data obtained from World Bank. The panel data covers 1996-2012 periods and 6 countries which named Kazakhstan, Russian Federation, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyz Republic, Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan. We predicted pooled, fixed effects and random effects panel data models using the Stata and analyzed them. The dependent variable is defined the imports in our model. It has been found that gross domestic savings, foreign direct investments and, and exports are statistically significant for this countries. The results found in this paper show that gross domestic savings has negative effects on imports. On the other hand, for this 6 countries foreign direct investments (inflow) and exports have positive effects on imports as we expected. It shows us the economic positions of Eurasian countries still depend on Russian Federation. Also, these findings have important policy implications for Eurasian Countries. Our interpretation of these findings is that, integration to world economy has generally positive effects on foreign direct investments for this countries.