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This study aims to construct alternative models to establish the dynamic relationship between exchange rates and housing affordability by estimating both the short- and long-run relationship between exchange rates and housing affordability for 18 OECD countries from 1975Q1 to 2022Q4. After that, this study demonstrates how this nexus behaves during high and low inflation regimes and turbulent times.

This study uses the panel autoregressive distributed lag technique to examine the nexus between housing affordability to capture the distinct characteristics of the sample countries and estimate various short- and long-run dynamics in the relationship between housing affordability and exchange rate.

Exchange rate appreciation improves housing affordability in the short run, whereas this connection tends to dissipate in the long run. Moreover, inflation can worsen housing affordability during turbulent times, such as the global financial crisis, in both the short and long run. Ignoring these changes in the relationship between exchange rates and housing affordability during turbulent times can lead to incorrect conclusions.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is the first to examine the association between exchange rates and housing affordability by demonstrating how these variables behave in high and low inflation regimes and turbulent times.

Given the difficulties in finding significant exchange rate exposure in the extant literature, this paper attempts to resolve the so-called “exposure puzzle” by investigating whether currency movements have any significant impact on international industry returns.

This paper utilizes the multivariate Generalized AutoRegressive Conditional Heteroskedasticity (MGARCH) methodology to estimate both symmetric and asymmetric exchange rate exposures for each industry common across 12 countries simultaneously.

The empirical results show that exchange rate exposure is not only statistically significant but also economically important based on the estimation of an asymmetric three-factor exposure model using MGARCH methodology. This is an extremely important finding as it suggests that the “exposure puzzle” may not be a puzzle at all once a better methodology is utilized in the estimation.

Because this study tries to resolve the exchange rate exposure puzzle by focusing on whether exchange rate movements affect ex-post returns as opposed to ex ante expected returns and given the significant exposures with respect to different risk factors found in the study, it is interesting to see if any of these risk factors commands a risk premium. In other words, a natural extension of this study is to test whether any of these risk factors is priced in international industry returns.

The findings of the study have interesting implications for international investors who would like to diversify their portfolios across different industries and are concerned about whether the unexpected movements in the bilateral exchange rates will affect their portfolio returns in addition to its interest rate and world market risk exposures.

The study utilizes the MGARCH methodology, which has not been fully exploited in the exchange rate exposure literature.

The paper tries to analyse empirically the impact of India's economic policy uncertainty (EPU) index on different macro-economic variables of India, like import, export, interest rate, exchange rate, inflation rate and stock market during pre-COVID-19 and COVID-19 era.

Although there exist several works where relationship and volatility among the stock markets and macro-economic indicators during the COVID-19 pandemic have been estimated, but till now none of the studies examined the effect of EPU index on different macro-economic variables in the Indian context along with the stock market due to the outbreak of COVID-19 pandemic. This is considered a noteworthy gap and hence opens up a new dimension for examination. To get a clear picture, monthly data from January, 2012 to September, 2021 have been considered where January, 2012–February, 2020 is taken as the pre-COVID-19 period and March, 2020–September, 2021 as COVID-19 period. All the data are converted into log natural. The authors applied DCC-GARCH model to investigate the impact of EPU index on volatility of selected variables over the study period across a multivariate framework and Markov regime-switching model to examine the switching over of the variables.

The results of dynamic conditional correlation - multivariate generalized autoregressive conditional heteroskedasticity (DCC-MGARCH) model indicates the presence of volatility in the dependent variables arising out of economic policy uncertainty considering the segmentation of the study period into pre-COVID-19 and COVID-19. The results of Markov regime-switching model show the variables make a significant move from low-volatility regime to high-volatility regime due to the presence of COVID-19.

It can be implied that impact of EPU in terms of volatility on the Indian Stock Market will lead to unfavourable investment conditions for the prospective investors. Even, the different macro-economic variables are to suffer from the volatility arising out of EPU across a long time horizon as confirmed from the DCC-MGARCH model.

The study is original in nature. It adds superior values from the new and significant findings from the study empirically. Application of DCC-MGARCH model and Markov regime switching model makes the study an innovative one in terms of methodology and findings.

The degree of development and the way to identify a fiscal shock matter in evaluating the effects of the fiscal policy. This paper contributes to the debate on the effects of a fiscal expansion on private consumption and the real effective exchange rate.

This paper uses a sign-restriction method to identify a fiscal shock in the panel structural VAR analysis in the context of both developed and developing countries.

The authors’ find that (1) private consumption increases in response to a positive government spending shock in both groups, yet such consumption effect is greater in developing than industrial countries; (2) the response of real effective exchange rate to the government spending shock varies across groups: it depreciates in developed countries and appreciates in developing countries; (3) trade balance improves in both groups.

This study sheds light on the differential effects of fiscal shock on consumption and real exchange rate in both developed and developing economies.

Standard economic theory predicts that any increase in public spending is accompanied by a rise in inflation in an economy. This paper presents empirical proof that prices do not always rise with an increase in public expenditure but only up to a certain threshold level. The primary aim of this paper is to unearth the government size-inflation nexus in India for the period from 1971 to 2019.

The logistic STAR (smooth transition autoregression) model is employed to unravel the government size-inflation nexus for the Indian economy from a non-linear perspective.

The finding of our study confirm the non-linear relationship between the size of the government and inflation in India. The estimated threshold level for government size is precisely found to be 9.27%. The size of the government exerts a negative influence on inflation until it reaches the optimal or threshold level. Any further increase in the size of government beyond this threshold level would result in a rise in inflation.

The findings have implications for the conduct of fiscal policy. Policymakers can increase government spending in a regime of small government size without having any inflationary impacts by generating revenues from taxes and other sources instead of relying much on the central bank. In the regime of a large-sized government, adhering strictly to the discipline in the conduct of fiscal and monetary policies would help curb inflation and enhance growth synchronously, hence alleviating any loss of welfare.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is an attempt to revisit the government size-inflation nexus in India from a non-linear perspective using the Smooth Transition Autoregression (STAR) model for the first time.

This study investigates the impact of US dollar volatility and oil rents on the performance of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) region, with an emphasis on understanding how these factors influence SME financing constraints in economies with fixed currency regimes.

Employing a random effects panel regression analysis, this research considers US dollar volatility and oil rents as independent variables, with SME performance, measured through the financing gap, as the dependent variable. Controls such as trade balance, inflation deltas and gross domestic product (GDP) growth are included to isolate their effects on SME financing constraints.

The study reveals a significant positive relationship between dollar volatility and the financing gap, suggesting that increased volatility can exacerbate SME financing constraints. Conversely, oil rents did not show a significant direct influence on SME performance. The trade balance and inflation deltas were found to have significant effects, highlighting the multifaceted nature of economic variables affecting SMEs.

The study acknowledges potential biases due to omitted variables and the limitations inherent in the use of secondary data.

Findings offer pertinent guidance for SMEs and policymakers in the GCC region seeking to develop strategies that mitigate the impact of currency volatility and support SME financing.

The research provides new insights into the dynamics of SME performance within fixed currency regimes, which significantly contributes to the limited literature in this area. The paper further underscores the complex connections between global economic factors and SME financial health.

This study examines the importance of exchange rate and credit growth fluctuations when designing monetary policy in Thailand. To this end, the authors construct a small open economy New Keynesian dynamic stochastic general equilibrium (DSGE) model. The model encompasses several essential characteristics, including incomplete financial markets, incomplete exchange rate pass-through, deviations from the law of one price and a banking sector. The authors consider generalized Taylor rules, in which policymakers adjust policy rates in response to output, inflation, credit growth and exchange rate fluctuations. The marginal likelihoods are then employed to investigate whether the central bank responds to fluctuations in the exchange rate and credit growth.

This study constructs a small open economy DSGE model and then estimates the model using Bayesian methods.

The authors demonstrate that the monetary authority does target exchange rates, whereas there is no evidence in favor of incorporating credit growth into the policy rules. These findings survive various robustness checks. Furthermore, the authors demonstrate that domestic shocks contribute significantly to domestic business cycles. Although the terms of trade shock plays a minor role in business cycles, it explains the most significant proportion of exchange rate fluctuations, followed by the country risk premium shock.

This study is the first attempt at exploring the relevance of exchange rate and credit growth fluctuations when designing monetary policy in Thailand.

The use of exchange rate policies to stimulate economic growth (EG) has been the major macroeconomic policy of many economies. Hence, the attention of researchers and policymakers was drawn to the effect of undervaluation and/or overvaluation of currencies on sustainable EG. However, less attention has been paid to the importance of quality of economic institutions in shaping the relationship between exchange rate and EG. This study aims to explore the role of institutions of exchange rate and EG in South Africa

This study, therefore, examines the role of economic institutions in the real exchange rate economic growth nexus by using auto regressive distributed lags model and vector error correction model for causality during the period 1971 to 2018. Also, Bayer and Hank method has applied for cointegration between the variables.

The findings show that both real exchange rate and economic institutions have a negative effect on EG in both short-run and long-run. This implies that undervaluation has a negative effect on EG in South Africa. Therefore, the study concludes that undervaluation has a negative effect on EG in South Africa particularly when the quality of economic institutions is accounted for. The finding supports the J-curve hypothesis but is contrary to the Rodrik hypothesis. Hence, devaluation is not a desirable exchange rate policy for the South African economy.

The study, therefore, recommends that developing countries like South Africa should focus on other viable exchange rate policies such as rather than undervaluation of currency to enhance EG.

Profit shifting is a matter of great concern for governments internationally. It leads to the loss of tax revenues and puts multinational corporations (MNCs) in a disparate position. Lately, due to the aggressive stance of the Indian taxman, several Indian MNCs are planning to minimise their tax outflows. This paper aims to study profit-shifting drawing from the institutional theory for the Indian MNCs.

The sample comprises 679 MNCs listed on the Bombay Stock Exchange or the National Stock Exchange with either Indian parents with foreign subsidiaries (553) or Indian subsidiaries of a foreign parent (126) for FY 2013–14 to FY 2018–19. A fixed-effect panel regression technique was invoked to examine tax rate differential motivated profit-shifting undertaken by MNCs with the moderating effect of international presence and patents.

The results suggest that MNCs shift their profits to take advantage of differences in global tax rates when they have an international presence in at least five tax countries. Further, profit shifting is likely towards no-tax compared to low-tax countries, with the presence of patents in an MNC group having no significant impact.

Losses to the government revenue due to profit shifting by MNCs are rather severe in emerging economies. The study provides the first empirical evidence of the direction of profit shifting with the moderating effect of the extent of global presence and group patents, which would interest scholars in the field. The findings provide valuable insights to the policymakers, highlighting the urgent need to operationalise the general anti-avoidance taxation rules.

This paper explores the effects of fiscal policy in an economy with reciprocity in labor relations and fair wages, consumption taxes and a common income tax rate in place.

To this end, a dynamic general-equilibrium model with government sector is calibrated to Bulgarian data (1999–2018). Two regimes are compared and contrasted – the exogenous (observed) vs optimal policy (Ramsey) case. The focus of the paper is on the relative importance of consumption vs income taxation, as well as on the provision of utility-enhancing public services. Bulgarian economy was chosen as a case study due to its major dependence on consumption taxation as a source of tax revenue.

(1) The optimal steady-state income tax rate is zero; (2) the benevolent Ramsey planner provides the optimal amount of the utility-enhancing public services, which are now three times lower; (3) the optimal steady-state consumption tax needed to finance the optimal level of government spending is 18:7%.

This is the first study on optimal fiscal policy with reciprocity in labor relations.