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A number of recent papers have raised serious questions about the validity of the German dominance hypothesis, using Granger (temporal) causality tests. If Germany dominates within the European Monetary System, then German monetary policy, measured by either money stocks or interest rates should Granger (temporally) cause other EMS countries’ monetary policies, but not vice versa. Empirical evidence leads analysts to conclude that the German dominance hypothesis is invalid, or at a minimum, in need of significant reformulation. Explores similar Granger causality tests, using the recent cointegration and error‐correction modelling strategy, for the US and a group of developing countries during the Bretton Woods period, where conventional wisdom suggests that US policy dominated. Finds significant evidence of two‐way causality between the US money stock and the money stocks of a large number of developing countries. These findings raise a serious questions about the interpretation and/or appropriateness of the Granger causality test for investigating policy dominance hypotheses.

The purpose of this paper is to examine pre-entry resources and capabilities (R&Cs) of de alio and de novo entrants in an emerging industry. Then, the authors investigate how entrants modify their firm boundaries, after entering a new industry, to acquire the R&Cs deemed critical to be competitive and survive in the industry.

The analysis uses the global biofuel industry as a case study. The authors use multiple sets of data, including primary data collected from semi-structured interviews with industry stakeholders and experts across major biofuel-producing countries as well as quantitative data from industry reports.

Firms typically deploy two successive strategies in order to survive and grow. First, they extend vertical boundaries to capitalize on their own pre-entry R&Cs. Then they move quickly to acquire new R&Cs, which are classified as critical in the value chain of the industry. A new taxonomy of pre-entry R&Cs is proposed to distinguish critical and non-critical forms of R&Cs, and to reflect the ease of acquisition of any requisite R&Cs, which are context specific. These strategic moves lead to the bi-directional vertical integration observed in the biofuel industry.

Managers need to be able to assess the opportunities for entry and subsequent strategies to be competitive by assessing their R&Cs in terms of criticality and ease of acquisition in their entry decision making.

A new taxonomy of R&Cs of the firm is proposed which has theoretical significance and practical implications for new entrants.

The aim of this study is to investigate profit efficiency in the banking industries of 11 Central and Eastern European (CEE) countries for the period 1998‐2005.

The authors employ a directional technology distance function approach to measure profit efficiency and decompose it into its technical and allocative components. They use these efficiency measures to investigate potential differences in banking performance across countries and across banks of different size and with different ownership status.

The results indicate that the highest proportion of profit inefficiency in the CEE region is attributed to allocative inefficiency, recognizing that considerable variation and different patterns in inefficiency levels across banking systems can be observed. Small and domestic private banks appear to be the most efficient. A negative relationship between efficiency and bank size, the capitalization ratio and market concentration, and a positive relationship with the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development index of banking reform are also found.

Bank performance relative to best practice is measured across the CEE region. While it is found that on average technical inefficiency is relatively small and about one quarter of the banks lie on the technological frontier, the size of technical inefficiencies is likely to be exacerbated if the sample were to include Western European banks.

The effects of banking reforms are evident by recent positive trends in profit and allocative efficiencies estimated for CEE banking sectors. These trends suggest that policy makers should intensify efforts to further improve the financial services regulatory and supervisory framework while freeing any remaining explicit or implicit barriers to bank competition.

The study departs from the traditional literature of efficiency. It uses a directional distance function approach to model multi input – multi output banking technology and to investigate profit efficiency in CEE countries.

The purpose of this study is to optimize short‐term maintenance scheduling of utility systems satisfying network constraints.

A mathematical programming model with network constraints is presented.

There are some cases in which the maintenance of a certain unit affects the operations of non‐maintenance units. The schedule should be evaluated by labor cost, material cost and opportunity costs. However, most utility systems contain dual‐directional flows, making the interdependency of the units an unstable element. In such systems, the dependency between one unit and the other should be adjusted depending on the conditions.

Power, steam and water are distributed by utility systems. Unit maintenance affects the operation of non‐maintenance units within the networks. Effective short‐term maintenance scheduling of utility systems must work within these network constraints. Unlike conventional scheduling methods, the excessive concentration of maintenance tasks should be controlled to reduce supply losses. A mixed integer linear programming model was utilized for identifying the solution of the problem. The present model can be applied to various utility systems.

The model can address alternative flows to reflect current conditions. Binary variables are applied to preserve the consistency of flow balances. The logic tree analysis expressed the current flow balances using linear constraints. The effectiveness of the model was supported by case examples.

The international linkages between money stocks (and inflation rates) has received much attention. Focuses on the advantages and disadvantages of fixed and flexible exchange rate regimes. Fixed rate systems require credible commitments to the rules of the game by the central banks involved. Credible commitment can be achieved through cooperative (symmetric) or coercive (asymmetric) regimes. Did the USA (Germany) dominate other developed (European) countries during the Bretton Woods (European Monetary) system? Examines the linkages, if any, between the USA (German) money stock and money stocks in other developed (European) countries, using the cointegration and error‐correction methodology. Finds evidence that USA (German) money stock did affect other (European) countries′ money stocks during fixed exchange rates. Finds, also, reverse causality which raises serious questions about either the dominance of the USA (Germany) within the Bretton Woods (European Monetary) system, or the usefulness of causality tests is answering such questions.

This paper aims to examine the return and volatility transmission among economic policy uncertainty (EPU), geopolitical risk (GPR), their interaction (EPGR) and five tradable precious metals: gold, silver, platinum, palladium and rhodium.

Applying time-varying parameter vector autoregression (TVP-VAR) frequency-based connectedness approach to a data set spanning from January 1997 to February 2023, the study analyzes return and volatility connectedness separately, providing insights into how the data, in return and volatility forms, differ across time and frequency.

The results of the return connectedness show that gold, palladium and silver are affected more by EPU in the short term, while all precious metals are influenced by GPR in the short term. EPGR exhibits strong contributions to the system due to its elevated levels of policy uncertainty and extreme global risks. Palladium shows the highest reaction to EPGR, while silver shows the lowest. Return spillovers are generally time-varying and spike during critical global events. The volatility connectedness is long-term driven, suggesting that uncertainty and risk factors influence market participants’ long-term expectations. Notable peaks in total connectedness occurred during the Global Financial Crisis and the COVID-19 pandemic, with the latter being the highest.

Using the recently updated news-based uncertainty indicators, the study examines the time and frequency connectedness between key uncertainty measures and precious metals in their returns and volatility forms using the TVP-VAR frequency-based connectedness approach.

As financial markets for environmentally friendly investment grow in both scope and size, analyzing the relationship between green financial markets and African stocks becomes an important issue. Therefore, this paper examines the role of infectious disease-based uncertainty on the dynamic spillovers between African stock markets and clean energy stocks.

The authors employ the dynamic spillover in time and frequency domains and the nonparametric causality-in-quantiles approach over the period of November 30, 2010, to August 18, 2021.

These findings are discernible in this study's analysis. First, the authors find evidence of strong connectedness between the African stock markets and the clean energy market, and long-lived but weak in the short and medium investment horizons. Second, the BDS test shows that nonlinearity is crucial when examining the role of infectious disease-based equity market volatility in affecting the interactions between clean energy stocks and African stock markets. Third, the causal analysis provides evidence in support of a nonlinear causal relationship between uncertainties due to infectious diseases and the connection between both markets, mostly at lower and median quantiles.

Considering the global and recent use of clean energy equities and the stock markets for hedging and speculative purposes, one may argue that rising uncertainties may significantly influence risk transmissions across these markets. This study, therefore, is the first to examine the role of pandemic uncertainty on the connection between clean stocks and the African stock markets.

This study analyzes the static and dynamic risk spillover between US/Chinese stock markets, cryptocurrencies and gold using daily data from August 24, 2018, to January 29, 2021. This study provides practical policy implications for investors and portfolio managers.

The authors use the Diebold and Yilmaz (2012) spillover indices based on the forecast error variance decomposition from vector autoregression framework. This approach allows the authors to examine both return and volatility spillover before and after the COVID-19 pandemic crisis. First, the authors used a static analysis to calculate the return and volatility spillover indices. Second, the authors make a dynamic analysis based on the 30-day moving window spillover index estimation.

Generally, results show evidence of significant spillovers between markets, particularly during the COVID-19 pandemic. In addition, cryptocurrencies and gold markets are net receivers of risk. This study provides also practical policy implications for investors and portfolio managers. The reached findings suggest that the mix of Bitcoin (or Ethereum), gold and equities could offer diversification opportunities for US and Chinese investors. Gold, Bitcoin and Ethereum can be considered as safe havens or as hedging instruments during the COVID-19 crisis. In contrast, Stablecoins (Tether and TrueUSD) do not offer hedging opportunities for US and Chinese investors.

The paper's empirical contribution lies in examining both return and volatility spillover between the US and Chinese stock market indices, gold and cryptocurrencies before and after the COVID-19 pandemic crisis. This contribution goes a long way in helping investors to identify optimal diversification and hedging strategies during a crisis.

In an era marked by heightened geopolitical uncertainties, such as international conflicts and economic instability, the dynamics of energy markets assume paramount importance. Our study delves into this complex backdrop, focusing on the intricate interplay the between traditional and emerging energy sectors.

This study analyzes the interconnections among green financial assets, renewable energy markets, the geopolitical risk index and cryptocurrency carbon emissions from December 19, 2017 to February 15, 2023. We investigate these relationships using a novel time-frequency connectedness approach and machine learning methodology.

Our findings reveal that green energy stocks, except the PBW, exhibit the highest net transmission of volatility, followed by COAL. In contrast, CARBON emerges as the primary net recipient of volatility, followed by fuel energy assets. The frequency decomposition results also indicate that the long-term components serve as the primary source of directional volatility spillover, suggesting that volatility transmission among green stocks and energy assets tends to occur over a more extended period. The SHapley additive exPlanations (SHAP) results show that the green and fuel energy markets are negatively connected with geopolitical risks (GPRs). The results obtained through the SHAP analysis confirm the novel time-varying parameter vector autoregressive (TVP-VAR) frequency connectedness findings. The CARBON and PBW markets consistently experience spillover shocks from other markets in short and long-term horizons. The role of crude oil as a receiver or transmitter of shocks varies over time.

Green financial assets and clean energy play significant roles in the financial markets and reduce geopolitical risk. Our study employs a time-frequency connectedness approach to assess the interconnections among four markets' families: fuel, renewable energy, green stocks and carbon markets. We utilize the novel TVP-VAR approach, which allows for flexibility and enables us to measure net pairwise connectedness in both short and long-term horizons.