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Article
Publication date: 1 March 2006

Evangelia Papapetrou

To study the dynamic relationship between saving‐investment in Greece during a period of structural changes with policy regime changes employing different methods of estimation.

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Abstract

Purpose

To study the dynamic relationship between saving‐investment in Greece during a period of structural changes with policy regime changes employing different methods of estimation.

Design/methodology/approach

Different empirical methods are used to estimate the time varying savings retention coefficient. A recursive OLS, rolling OLS, Kalman filter estimator and Markov switching regime modeling (MS‐R) are applied which have the advantage to capture the dependence structure of the series both in terms of constant and variance.

Findings

The empirical evidence suggests that the degree of correlation between saving and investment weakens during financial liberalization periods.

Practical implications

Conclusions drawn from this analysis could be useful for the analysis of other medium‐sized economies.

Originality/value

The paper employs four different estimation models to test the stability of the estimated coefficient. The MS‐R is used, for the first time, to take into account the policy regime changes during the estimation period.

Details

Journal of Economic Studies, vol. 33 no. 2
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0144-3585

Keywords

Book part
Publication date: 20 April 2022

Robert Pollin

David Gordon was, at once, a highly creative economist with an enormous range of interests, while also uncompromising in maintaining rigorous research standards. He focused

Abstract

David Gordon was, at once, a highly creative economist with an enormous range of interests, while also uncompromising in maintaining rigorous research standards. He focused equally on hard-core academic research and pressing policy issues. He was also openly committed to the political left, with this commitment animating all his work. One distinctive feature of Gordon’s work was his keenness to dive into the most important topics engaging mainstream economists and to inject explicitly left political economy perspectives into these mainstream debates. This paper focuses on two important examples of Gordon’s contributions that examine front-and-center mainstream macroeconomics questions. The first is the relationship between aggregate saving and investment. The second is the development of the concept of the “natural rate of unemployment.” The evolution of mainstream research on these two questions played a critical role in overturning what had been, over the first two post-World War II decades, a prevailing Keynesian/social democratic consensus, at both the levels of analytic economics as well as economic policy. As the paper reviews, Gordon challenges the analytic findings and policy implications of these perspectives at their core. Gordon’s own basic premises and results are straightforward. He argues that, in fact, investment decisions, not saving rates, are the main driver of economic activity in capitalist economies and that operating capitalist economies at something akin to genuine full employment – that is, in the range of 2–3 percent official unemployment – is a realistic goal. As such, these papers by Gordon contribute significantly toward envisioning a post-neoliberal social structure of accumulation that is committed to the egalitarian principles that were central to Gordon’s life work.

Details

Research in the History of Economic Thought and Methodology: Including a Symposium on David Gordon: American Radical Economist
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-80262-990-3

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 9 August 2022

Valeryia Yersh

The purpose of this study is to examine two issues, namely the degree of current account deficit (CAD) sustainability and the degree of capital mobility.

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this study is to examine two issues, namely the degree of current account deficit (CAD) sustainability and the degree of capital mobility.

Design/methodology/approach

The sample for this study comprises 24 Latin American and Caribbean countries, including three regional agreements: Andean Community, MERCOSUR (Mercado Común del Sur), and SICA (Central American Integration System). This study employs the dynamic common correlated effects mean group (DCCEMG) estimator in a panel data set to investigate the long-run relationship between savings and investment along with short-run dynamics.

Findings

The findings indicate that CAD is weakly sustainable in the Latin American and Caribbean region, MERCOSUR, and SICA, while CAD is strongly unsustainable in the Andean Community. The sub-period analysis reveals that CAD has been adversely affected by the 2008 crisis. However, in the post-crisis period, CAD has been slowly decreasing in the Latin American and Caribbean region and Andean Community, whereas CAD has continued increasing in MERCOSUR and SICA. Further, the estimates of error-correction terms and short-run coefficients indicate that the Andean Community and MERCOSUR observe a higher degree of long-run and short-run capital mobility than SICA.

Practical implications

The results carry fundamental implications for policy-making processes aimed at maintaining sustainable CADs.

Originality/value

This study gives an alternative interpretation of the “Feldstein-Horioka” coefficient in terms of CAD sustainability and analyses the saving–investment relationship in light of Chudik and Pesaran (2015).

Article
Publication date: 7 June 2011

Reetu Verma and Ali Salman Saleh

This paper examines the long‐term relationship between saving and investment as a criterion for assessing international capital mobility for the case of Saudi Arabia, the largest…

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Abstract

Purpose

This paper examines the long‐term relationship between saving and investment as a criterion for assessing international capital mobility for the case of Saudi Arabia, the largest economy among the Middle Eastern and Arab nations.

Design/methodology/approach

The approach is modeled on Feldstein and Horioka covering the period 1963‐2007 for Saudi Arabia. We use the bounds testing approach and the Gregory and Hansen cointegration methods to test for the long‐run relationship between saving and investment. Additionally, before testing for this relationship, we conduct unit root tests, including the additive outlier model developed by Perron with an endogenously determined structural break.

Findings

The study finds no evidence of a long‐run relationship between saving and investment and therefore concludes that capital is highly mobile in Saudi Arabia. This finding is plausible given the economic and financial reforms which have occurred in Saudi Arabia along with increased capital inflows into the country in the last few decades.

Originality/value

Of the limited studies so far on developing countries, none has considered the capital mobility issue for an oil‐dependent country.

Details

Studies in Economics and Finance, vol. 28 no. 2
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1086-7376

Keywords

Book part
Publication date: 18 February 2004

Daniele Besomi

The scientific correspondence between Harrod and Robertson was initiated by Harrod’s criticism of Robertson’s Banking Policy and the Price Level (1926).7 Harrod first wrote on 18…

Abstract

The scientific correspondence between Harrod and Robertson was initiated by Harrod’s criticism of Robertson’s Banking Policy and the Price Level (1926).7 Harrod first wrote on 18 May 1926 (letter 2) raising at once the following “salient point”: Much of your argument depends on the view that justifiable expansions and contractions as defined by you are desirable. Why are they desirable? You give reasons on p. 22 why you think some instability in output desirable. But the reasons mentioned there (and I can’t find any others) don’t seem particularly directed to show that the special form of instability constituted by the so-called “justifiable” expansions and contractions is desirable. They seem to me to show that perhaps some instability, that, presumably, of less degree than we have been accustomed to in the past, is good, but by no means precisely how much is good. Thus, suppose the “hypothetical group member” or “the actual workman” of p. 19 were able to govern output according to their own self interest, there would still, according to the arguments of ch. 2, be some instability. Would not that be enough? Or if you want more, why stop at the “justifiable”? Why not have some of that due to “secondary” causes? It seems to me that you have been led away by purely aesthetic interests to identify that more moderate amount of instability which we really need (as shown on p. 22.) with that which we would get: (i) if secondary causes were removed; and (ii) if control of output stayed where it is now – in the hands of the entrepreneur. I don’t see how you can say to the banks more than “damp down fluctuation a bit, but leave some fluctuation, as that is healthful for the body economic”.He added two notes to his letter, in the first of which he commented upon the four proposed courses of policy outlined by Robertson on pp. 25–26 of his book. In the second note Harrod suggested that Robertson’s calculations in Appendix I to Ch. 5 of Banking Policy assumed the following behaviour of the public: (i) People do not allow for the effect of their withholding on the price level (this is reasonable). (ii) They are ignorant as the future course of inflation (or do nothing to meet it). (iii) On this basis they decide what withholding is necessary to restore H, decide that it would be too much effort to restore it at once, and…spread the restoration over K – 1 days. It so happens that by choosing K – 1 their 2 errors (or failures to take everything into account) cancel each other out, and they do effect the restoration in that time. If K or K – 2 had been chosen, this would not have been so.Harrod further argued that Robertson’s “so-called reasonable assumption of a restoration in K – 1 days is purely arbitrary,” and that “all this reasoning is rendered of doubtful value by the fact that we must suppose an alteration in view as to ‘the appropriate proportion between Real Hoarding and Real Income’ during the process of inflation. Not only will people not replenish H at once, but they may well voluntarily reduce it.”

Details

A Research Annual
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-0-76231-089-0

Article
Publication date: 1 April 2003

Anghel N. Rugina

Introduces Hicks, from the UK, and his classical upbringing, including his mathematical scholarships and Oxford. Looks at his early career as a lecturer at the London School of…

Abstract

Introduces Hicks, from the UK, and his classical upbringing, including his mathematical scholarships and Oxford. Looks at his early career as a lecturer at the London School of Economics and his development in the economics field. Concludes that Hicks was an original thinker, giving thanks to his immense contributions.

Details

International Journal of Social Economics, vol. 30 no. 4
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0306-8293

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 3 April 2017

Ibrahim D. Raheem and Mutiu Abimbola Oyinlola

The study seeks to examine the role of financial development (FD) in the Feldstein–Horioka (FH) puzzle. The novelty of this study is based on the fact that the measures of FD are…

Abstract

Purpose

The study seeks to examine the role of financial development (FD) in the Feldstein–Horioka (FH) puzzle. The novelty of this study is based on the fact that the measures of FD are expanded to account for the qualitative nature of the financial sector (“better finance”).

Design/methodology/approach

The study used annual dataset for 37 countries in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) for the period 1999 through 2010 and relied on the system generalised method of moments (GMM) technique, which takes accounts of endogeneity-related issues.

Findings

The estimated FH coefficients ranged between 0.419 and 0.720. The qualitative measures of FD have higher FH coefficient relative to the traditional or quantitative measure of FD (“more finance”). Hence, improvement in both the quantity and quality of the financial sector might be helpful in the mobilization, distribution and utilization of savings for investment purposes within these economies. The high FH coefficients obtained suggest that the FH puzzle does not hold in the SSA region.

Practical implications

Policymakers should formulate and design policies that would seek to ensure the development of the financial sector both in terms of quantity and quality. While taking this into consideration, special attention should be devoted to the qualitative measure of finance.

Originality/value

The study extends the work of Adeniyi and Egwaikhide (2013) by providing different and, possibly better proxies for FD to capture the efficiency and the qualitative nature of the financial system. This crux of the study serves as the value addition to the literature, as no other study the authors are aware of, has considered the importance of “better finance” indicators in the saving – investment nexus investigation.

Details

Journal of Financial Economic Policy, vol. 9 no. 1
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1757-6385

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 20 September 2011

Pierre Roche Seka

This study aims to re‐examine the direction of causality between investment and saving in the West African Economic and Monetary Union (WAEMU).

Abstract

Purpose

This study aims to re‐examine the direction of causality between investment and saving in the West African Economic and Monetary Union (WAEMU).

Design/methodology/approach

The study is empirical, testing for Granger causality between investment and saving as well as for other pertinent variables in the determination of the two variables of interest. It uses two methods: co‐integration and decomposition of variances on the one hand, and dynamic panel on the other.

Findings

The use of recent developments in the treatment and analysis of time series data and the inclusion of relevant variables omitted in prior studies help to shed more light on the contradictory results that exist so far. The empirical result is a proof that saving is a real constraint on investment in the financially moderate economies of the WAEMU.

Practical implications

The paper encourages own resource mobilisation for economic growth and development. Ideas generated in the study suggest that financial liberalization per se will not work unless enough flow of domestic savings exists in a country.

Originality/value

It is one of the recent attempts to investigate this issue within a group of African countries operating in an economic and monetary union. The strength of the paper is the use of various econometric methods to address the issue.

Details

African Journal of Economic and Management Studies, vol. 2 no. 2
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 2040-0705

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 16 September 2013

Kevin Odulukwe Onwuka and Augustine Obiefuna

The purpose of this paper is to test the Feldstein and Horioka (FH), theory that capital mobility should be low if there is high correlation between saving and investment, in some…

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to test the Feldstein and Horioka (FH), theory that capital mobility should be low if there is high correlation between saving and investment, in some African countries.

Design/methodology/approach

This paper tests the cointegration between saving and investment using bounds testing approach to cointegration and derive the long-run elasticities using autoregressive-distributed lag (ARDL) and Phillips-Hansen fully modified OLS for African countries over the period 1960-2008. This paper conducted the test for unit root properties using Augumented Dick-Fuller procedure.

Findings

Their main findings are: investment and saving are strongly cointegrated for The Gambia and Burkina Faso and marginally cointegrated for Ghana, Mali, Cote d'Ivoire and Benin when investment is the dependent variable and there is evidence of cointegration between saving and investment when saving is the dependent variable for Senegal and Niger and no evidence of cointegration for Cameroon, Chad and Togo; the long-run coefficients on saving are low or negative implying low correlation. This paper concludes that Feldstein and Horioka theory could not be ruled out in African countries investigated.

Originality/value

This paper is the original paper conducted on West African countries. This study has not across any paper bearing the same title on the countries of coverage.

Details

African Journal of Economic and Management Studies, vol. 4 no. 3
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 2040-0705

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 7 August 2007

Apostolos Serletis and Periklis Gogas

To test the Feldstein‐Horioka hypothesis that the investment‐to‐output ratio moves one‐for‐one with the saving‐to‐output ratio, suggesting international capital mobility.

Abstract

Purpose

To test the Feldstein‐Horioka hypothesis that the investment‐to‐output ratio moves one‐for‐one with the saving‐to‐output ratio, suggesting international capital mobility.

Design/methodology/approach

The paper uses the econometric framework developed by Fisher and Seater, interpreting the Feldstein‐Horioka hypothesis as a long‐run phenomenon, and paying particular attention to the integration properties of the data, since meaningful tests critically depend on these properties. The paper also investigates the power of the long‐horizon regression tests, using the inverse power function of Andrews.

Findings

The paper tests the Feldstein‐Horioka hypothesis for 15 European countries, as well as for the USA and Japan, using annual data for the period from 1960 to 2002. Evidence is found against the Feldstein and Horioka hypothesis of low international capital mobility.

Originality/value

Although the findings are in contrast to those of Feldstein and Horioka, they are consistent with neoclassical growth theory according to which there is no reason to expect a relation between saving and investment if there are no barriers to capital movements.

Details

Journal of Economic Studies, vol. 34 no. 3
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0144-3585

Keywords

1 – 10 of 284