Remittances,growth and poverty: New evidence from Asian countries

The present study re-examines the effects of remittances on growth of GDP per capita using annual panel data for 24 Asia and Pacific countries. The results generally confirm that remittance flows have been beneficial to economic growth. However, our analysis also shows that the volatility of capital inflows such as remittances and FDI is harmful to economic growth. This means that, while remittances contribute to better economic performance, they are also a source of output shocks. Finally, remittances contribute to poverty reduction – especially through their direct effects. Migration and remittances are thus potentially a valuable complement to broad-based development efforts.     

Impact of finance on growth: Does it vary with development levels or cyclical conditions?

Financial systems are complex and may support economic growth differently at various stages of economic development. This study of 90 countries extends the financial development-economic growth literature by using four proxies of financial development (banking, stock market, bond market and insurance), and considering a country’s level of economic development, on both a full and pre-global crisis sample. As expected financial markets have different effects on growth where the level of economic development vary. Policy makers should find that the insurance sector offers the most benefit for economic growth at all levels of development. Stock markets promote growth for middle income countries. Similarly bond markets promote growth with middle and high income countries. Some bond market and stock market results differed in the pre-crisis sample. Policies which promote trade but limit other areas such as inflation, government consumption and crises, should also support growth.     

Remittances,financial development and poverty reduction in Sub-Saharan Africa: Implications for post-COVID-19 macroeconomic policies

To design and implement effective post-COVID-19 macroeconomics policies to tackle poverty in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), policymakers need to understand the factors shaping poverty in the region. This paper investigates the effect of international remittances and financial development on poverty alleviation in 44 sub-Saharan African SSA countries from 2010 to 2019. The instrumental variable generalised method of moment technique results indicated that while remittances increase poverty, financial development contributes significantly to poverty reduction. The results consistently revealed that remittances increase both male and female poverty rates, while financial development significantly reduces male and female poverty rates. Other factors such as economic growth, foreign direct investment, and trade openness contributed significantly to reducing poverty. In contrast, government expenditure and foreign aid were found to increase poverty rate in SSA. These results are robust to the Lewbel two-stage least squares estimator. The practical implications of these findings for post-COVID-19 macroeconomic policies in SSA are discussed.     

China–Africa financial markets linkages: Volatility and interdependence

The China–Africa relationship has blossomed in recent years and the scale and scope of Chinese engagement and investment in the latter have expanded enormously in the last decade. The purpose of this paper is to analyse the dynamic linkages and volatility transmission mechanisms between Chinese and African stock markets in recent years while highlighting the relative importance of Chinese capital flows and investments. We utilise dynamic forecasting models including Bayesian VAR and BEKK GARCH to estimate both price and volatility behaviours of Chinese and 15 selected African stock markets. Our empirical results indicate strong evidence of spillover effects in terms of both price movement and volatility behaviour, implying that Chinese and African stock markets are showing signs of integration. For price movement, bidirectional feedback relationships between Chinese and most of the African stock markets are observed, suggesting that both Chinese and African stock markets could influence each other. China has been building a strong African partnership and, therefore, increasing its trade and investment influences in the region. Examining volatility transmissions, at least one spillover effect (shock and/or volatility) from China to most of the African stock markets is reported. This suggests that the Chinese stock market now plays an influential role across African stock markets given that it has major investments in 46 out of 54 countries. Our findings show important portfolio management implications as a surge in Chinese investments provide new portfolio diversification opportunities for international investors. Policy-wise, we believe further market-oriented reforms and carefully designed and long-term development policies are required to boost capacity for development and achieve sustainable trade and growth.     

Effect of financial development on economic growth in sub-Saharan Africa

This paper examines the overall economic growth effect when the growth in finance and real sector is disproportionate relying on panel data for 29 sub-Saharan African countries over the period 1980–2014. Results from the system generalized methods of moments (GMM) reveal that, while financial development supports economic growth, the extent to which finance helps growth depends crucially on the simultaneous growth of real and financial sectors. The elasticity of growth to changes in either size of the real or financial sector is higher under balanced sectoral growth. We also show that rapid and unbridled credit growth comes at a huge cost to economic growth with consequences stemming from financing of risky and unsustainable investments coupled with superfluous consumption fueling inflation. However, the pass-through excess finance–economic growth effect via the investment channel is stronger.     

Liberalization,crisis and growth in MENA region: Do institutions matter?

The main purpose of this study is to investigate the interaction between financial liberalization, banking crisis and economic growth by taking into consideration the role of institutions. Our sample covers 15 Middle East and North African observed during the period 2000–2013. Using a dynamic panel data framework, our findings reveal that financial liberalization contributed to improve economic growth in MENA countries while banking crisis had harmful effects on MENA economies. The quality of institutions did not have a clear impact except for rule and order and democratic institution. These results have important policy implications. To grow output and avoid the occurrence of banking crisis, MENA countries should reinforce their institutions quality by adopting good practice of governance and regulation.     

Financial development and economic growth: New evidence from Tunisia

This paper examined an empirical investigation of whether financial development can boost economic growth in Tunisia. We used an Autoregressive Distributed Lag method to assess the finance-growth relation taking private credit, value traded and issuing bank's securities on the financial market as financial development indicators.The empirical results showed that the domestic credit to private sector has a positive effect on the economic growth suggesting that the financial development is a driver of a long term economic growth, but subject to a financial fragility at the short run. Moreover, this study confirmed the view of bidirectional relationship between credit and economic growth. However, we found that neither the stock market development nor the intervention of banks in the stock market had robust and positive effects on the economic growth. Thus, Tunisia is recommended to accelerate in priority the financial reforms of the Tunisian stock market in order to contribute to mobilize savings and promote long run economic growth.     

Do remittances reduce school dropout in Bangladesh? The role of government’s administrative and structural support

In the development literature, the impact of remittances on educational outcomes is a contentious topic and remains at the heart of policy discussions on enhancing quality education in developing countries. Bangladesh being one of the world’s top remittance recipients, it’s crucial to understand the influence of remittances on educational outcomes and school dropout rates. In this study, we examine the impact of internal remittances (from inside Bangladesh) and international remittances (from outside Bangladesh) on school dropout at the household level using a unique, national, and two most recent datasets covering migration and remittance-related information from the Bangladesh Household Income and Expenditure Survey (HIES). Considering the methodological issues such as endogeneity sources and self-selection, we used the Instrumental Variable Cox Proportional Hazard model and included asset scores in the models as a proxy measure of households’ wealth index. Furthermore, all the outcomes using the econometric approaches were segregated into three groups: i) those who received no remittances, ii) those who received internal remittances, and iii) those who received international remittances for both HIES 2010 and HIES 2016. This analysis provides a critical picture of the influence of remittances on school dropouts in Bangladesh by giving us a significant positive outcome of the remittances as a whole on education. With the increase in remittance inflows in Bangladesh, the risk of children aged 6-18 dropping out of education are more likely to fall. Aside from the positive impact, this study suggests that government should take the initiative of reducing the costs of sending remittances to Bangladesh. Moreover, the government should provide procedural and structural support to migrants.     

Policy responses to external shocks in sub-Saharan African countries

The author analyzes the experience of sub-Saharan African countries with external shocks in the form of the deterioration of the terms of trade and the world recession between 1973 and 1978, with distinction made between low-income and middle-income countries. Adjustment to external shocks in low-income sub-Saharan African countries took largely the form of reductions in imports through lower rates of economic growth and lower income elasticity of import demand while these countries lost export market shares. Losses in export market shares were smaller in the middle-income countries and in the entire group, export performance was positively correlated with the rate of economic growth.     

Efficiency of financial market intermediation in Kenya: A comparative analysis

Wide interest margins as witnessed in Kenya are a sign of a repressed and inefficient financial sector. This paper carries out a cross-country analysis of the determinants of financial market efficiency using panel cointegration with a view to recommending policy options for improving the efficiency of the financial sector intermediation process in Kenya. The study finds that the major contributors to the differences in financial sector inefficiency in Kenya compared to the other countries in the study are high bank operating costs, default risk and financial market structure. The study recommends, among other measures, that the government through the Central Bank need to collaborate with the commercial banks and establish a working credit reference bureau to enable easy identification of credit worthy customers in order to reduce default risk; there is also need by the central bank to license more new banks to increase competition and reduce bank concentration. The study also recommends increased use of technology including phone-banking and e-banking to reduce operation costs of the banks. The paper concludes that contrary to the findings from other cross-country analysis, the factors that lead to financial market in/efficiency varies from one country to the other.     

Efficiency of the Greek banking system in view of the EMU: a heteroscedastic stochastic frontier approach

The paper estimates empirically cost efficiency of the Greek banking system for the period 1993–1998. The beginning of the examination period coincides with the acceleration of liberalization and deregulation of the Greek financial system, in view of the country joining the EMU. The study uses a multi-input, multi-output technology and adopts a heteroscedastic frontier model instead of a commonly used homoscedastic one to measure cost efficiency in the banking system. The empirical results show that larger banks are less efficient than smaller ones. Also, it is found that economic performance, bank loans and investments are positive related to the cost efficiency of the Greek commercial banking sector.     

网络舆情是否影响股市行情?基于新浪微博大数据的ARDL模型边限分析

本文基于新浪微博大数据,分析互联网上的股市舆情是否影响真实世界中的股市行情。在梳理网络舆情,特别是微博影响股市的机制的基础上,我们利用具有“利好”和“利空”含义的股市术语的微博出现词频（“热词指数”）,生成股市的“微博信心指数”。“格兰杰因果检验”和“自回归分布滞后模型”（ARDL）边限检验表明：在股市震荡期,早前三天内的“微博信心指数”有助于预测上证指数;“微博信心指数”和“上证指数”存在正向相关的均衡关系;在股市行情平稳期,以上的统计关联并不存在;网络舆情通过影响入市资金流进一步影响股市行情。     

Return and volatility interaction between oil prices and stock markets in Saudi Arabia

The paper aims at investigating the links between world oil price and stock sector markets in Saudi Arabia over the weekly period from January 10, 2007 until September 28, 2011. To that effect, we make use of the VAR-GARCH process developed by Ling and McAleer (2003), which has the advantage to address the issue of return and volatility spillovers among the series we consider. Globally, the empirical findings show evidence of return and volatility transmission between oil price and stock sectors. However, the spillover effects are unidirectional from oil to some sectors for returns, but bidirectional for volatility patterns with more apparent links from sectors to oil. The optimal weights and hedge ratios for oil/stock portfolio holdings are sensitive to the sectors considered, and allow a better understanding of the links between sectors and oil for investors who seek for investment opportunities and want to diversify their portfolios. The findings are of great interest and have important implications for investors, market participants and policy makers.     

The impact of infectious diseases on remittances inflows to India

The economic crisis triggered by the COVID-19 pandemic seems to be grimmer when observed from the migration perspective. Remittances play a vital role in economic development of India through promoting output growth, household spending on health and education, poverty alleviation, financial inclusion and entrepreneurship. Given the importance of remittances, it is important to analyse how the current pandemic will influence the remittances inflows to India. Towards this end, the study employs a gravity model approach to the determinants of remittances with special attention to the impact of infectious diseases in the host countries. The present study constructs a dataset on bilateral remittances from 99 destination countries and utilizes the data on prevalence of infectious diseases in the host countries during the period 2000–2018 to assess the impact of the latter on the inflows of remittances to India. The results of the study based on a variety of estimators tackling various econometric issues suggest a statistically significant negative impact of prevalence of infectious diseases in the host country on the inflows of remittances. The negative impact of infectious diseases on remittances suggest that while there are downside risks in the wake of current pandemic, the scenario does not seem to be that bleak as the remittances to India are countercyclical with respect to economic growth in the home country and largely decoupled from host country macroeconomic fundamentals. As the remittances act as shock absorbers during the time of low economic growth in the home country, India must further build up a conducive eco system to nurture these valuable foreign exchange in a well directed manner.     

Emigration from Zimbabwe: Migrant Perspectives

This article explores migration from Zimbabwe to the UK and South Africa and the experiences of the receiving countries from the perspective of the migrants. It provides a critical examination of the impact of structural barriers in both the UK and South Africa on the economic experiences of migrants. The effects of immigration status, due to the exclusion of asylum‐seekers in the UK and the presence of undocumented migrants in the UK and South Africa, is explored in relation to employment and remittance activities. The clear evidence of the deskilling taking place among the majority of Zimbabwean migrants – and its impact on remittances and other forms of transnational support – is also examined. The article concludes that any real commitment to alleviating global poverty on the part of the world's migrant receiving countries must include a re‐examination of barriers to employment, education and the use of skills, since these barriers not only have a short‐term impact on remittances to the sending country and fiscal capacity to contribute in the receiving country, but will also impact on longer‐term development should the migrants return to their country of origin.     

Inflation targeting and its spillover effects on financial stability in emerging market economies

In this paper, we study whether adoption of inflation targeting monetary policy framework has spillover effects on financial stability in emerging market economies. Working with data for 64 emerging market economies, we develop financial stability and sector specific stability indices and identify the effect using dynamic panel data models in difference-in-difference framework. We find significant positive spillover effects of inflation targeting adoption on banking system resilience and external capital inflows arising from improved transparency and accountability of the central banks. Based on the results, the paper recommends to emerging market economies which are currently under inflation targeting lite regime, to adopt full-fledged inflation targeting monetary policy.     

Does economic policy uncertainty affect bank earnings opacity? Evidence from China

Uncertainty about economic policy (EPU) in today's interconnected world and its impact worldwide is more significant than ever before. Thus, this study examines EPU's impact on the bank's earnings opacity of the Chinese banking industry, using the two-step system GMM estimator and the time covering 2011–2018. Our finding shows a negative and statistically significant relationship between EPU and bank earnings opacity, implying that the Chinese banking sector decreases earnings opacity in times of high EPU to earn trust and show good banks’ financial image. Moreover, our finding reveals that the effect of EPU on earnings opacity relies on the banks’ financial strength. This study recommends that a policy to reduce earnings opacity should be in place and also the supervisory capability and financial regulation should be strengthened. Moreover, the regulators should be more vigilant while making economic policies during high economic uncertainties.     

中国—东盟区域银行业金融机构合作分析

中国和东盟开展银行业金融机构合作不仅是中国国家整体外交的需要,也是中国金融业可持续发展、金融业发展壮大的必然要求。目前,中国与东盟银行业金融机构合作主要表现为银行边贸结算和互设金融机构。中国应抓住中国—东盟自由贸易区建成等机遇,完善合作机制,分三个层次展开与东盟国家的银行业金融机构合作。     

金融危机影响中国外贸出口的传导机制及政策建议

从金融危机的发展态势来看,金融危机的影响日益从虚体经济迅速扩散到实体经济,从发达国家扩散到发展中国家。对于中国来说,外需减弱导致出口急剧下降,工业经济受到了十分严重的影响。金融危机影响中国出口的传导机制主要有6个方面：需求传导机制、汇率传导机制、贸易政策传导机制、价格传导机制、贸易融资传导机制和贸易链传导机制。为了应对外需减弱对我国出口的影响,我国政府应该继续实施市场多元化战略,大力开拓新的国际市场;重视人民币汇率问题,呼吁建立新型国际储备货币;高度重视贸易摩擦问题,构建良好的国际经济环境;加大对企业的融资力度,帮助出口企业转型;大力发展内需,加快经济发展模式转变。