on the impacts of oil price fluctuations on european equity markets volatility spillover and hedging effectiveness the objective of this paper is to investigate the volatility spillovers between oil and stock markets in europe as not all industries are expected to be equally affected by oil price changes we conduct our study at both the aggregate as well as sector levels empirically we make use of a recently developed var garch approach which allows for transmissions in volatilities in addition we analyze the optimal weights and hedge ratios for oil stock portfolio holdings based on our results on the whole our findings show significant volatility spillovers between oil price and sector stock returns and suggest that a better understanding of those links is crucial for portfolio management in the presence of oil price risk

efficiency of job creation in a search and matching model with labor force participation in a search and matching model where workers are ex ante heterogeneous with respect to productivity and there is labor force participation albrecht et al 2010 show that satisfying the hosios rule leads to excessive vacancy creation we show that efficient vacancy creation requires a modified version of the hosios condition that captures not only the standard search externalities but also the output externality and the participation externality

dynamic spillover effects among crude oil precious metal and agricultural commodity futures markets abstract this paper examines spillover effects among six commodity futures markets gold silver west texas intermediate crude oil corn wheat and rice by employing the multivariate deco garch model and the spillover index specifically we investigate the dynamics of return and volatility spillover indices to reveal the intensity and direction of transmission during the recent global financial and european sovereign debt crises our empirical results are as follows first we estimate a positive equicorrelation between commodity futures market returns and find that it increased sharply during the crises this effect can persist during periods of economic and financial turmoil diminishing the benefits of international portfolio diversification for investors second we identify bidirectional return and volatility spillovers across commodity futures markets and find more pronounced trends in their levels in the post crisis period this indicates the strong impact of spillovers during crisis periods third both gold and silver are information transmitters to other commodity futures markets while the remaining four commodity futures investigated were receivers of spillovers during recent periods of financial stress finally we analyse the optimal portfolio weights and time varying hedge ratios between metal and other commodities futures markets overall our findings provide new insights into channels of information transmission which may improve investment decisions and inform portfolio investors trading strategies

asymmetric volatility spillovers between crude oil and international financial markets abstract in this paper we examine asymmetric volatility spillovers between oil and international stock markets in a vector autoregression framework using a directed acyclic graph dag technique we provide evidence that bad total volatility spillovers dominate the system and change over time suggesting that a pessimistic mood and uninformed traders who tend to increase volatility dominate in markets positive spillovers of oil markets dominated from 2006 to mid 2009 but reversed after mid 2009 moreover the spillovers from good volatilities in oil markets to bad volatilities in global stock markets were significantly positive during the economic recovery period the recent important economic and political events have influenced asymmetries in volatility spillovers

oil prices and the stock prices of alternative energy companies energy security issues coupled with increased concern over the natural environment are driving factors behind oil price movements while it is widely accepted that rising oil prices are good for the financial performance of alternative energy companies there has been relatively little statistical work done to measure just how sensitive the financial performance of alternative energy companies are to changes in oil prices in this paper a four variable vector autoregression model is developed and estimated in order to investigate the empirical relationship between alternative energy stock prices technology stock prices oil prices and interest rates our results show technology stock prices and oil prices each individually granger cause the stock prices of alternative energy companies simulation results show that a shock to technology stock prices has a larger impact on alternative energy stock prices than does a shock to oil prices these results should be of use to investors managers and policy makers

on the efficiency of participation with vertically differentiated workers in this journal albrecht et al 2010 assume that the planner problem is constrained by participation decisions when this constraint is relaxed participation is too high whereas market tightness is too low subsidizing non participants improves market efficiency and reduces unemployment

linkages among energy price exchange rates and stock markets evidence from emerging african economies this study examines the dynamic links among oil prices foreign exchange rates and stock markets in emerging africa using recent 10 years data and var bekk garch forecasting framework we find evid

volatility spillovers between oil prices and stock sector returns implications for portfolio management abstract in this article we take a recent generalized var garch approach to examine the extent of volatility transmission between oil and stock markets in europe and the united states at the sector level the empirical model is advantageous in that it typically allows simultaneous shock transmission in the conditional returns and volatilities insofar as volatility transmission across oil and stock sector markets is a crucial element for portfolio designs and risk management we also analyze the optimal weights and hedge ratios for oil stock portfolio holdings with respect to the results our findings point to the existence of significant volatility spillover between oil and sector stock returns however the spillover is usually unidirectional from oil markets to stock markets in europe but bidirectional in the united states our back testing procedures finally suggest that taking the cross market volatility spillovers estimated from the var garch models often leads to diversification benefits and hedging effectiveness better than those of commonly used multivariate volatility models such as the ccc garch of bollerslev 1990 the diagonal bekk garch of engle and kroner 1995 and the dcc garch of engle 2002

participation recruitment selection and the minimum wage this paper reexamines the efficiency of participation with heterogeneous workers in a search matching model with bargained wages and free entry assuming that firms hire their best applicants we state that participation is insufficient whatever workers bargaining strengths the reason for this is that when holding a job the marginal participant should receive the entire output as a consequence introducing a small minimum wage raises participation job creation and employment therefore the aggregate income of the economy is enhanced

oil price shocks and real gdp growth empirical evidence for some oecd countries this study assesses empirically the effects of oil price shocks on the real economic activity of the main industrialized countries multivariate var analysis is carried out using both linear and non linear models the latter category includes three approaches employed in the literature namely the asymmetric scaled and net specifications evidence of a non linear impact of oil prices on real gdp is found in particular oil price increases are found to have an impact on gdp growth of a larger magnitude than that of oil price declines with the latter being statistically insignificant in most cases among oil importing countries oil price increases are found to have a negative impact on economic activity in all cases but japan moreover the effect of oil shocks on gdp growth differs between the two oil exporting countries in the sample with the uk being negatively affected by an oil price increase and norway benefiting from it

the time varying nairu and its implications for economic policy the nairu the unemployment rate consistent with a constant rate of inflation is estimated in this paper as a parameter allowed to vary over time value is determined in an econometric model where the inflation rate depends on its past values demand and supply shocks the nairu estimated for the gdp deflator varies over the past forty years within 5 4 to 6 5 percent its estimated value for the most recent quarter 1996 q2 is 5 6 percent the nairu has declined in recent years in response to global competition immigration other factors weakening labor s bargaining position and the rapidly declining prices of computers and other electronics

assessment of the relationship between oil prices and us oil stocks abstract this paper qualitatively and quantitatively analyzes the relationship between us monthly ending oil stocks position with that of west texas intermediate wti oil prices from february 1995 to july 2004 the paper concludes if other things are held constant wti is inversely related to the petroleum products ppp combined petroleum products and crude oil cppp crude oil alone crude total oil stocks including petroleum products crude oil and strategic petroleum reserves spr total total gasoline tgo total distillate tdo it could not establish a statistically significant and negative relationship with spr when run alone one percent increase decrease in cppp ppp crude total tgo and tdo leads to decrease increase in wti respectively by 0 70 0 43 0 37 0 97 0 26 and 0 21 percent oil prices are largely influenced by total crude and crude and ppp inventories levels while modestly with variations in gasoline and distillate stocks levels despite a healthy increase of over 22 percent in spr from january 2001 to april 2004 it did not result in easing of oil prices primarily because spr are meant for security of supply concern and are only released under extreme conditions by the president of united states they are neither meant for the purposes of balancing supply demand gap nor for the stability of oil prices the aggressive spr buildup in recent years is related to international terrorism geopolitical situation in the middle east particularly in iraq that encourages us government to enhance its spr to meet any short term eventuality the analyst must keep a close eye on cppp and the total oil stocks variation to forecast wti in the short run whilst gasoline and distillate influence oil prices modestly in the short run spr on the other hand are expected to play a pivotal role in balancing oil prices and in providing a critical resource for the economy in case of any major shortfall in the long run

nonparametric panel data model for crude oil and stock market prices in net oil importing countries abstract this paper introduces an innovative nonparametric panel data approach to model the long run relationship between the monthly oil price index and stock market price indices of ten large net oil importing countries namely the united states japan china south korea india germany france singapore italy and spain in the proposed model we allow the coefficient on the oil price index to be a time varying function which evolves over time in a way that is assumed to be unknown we also allow the common trend function to evolve over time as well as extending the model further to incorporate country specific trend functions we employ a data driven local linear method to estimate these time varying trend and coefficient functions the results show that despite being largely positive there are several downward trends reflecting the aftermath of the iraq war and the recent unprecedented drop in the oil price overall we find that the nonparametric panel data model better captures the way in which the underlying stock oil price relationship has evolved over time in comparison to the point estimates of the parametric counterpart moreover we find that stock market fundamentals play a significant role in determining the oil stock price relationship our findings have important implication for policymakers and financial speculators

the nairu and wages in local labor markets unemployment in the united states has been below its presumed nairu nonaccelerating inflation rate of unemployment of 6 percent for more than four years the doctrine or dogma of the nairu led to the expectation that an unemployment rate below the nairu would make accelerating inflation inevitable but by all measures inflation has if anything declined and shows no signs of increasing the nairu doctrine has had a major role in macroeconomic theory and monetary policy for several decades for example the seven hikes in interest rates by the fed in 1994 1995 seem to have been motivated not by concerns about existing inflation cpi u inflation was steady and below 3 percent but by fears that an unemployment rate falling toward the 6 percent level and then below 6 percent in september 1994 would foster future inflation theoretical and statistical criticisms of the nairu have been growing see e g robert solow 1986 james tobin 1993 eisner 1994 rod cross 1995 essays by cross frank hahn and tobin ray fair 1996 olivier blanchard and lawrence katz 1997

the aggregate implications of machine replacement theory and evidence the authors study an economy in which producers incur resource costs to replace depreciated machines the process of costly replacement and depreciation creates endogenous fluctuations in productivity employment and output of a single producer the authors explore the spillover effects of machine replacement on other sectors of the economy and provide conditions for synchronized machine replacement by multiple independent producers the implications of their model are generally consistent with observed monthly output employment and productivity fluctuations in automobile plants synchronization of retooling across plants within the auto industry is widespread so that the fluctuations observed at the plant level have aggregate implications copyright 1993 by american economic association

a comparison of the effects of exogenous oil supply shocks on output and inflation in the g7 countries a comparison of the effects of exogenous shocks to global crude oil production on seven major industrialized economies suggests a fair degree of similarity in the real growth responses an exogenous oil supply disruption typically causes a temporary reduction in real gdp growth that is concentrated in the second year after the shock inflation responses are more varied the median cpi inflation response peaks after three to four quarters exogenous oil supply disruptions need not generate sustained inflation or stagflation typical responses include a fall in the real wage higher short term interest rates and a depreciating currency with respect to the dollar despite many qualitative similarities there is strong statistical evidence that the responses to exogenous oil supply disruptions differ across g7 countries for suitable subsets of countries homogeneity cannot be ruled out a counterfactual historical exercise suggests that the evolution of cpi inflation in the g7 countries would have been similar overall to the actual path even in the absence of exogenous shocks to oil production consistent with a monetary explanation of the inflation of the 1970s there is no evidence that the 1973 1974 and 2002 2003 oil supply shocks had a substantial impact on real growth in any g7 country whereas the 1978 1979 1980 and 1990 1991 shocks contributed to lower growth in at least some g7 countries jel e31 e32 q43

modeling oil price us stock nexus a varma bekk agarch approach abstract this study adds to the existing literature on oil price us stock nexus in three ways first it employs the varma agarch model developed by mcaleer et al 2009 within the context of bekk framework using west texas intermediate wti and brent as proxies for oil market and s p stocks as a proxy for us stock market secondly it modifies the model to include endogenously determined structural break using the general structure for analyzing breaks with unit roots in perron 2006 third it uses the adopted model to compute optimal portfolio weight and hedge ratios between oil price and us stocks using different sample data based on the break date on average our empirical evidence suggests a significant positive return spillover from us stock market to oil market and bi directional shock spillovers between the two markets in addition there is significant own asymmetric shock effect in both markets while volatility spillover from oil market to stock market became pronounced after the break which coincides with the period of global economic slowdown similarly the results of portfolio management differ across the sample data more importantly we find that ignoring structural break when it exists may exaggerate hedging effectiveness

exogenous shocks and the spillover effects between uncertainty and oil price this paper evaluates the information spillover between equity related uncertainty and the oil price before and after the 2008 global financial crisis and the effects of exogenous shocks on the pattern of information spillover in particular we investigate mean and volatility spillovers between uncertainty and the oil price with and without exogenous shocks by using a bivariate egarch model there are two main findings in our paper first the evidence ensures significant information transmission between equity related uncertainty and the oil price and shows remarkable differences in transmission patterns before and after the crisis second the results show that exogenous shocks can intensify information transmission between oil prices and uncertainty in terms of both the mean and volatility spillover effects moreover exogenous shocks exhibit direct spillover effects on oil prices

oil prices and news based uncertainty novel evidence abstract in this paper using news implied volatility nvix as a key variable to measure news based uncertainty we investigate whether the world price of oil and three classical oil shocks affect news based uncertainty or vice versa our analysis is conducted through the news mechanism that is unrelated to fundamentals this research contributes to the literature on the effect of oil prices on news based uncertainty by studying the dynamics in both the time and frequency domains using the wavelet coherence analysis our results illustrate that oil prices exhibit a statistically and economically significant leading role on nvix especially in the long run further we distinguish the different impacts of oil shocks and find that the oil supply and aggregate demand shocks usually play a leading role on relatively long term nvix while the oil specific demand shocks are sensitive to the fluctuations of nvix we also find that the rules of comovement between oil prices oil shocks and news based uncertainty change at different frequencies and times they usually move together in opposite directions with the exception of the oil supply shocks and nvix these findings apply to both oil spot and futures markets our results present new and interesting implications for investors and policy makers by supporting the news reallocation channel as an important transmission mechanism from oil markets

a comprehensive short run analysis of a possible turkish phillips curve the studies on phillips curves relating the rate of unemployment to the rate of inflation are the results of the search for a reliable tool for forecasting inflation and implementing monetary policy the original phillips curve has attracted considerable attention and since then it has undergone several important changes although the evidence of a negative relationship between the rate of change in a money variable and unemployment rate has not been proven it is still considered to be critical for policymaking and is on researchers agenda niskaken 2002 the existence of a phillips curve for turkey is investigated with the linear and non linear specifications for the conventional and new keynesian phillips curves with inflation expectations and natural rate of unemployment for annual 1980 2001 and semiannual 1988 2 2003 1 data sets the results indicate no evidence of a phillips curve for all specifications and both data sets the semiannual data seems to have a better fit in all specifications

the causal nexus between oil prices and equity market in the u s a regime switching model abstract the aim of this paper is to analyse the causal link between monthly oil futures price changes and a sub grouping of s p 500 stock index changes the causal linkage between oil and stock markets is modelled using a vector autoregressive model with time varying parameters so as to reflect changes in granger causality over time a markov switching vector autoregressive ms var model in which causal link between the series is stochastic and governed by an unobservable markov chain is used for inferring time varying causality although we do not find any lead lag type granger causality the results based on the ms var model clearly show that oil futures price has strong regime prediction power for a sub grouping of s p 500 stock index during various sub periods in the sample while there is a weak evidence for the regime prediction power of a sub grouping of s p 500 stock indexes the regime prediction non causality tests on the ms var model show that both variables are useful for making inference about the regime process and that the evidence on regime prediction causality is primarily found in the equation describing a sub grouping of s p 500 stock market returns the evidence from the conditional non causality tests shows that past information on the other series fails to improve the one step ahead prediction for both oil futures and stock returns

relationships between oil price shocks and stock market an empirical analysis from china this paper investigates the interactive relationships between oil price shocks and chinese stock market using multivariate vector auto regression oil price shocks do not show statistically significant impact on the real stock returns of most chinese stock market indices except for manufacturing index and some oil companies some important oil price shocks depress oil company stock prices increase in oil volatility may increase the speculations in mining index and petrochemicals index which raise their stock returns both the world oil price shocks and china oil price shocks can explain much more than interest rates for manufacturing index

u s stock returns and oil prices the tale from daily data and the 2008 2009 financial crisis abstract using daily data from january 1999 to december 2011 we examine u s stock returns s p 500 dow jones nasdaq and russell 2000 based on a wide range of information including equity vix volatility inflation expectations interest rates gold prices and the usd euro exchange rate the focus is on oil price returns which have been previously found to exert mostly negative effects on u s stock returns identifying the crisis of 2008 2009 as a significant period of economic contraction and subsequent recovery we check the stability of the stock oil relationship by garch and mgarch dcc models prior to the financial crisis stock returns are slightly negatively affected by oil prices and by the usd euro for the subsample of mid 2009 onwards however stock returns are positively affected by oil prices and a weaker usd euro as with inflation expectations we interpret these findings as u s stocks responding positively to expectations of recovery worldwide our proposed explanation is due to the changing correlation between stock markets and oil either by standard garch models or by mgarch dcc models allowing the implied correlation to vary over time

crude oil prices and sectoral stock returns in jordan around the arab uprisings of 2010 abstract in this paper we test for mean and variance causality between world oil prices and sectoral equity returns in jordan before and after the arab uprisings that started in 2010 the testing methodology is based on the sample of cross correlation functions that are computed from the standardized residuals of a garch process our results show that the influence is not uniform across the equity sectors the oil return shocks significantly impact the financials and the services sectors while its effect is insignificant on the industrials sector this result is more pronounced in the period that follows the arab uprisings in terms of risk transfer we find that oil is a negligible risk factor however there is still a significant evidence of risk transmission to the industrials sector particularly during the arab uprisings period these results represent a unique information transmission mechanism that is useful for risk management and portfolio diversification

volatility spillovers among oil and stock markets in the us and saudi arabia in this article we use high frequency data and an identification via changes in volatility approach to assess the volatility spillovers among oil and the us and saudi arabian stock markets we doc

the phillips curve regime switching and the nairu abstract this paper explores the impact of nonlinearities in the phillips curve and its representation by means of a regime switching model on the meaning and the usefulness of the nairu by implementing a regime switching model that can endogenously generate fluctuations in inflation and in the rate of unemployment we conclude that the nairu is not necessarily a single value is not necessarily reachable and is very difficult to measure the model yields a neutral rate which is more an interval of values than a precise number furthermore by postulating dynamic interdependence between real and monetary aspects the model weakens the theoretical basis of the nairu concept itself

macroeconomic shocks in a dynamized model of the natural rate of unemployment at the microeconomic level this paper revises and broadens the theory of the equilibrium rate of unemployment the natural rate in a monetary model the authors begin by recreating steven salop s turnover model of the natural rate in its naturally intertemporal version useful findings on impact effects and the adjustment process at the individual firm necessarily excluded by the static version are shown to derive from the dynamized model at the macroeconomic level the authors then provide a general equilibrium analysis of some shocks showing how they drive the equilibrium unemployment rate and in varying ways also disturb the real rate of interest copyright 1992 by american economic association

oil prices exchange rates and emerging stock markets abstract while two different streams of literature exist investigating 1 the relationship between oil prices and emerging market stock prices and 2 the relationship between oil prices and exchange rates relatively little is known about the dynamic relationship between oil prices exchange rates and emerging market stock prices this paper proposes and estimates a structural vector autoregression model to investigate the dynamic relationship between these variables impulse responses are calculated in two ways standard and the recently developed projection based methods the model supports stylized facts in particular positive shocks to oil prices tend to depress emerging market stock prices and us dollar exchange rates in the short run the model also captures stylized facts regarding movements in oil prices a positive oil production shock lowers oil prices while a positive shock to real economic activity increases oil prices there is also evidence that increases in emerging market stock prices increase oil prices

the nature of occupational unemployment rates in the united states hysteresis or structural this article provides new evidence on the nature of occupational differences in unemployment dynamics which is relevant for the debate between the structural or hysteresis hypotheses we develop a procedure that permits us to test for the presence of a structural break at unknown date our approach allows the investigation of a broader range of persistence than the 0 1 paradigm about the order of integration usually implemented for testing the hypothesis of hysteresis in occupational unemployment in almost all occupations we find support for both the structuralist and the hysteresis hypotheses but stress the importance of estimating the degree of persistence of seasonal shocks along with the degree of long run persistence on raw data without applying seasonal filters indeed hysteresis appears to be underestimated when data are initially adjusted using traditional seasonal filters

behind this structural boom the role of asset valuations we are in the midst of a structural boom the force of which has not been seen in this country since the 1920 s after the u s unemployment rate hit 6 percent in late 1994 following its two year recovery many experts assumed that unemployment had regained its naturalrate path the natural unemployment rate in the second half of the 1980 s had been put at around 6 5 percent in several estimates and if the trend reduction in the natural rate brought about by the continuing relative decline of high school dropouts in the labor force and those whose education stopped at the diploma is placed at 0 07 per annum it would have declined on that account to around 6 percent by 1995 phelps and gylfi zoega 1997 furthermore we saw in 1995 the end of

the nairu unemployment and monetary policy this paper examines the precision of conventional estimates of the nairu and the role of the nairu and unemployment in forecasting inflation the authors find that although there is a clear empirical phillips relation the nairu is imprecisely estimated forecasts of inflation are insensitive to the nairu and there are other leading indicators of inflation that are at least as good as unemployment this suggests deemphasizing the nairu in public discourse about monetary policy and instead drawing on a richer variety of leading indicators of inflation

oil price shocks and stock markets in the u s and 13 european countries abstract oil price shocks have a statistically significant impact on real stock returns contemporaneously and or within the following month in the u s and 13 european countries over 1986 1 2005 12 norway as an oil exporter shows a statistically significantly positive response of real stock returns to an oil price increase the median result from variance decomposition analysis is that oil price shocks account for a statistically significant 6 of the volatility in real stock returns for many european countries but not for the u s increased volatility of oil prices significantly depresses real stock returns the contribution of oil price shocks to variability in real stock returns in the u s and most other countries is greater than that of interest rate an increase in real oil price is associated with a significant increase in the short term interest rate in the u s and eight out of 13 european countries within one or two months counter to findings for the u s and for norway there is little evidence of asymmetric effects on real stock returns of positive and negative oil price shocks for oil importing european countries

oil and the macroeconomy since the 1970s economists have long been intrigued by empirical evidence that suggests that oil price shocks may be closely related to macroeconomic performance this interest dates back to the 1970s the 1970s were a period of growing dependence on imported oil unprecedented disruptions in the global oil market and poor macroeconomic performance in the united states thus it was natural to suspect a causal relationship from oil prices to u s macroeconomic aggregates since then a large body of work has accumulated that purports to establish this link on theoretical grounds and to provide empirical evidence in its support we do not attempt a comprehensive survey of this literature but rather provide an idiosyncratic synthesis of what we view as the key issues in this debate and the insights gained over the last 30 years the timing seems right for such an account although the experience of the 1970s continues to play an important role in discussions of the link between oil and the macroeconomy there have been a number of new oil price shocks since the 1970s notably the 1986 collapse of oil prices and the 2000 boom in oil prices as well as the oil price increases associated with the 1990 1991 gulf war and the 2003 iraq war given this richer case history we are arguably in a better position than two decades ago to distinguish the idiosyncratic features of each oil crisis from the systematic effects increases in oil prices have been held responsible for recessions periods of excessive inflation reduced productivity and lower economic growth in this paper we review the arguments supporting such views first we highlight some of the conceptual difficulties in assigning a central role to oil price shocks in explaining

a theory based state dependent phillips curve and its estimation to explain the existing empirical irregularity about the slope of a phillips curve this article provides a model of imperfect competition to short that the slope of a phillips curve is shock dependent we empirically apply a state space markov switching model to examine the impact of inflation surprise on the unemployment gap resulting in the state dependent phillips curve fitting quite well our empirical evidence indicates that an unexpected monetary expansion does produce effects in reducing unemployment rates and that supply shocks should not be ignored in estimating the phillips curve because they dominate demand shocks in several nonoil shock periods jel c51 e24 e52 i introduction it is well known that a downward sloping short run phillips curve implies a trade off between the inflation rate and unemployment rate however empirical findings point out that the slope of the phillips curve depends on the selected sample periods 1 does any theoretical model explain the changes in the slope of a short run phillips curve as displayed in the data can we find empirical support for our model that implies a slope changeable phillips curve to answer these questions this article provides a theoretical model implying that the slope of the phillips curve is shock dependent we then apply a state space markov switching model to investigate the empirical support of the theoretical model although a stable negative short run phillips curve is crucial for producing inflation forecasts in policy making institutions there is no general consensus about the negative slope of the phillips curve in empirical literature 2 one of the explanations to the previous empirical irregularity as suggested by king and watson 1994 is that the relationship between unemployment and inflation is shock dependent which means that the slope of a phillips curve relies on the dominance of the demand or supply shocks therefore the conventional single equation regression based on the state independent framework is not appropriate apart from neglecting the state dependent characteristic of the phillips curve there are several other drawbacks for conventional empirical studies when investigating the phillips curve first many articles assume that forecast errors of inflation are homoscedastic which is challenged in the literature the homoscedastic assumption is debatable because several studies such as engle 1983 jansen 1989 evans 1991 and brunner and hess 1993 point out significant heteroscedasticity in the u s inflation rate arch or garch type models provide estimates of how the conditional variance of inflation varies over time within a given structure and therefore they ignore the possibility of structural changes caused by changing regimes a markov switching heteroscedasticity model is an alternative that allows regime changes in the variance structure instead of applying arch type models to estimate the time varying conditional variance of inflation within a given structure this article takes into account the influence of regime changes on inflation s variance we apply the state dependent conditional heteroscedasticity approach provided by brunner and hess 1993 and evans and wachtel 1993 to estimate the forecasting errors of inflation the second drawback is a constant natural rate assumption the unemployment gap is the difference between the unemployment rate and the natural rate conventional literature assumes a constant natural rate which is challenged theoretically and empirically as stated by gordon 1997 the existence of unionization unemployment insurance programs and labor force demographics leads to a highly persistent unemployment rate we therefore assume that the unobservable natural rate is time varying and behaves in accordance with the hysteresis of unemployment rates 3 recent empirical works of a regime switching approach on the phillips curve have focused on whether the relationship between inflation and unemployment rates is nonlinear as in ferri et al

growth wealth and the natural rate is europe s jobs crisis a growth crisis abstract the effect of faster technical progress is studied in our labour turnover model of the natual rate of unemployment in its closed economy version the model implies that in the limit as the steady growth rate is approached the increase in the rate of progress is neutral for the natural unemployment rate its effects are completely offset by the equal increase in the rate of interest it induces however of two small open economies having the same technology level at some date the one where technical progress has always been and always will be faster will have the lower wealth relative to its wage and a lower wage rate relative to future wage rates both effects operate to reduce the natural rate of unemployment whether this theory based hypothesis will be confirmed empirically is a question needing extensive study but a quick comparison of the g7 countries confirms that the proportionate increase of the unemployment rate in recent decades tended to be greater the more pronounced the productivity slowdown

time to ditch the nairu the concept of a natural rate of unemployment or nonacceleratinginflation rate of unemployment nairu has ruled macroeconomics for about 25 years yet it is still controversial a wide range of views exists over how the nairu should be estimated a fact that in itself raises questions about the practical usefulness of the concept this essay presents a brief for no confidence in four parts first the theoretical case for the natural rate is not compelling second the empirical evidence for a vertical phillips curve and the associated hypothesis that lowering unemployment past the nairu leads to unacceptable acceleration of inflation is weak and has become much weaker in the past decade third viewed collectively attempts to estimate the location of the nairu have become a professional embarrassment disagreements remain on too many basic issues fourth adherence to the concept as a guide to policy has major costs and negligible benefits conversely the risks of dropping the natural rate hypothesis are minor while the benefits from a sustained pursuit of full employment could be substantial

natural rate theory and oecd unemployment our mission is to examine from the perspective of the intertemporal equilibrium models of endogenous natural rate theory the huge swings in unemployment among the oecd countries in recent times we first look at the huge rise in jobless rates between the early 1970s and the early 1990s throughout the oecd in the united states a rise from about 51 per cent to 7 per cent canada from about 6 to 10 japan from 11 to 21 italy from 31 to about 71 the united kingdom from about 33 to about 9 france from about 23 to about 10 and west germany from 4 to 5 1 we then look at the developing recovery of the general unemployment rate most notably in the united kingdom and the united states amid a generally continued elevation of jobless rates among the less educated we see the mid 1990s surge of unemployment in germany france and italy as another story there are other older perspectives of course keynesians interpreted events in the 1970s and in the 1980s as signs of effective demand and effective supply shocks feldstein 1986 fitoussi and phelps 1986 malinvaud 1985 pissarides 1990 but if the natural rate was unchanged they had to explain why the subsequent disinflation was short lived why inflation even turned up in the late 1980s or early 1990s despite high unemployment lacking an endogenous natural rate keynesians could explain the durability of the slump only by positing either a permanent expectational disequilibrium or hysteresis i e non ergodicity as in phelps 1972 or a degree of persistence so great as to be empirically indistinguishable from hysteresis as the slump ran on the expectational possibility wore thin so they were down to hysteresis hicks 1974 launched a break with the keynesian monetarist perspective in the 1980s with his appeal to real frictions or rigidities if wage setting mechanisms make the real wage v sticky in the sense of lerner hence predetermined in the short run the unemployment rate u will rise in the short run in response to a shock contracting the demand wage i e a downward shift of the labour demand schedule in the 1 u v plane bruno and sachs 1985 another landmark was a bargaining model with the property that its natural unemployment rate rose in response to several much discussed shocks such as higher taxes and an energy shock reducing labour productivity layard and

separating bric using islamic stocks and crude oil dynamic conditional correlation and volatility spillover analysis abstract this paper explores the dynamic conditional correlation and volatility linkage between islamic indexes and oil for bric countries correlations between these assets increase during the global financial crisis for india and china but not for brazil and russia the volatility error forecast variance of all five indexes comes from spillover but is much lower compared to volatility spillover between conventional indexes and oil hedging performance of islamic indexes are superior in india and china compared to conventional indexes in emerging markets an optimal minimum variance portfolio without reducing expected return can be achieved by investing in lower weights of bric islamic indexes and oil compared to conventional indexes

unemployment insurance in theory and practice a hallmark of modern labor economics is the close interplay between the development of theory data sources and econometric testing the evolution of the economic analysis of unemployment insurance provides a good illustration new theoretical approaches in particular job search theory have inspired a large amount of empirical research some of it methodologically innovative and most of it highly relevant for economic policy the paper presents a broad survey and an assessment of the economic analysis of unemployment insurance as it has evolved since the 1970s

efficiency in a search and matching model with endogenous participation abstract we show that in a search matching model with endogenous participation in which workers are heterogeneous with respect to market productivity satisfying the hosios rule leads to excessive vacancy creation

on the complicated price dynamics of a simple one dimensional discontinuous financial market model with heterogeneous interacting traders abstract we develop a financial market model with heterogeneous interacting agents market makers adjust prices with respect to excess demand chartists believe in the persistence of bull and bear markets and fundamentalists bet on mean reversion moreover speculators trade asymmetrically in over and undervalued markets and while some of them determine the size of their orders via linear trading rules others always trade the same amount of assets the dynamics of our model is driven by a one dimensional discontinuous map despite the simplicity of our model analytical graphical and numerical analysis reveals a surprisingly rich set of interesting dynamical behaviors

exogenous oil supply shocks how big are they and how much do they matter for the u s economy abstract the paper proposes a new measure of exogenous oil supply shocks the timing the magnitude and the sign of this measure may differ greatly from current state of the art estimates it is shown that only a small fraction of the observed oil price increases during oil crisis periods can be attributed to exogenous oil production disruptions exogenous oil supply shocks cause a sharp drop of u s real gdp growth after five quarters rather than an immediate and sustained reduction in economic growth and a spike in cpi inflation after three quarters overall exogenous oil supply shocks made remarkably little difference for the evolution of the u s economy since the 1970s although they did matter for some historical episodes

risk appetite and oil prices abstract we demonstrate that oil prices and their volatility are no longer determined solely by real economic shocks to supply of and demand for oil but are also driven by shocks originating in the economic uncertainty and risk appetite of investors that prevail in the equity market the contribution of the latter factor has become particularly remarkable since the mid 2000s to establish these results we dismantle the squared vix index determined in the s p 500 options market into the conditional variance in stock returns to proxy for economic uncertainty and the equity variance risk premium to proxy for risk appetite using threshold garch structural vector auto regression and causality models we provide evidence about the link between risk appetite oil price returns and volatility furthermore investors appetite for risk drives changes in the ovx which measures perceptions about future oil volatility but not vice versa our results provide a better understanding of the relationship between oil the vix and its two proposed components in particular we show that changes in the risk appetite of investors are an important determinant not only for the price of equities but also for that of the most important energy resource oil

an exploration into pigou s theory of cycles abstract this paper explores a theory of business cycles in which recessions and booms arise due to difficulties encountered by agents in properly forecasting the economy s future needs in terms of capital the idea has a long history in the macroeconomic literature as reflected by the work of pigou industrial fluctuation macmillan london 1926 the contribution of this paper is twofold first we illustrate the type of general equilibrium structure that can give rise to such phenomena second we examine the extent to which such a model can explain the observed pattern of u s recessions frequency depth without relying on technological regress we argue that such a model offer a framework for understanding elements of both the recent u s recession and of the asia downturns of the late 1990s

oil prices stock markets and portfolio investment evidence from sector analysis in europe over the last decade this article extends the understanding of oil stock market relationships over the last turbulent decade unlike previous empirical investigations which have largely focused on broad based market indices national and or regional indices we examine short term linkages in the aggregate as well as sector by sector levels in europe using different econometric techniques our main findings suggest that the reactions of stock returns to oil price changes differ greatly depending on the activity sector in the out of sample analysis we show that introducing oil asset into a diversified portfolio of stocks allows to significantly improve its risk return characteristics

the impact of oil price shocks on u s bond market returns abstract this paper examines the effect of the demand and supply shocks driving the global crude oil market on aggregate u s bond index real returns a positive oil market specific demand shock is associated with significant decreases in aggregate bond index real returns for 8 months following the shock a positive innovation in aggregate demand has a negative effect on real bond return that is statistically significant and becomes more adverse over 24 months structural shocks driving the global oil market jointly account for 27 1 of the variation in real bond returns at 24 month horizon a spillover index from rolling svar models is used to identify the interdependence between the oil market and bond returns the mean for this spillover index is 0 381 over 2001 01 2011 12 and 0 476 over september through december 2008 during the height of the global financial crisis

the effects of labour market policies in an economy with an informal sector in this article we build an equilibrium search and matching model of an economy with an informal sector our model extends mortensen and pissarides 1994 by allowing for ex ante worker heterogeneity with respect to formal sector productivity we use the model to analyse the effects of labour market policy on informal sector and formal sector output on the division of the workforce into unemployment informal sector employment and formal sector employment and on wages finally we examine the distributional implications of labour market policy specifically we analyse how labour market policy affects the distributions of wages and productivities across formal sector matches in this article we construct a search and matching model that we use to analyse the effects of labour market policies in an economy with a significant informal sector what we mean by an informal sector is a sector that is unregulated and hence not directly affected by labour market policies such as severance or payroll taxes we find that labour market policies that apply only to the formal sector nonetheless affect the size and the composition of employment in the informal sector this is important since there is substantial economic activity in the informal sector in many economies particularly in developing countries estimates for some latin american countries put the informal sector at more than 50 of the urban work force 1 the informal sector is also important in many transition countries as well as in some developed economies 2 although much of the literature treats the informal sector as a disadvantaged sector in a segmented labour market framework this interpretation is not consistent with recent empirical evidence from latin america under a segmented or dual labour market interpretation one would expect jobs to be rationed in the primary sector and workers to be in the secondary or informal sector involuntarily and to be queuing for formal sector jobs maloney 2004 presents evidence for several latin american countries that challenges this view and instead interprets the informal sector as an unregulated micro entrepreneurial sector similarly using data from the argentinian household survey pratap and quintin 2006 reject the notion that labour markets are segmented in the greater buenos aires area concluding that there is no evidence of a formal sector wage premium after controlling for individual and establishment we thank mauricio santamaria for stimulating conversations that inspired our interest in this topic we also thank bob hussey and fabien postel vinay as well as our editor steve pischke and two anonymous

asset bubbles labour market frictions and r d based growth employing an overlapping generations model of research and development r d based growth with labor market frictions this paper examines how employment changes induced by labor market frictions influence asset bubbles and long run economic growth asset bubbles can cannot exist when the employment rate is high low which leads to higher lower economic growth through labor market efficiency we also explore the steady state and transitional dynamics of bubbles economic growth and employment furthermore we show that policy or parameter changes that have a negative influence on the labor market can lead to a bubble burst

does the nairu have the right dynamics the nairu view of the relationship between inflation and the unemployment rate is that there is a value of the unemployment rate the nairu below which the price level forever accelerates and above which the price level forever decelerates this view imposes two important restrictions on the dynamics of the price process this can be seen by examining a simple version of the nairu equation

dependence between the global gold market and emerging stock markets e7 1 evidence from granger causality using quantile and quantile on quantile regression methods this study examined the dependence between gold and stocks during 2002 18 in seven emerging countries the study combined the bivariate cross quantilogram introduced recently with quantile on quantile regression qqr approaches to conduct comprehensive and complementary analyses the qqr results for the full sample revealed a weak positive dependence in all the quantiles of gold and stock returns across all the countries selected during mild market conditions the results for pre and post crisis periods largely were consistent with those obtained for the full sample except for turkey pre crisis and china and indonesia post crisis the results of the causality test in mean return and that of the causality test in variance revealed no causal relation between stock and gold in the pre crisis period while causality ran only from gold to some stocks in the post crisis period further while there was volatility causality running only from gold to stocks during the pre crisis period the volatility causality between the two markets was very high during the post crisis period therefore we suggest that gold may have been a hedge for stocks during the pre crisis compared to the post crisis period further international risk factors should be considered in optimal investment decisions between domestic and global markets assets stocks and gold

the stock market crash of 2008 caused the great recession theory and evidence abstract this paper argues that the stock market crash of 2008 triggered by a collapse in house prices caused the great recession the paper has three parts first it provides evidence of a high correlation between the value of the stock market and the unemployment rate in u s data since 1929 second it compares a new model of the economy developed in recent papers and books by farmer with a classical model and with a textbook keynesian approach third it provides evidence that fiscal stimulus will not permanently restore full employment in farmer s model as in the keynesian model employment is demand determined but aggregate demand depends on wealth not on income

a model of the natural rate of unemployment since the publication of edmund phelps volume the new macroeconomics has treated the labor market as a dynamic process of rational search by unemployed workers for available vacancies wages are viewed as at least potentially flexible though free contracting between workers and firms may lead to fixed wages in the short run imperfect information is a crucial element of the theory for it implies both a need for contracting and a need for rational search rather than simple market clearing in each period a positive rate of frictional unemployment may exist in equilibrium denoted as the natural rate this unemployment is due to the frictions in the search process and imperfections in information rather than to any deficiency in aggregate demand milton friedman defined the natural rate as the level that would be ground out by the walrasian system of general equilibrium equations provided there is embedded in them the actual structural characteristics of the labor and commodity markets including market imperfections stochastic variability in demands and supplies the cost of gathering information about job vacancies and labor availabilities the costs of mobility and so on p 8 this paper reexamines the micro foundations of the natural rate in a model of labor market equilibrium in which turnover flows and imperfect information are explicitly considered workers may quit their current jobs to enter the unemployment pool in order to search among available vacancies for a more preferred position firms economize on turnover by an appropriate wage policy

asymmetric impact of oil price on islamic sectoral stocks abstract this paper extends the literature concerning non linearity in oil stock relationships by putting forward a new paradigm of sectoral and islamic elements we explore the asymmetric impact of oil price on islamic stocks from a sectoral perspective using non linear autoregressive distributed lag cointegration methodology the main advantage of this methodology relies on its ability to simultaneously capture the short and long run asymmetries through both positive and negative oil price shocks our results show weak linkages between oil price changes and the islamic composite index however the nature and sensitivity of the reaction of stock prices to oil price shocks vary considerably across different sectors in the longer horizon the relationships between oil price and many islamic sectoral stocks tend to follow a nonlinear pattern furthermore the behavior of the real economic sectors indices reflects the performance of the composite index that is oil price resistant during the turbulent period after 2008 the response of the sectoral indices to oil price movements witnessed notable changes where the sectoral gains from oil price drop that have been observed during the period of study have been found to diminish after 2008 our finding is in line with the argument that the islamic composite index is grounded more on and within the real sectors these findings are robust when considering different oil proxies and different data time frequencies

phillips curves and unemployment dynamics a critique and a holistic perspective the conventional wisdom that inflation and unemployment are unrelated in the long run implies that these phenomena can be analysed by separate branches of economics the macro literature tries to explain inflation dynamics and estimates the nairu the labour macro literature tries to explain unemployment dynamics and determine the real economic factors that drive the natural rate of unemployment we show that the orthodox view that the new keynesian phillips curve is vertical in the long run and that it cannot generate substantial inflation persistence relies on the implausible assumption of a zero interest rate in the light of these results we argue that a holistic framework is needed to jointly explain the evolution of inflation and unemployment

the un natural rate of unemployment an econometric critique of the nairu hypothesis few ideas have taken such firm hold in neoclassical economics as the concept of a natural rate of unemployment see my 1987 paper the transformation of the prevailing wisdom is compactly illustrated by the evolution of the profession s exemplary elementary textbook paul samuelson s economics in his 8th edition samuelson defined full employment as a condition where 96 1 2 percent of the labor force are employed rather than where only 94 or 95 percent are employed 1970 p 801 by the 12th edition in 1985 reflecting the new conventional wisdom samuelson with william d nordhaus reports modern mainstream macro says that there is a natural rate of unemployment today around 6 percentbelow which the economy cannot go without running the straits of inflation p 766 reporting on work in progress i argue that this modern mainstream macro view is unwarranted see my 1988 paper for a more complete presentation i concentrate here on only two strands of the argument i first present econometric evidence that even on its own terms the natural rate hypothesis does not provide a convincing explanation of the deteriorating tradeoff between inflation and unemployment in the united states from the 1960 s to the 1980 s i then suggest that the basic models underlying that hypothesis upon which the hoary visions of accelerating inflation are grounded themselves provide substantially incomplete representations of the dynamics of wage and price determination and consequently suffer from underspecification bias once one takes account of structured mediations of capital labor conflict and dynamic interactions between economic growth and pricing strategy prevailing conclusions of a vertical tradeoff between unemployment and inflation begin to dissolve

do structural oil market shocks affect stock prices abstract this paper investigates how explicit structural shocks that characterize the endogenous character of oil price changes affect stock market returns in a sample of eight countries australia canada france germany italy japan the united kingdom and the united states for each country the analysis proceeds in two steps first modifying the procedure of kilian kilian l forthcoming not all oil price shocks are alike disentangling demand and supply shocks in the crude oil market american economic review we employ a vector error correction or vector autoregressive model to decompose oil price changes into three components oil supply shocks global aggregate demand shocks and global oil demand shocks the last component relates to specific idiosyncratic features of the oil market such as changes in the precautionary demand concerning the uncertainty about the availability of future oil supplies second recovering the oil supply shocks global aggregate demand shocks and global oil demand shocks from the first analysis we then employ a vector autoregressive model to determine the effects of these structural shocks on the stock market returns in our sample of eight countries we find that international stock market returns do not respond in a large way to oil market shocks that is the significant effects that exist prove small in magnitude

public expenditures and the unemployment rate in the american states panel evidence we reexamine the unemployment rate ur government expenditure nexus in a panel of 50 state and local governments slgs over the period 1977 2006 to provide new pre recession empirical evidence that helps put the expectations on the effects of the federal relief to slgs in a broader context we found that 1 per capita real public spending total and capital assistance and subsidies wages and salaries and social insurance categories was part of a cointegrating relationship with ur and real per capita state personal income 2 with the exception of social insurance other spending variables when statistically significant actually had a depressing effect on ur the magnitude of this effect however was generally small ur was most sensitive to increases in wages and salaries 3 long term causality analysis based on panel error correction coefficients provided consistent evidence of a causal effect from spending to ur but less consistent evidence of such effect in the opposite direction soci

modeling asymmetric comovements of asset returns existing time varying covariance models usually impose strong restrictions on how past shocks affect the forecasted covariance matrix in this article we compare the restrictions imposed by the four most popular multivariate garch models and introduce a set of robust conditional moment tests to detect misspecification we demonstrate that the choice of a multivariate volatility model can lead to substantially different conclusions in any application that involves forecasting dynamic covariance matrices like estimating the optimal hedge ratio or deriving the risk minimizing portfolio we therefore introduce a general model which nests these four models and their natural asymmetric extensions the new model is applied to study the dynamic relation between large and small firm returns article published by oxford university press on behalf of the society for financial studies in its journal the review of financial studies