wheat from chaff meta analysis as quantitative literature review abstract this paper presents and develops a quantitative method of literature reviewing and evaluating empirical research meta regression analysis or mra economics is theory driven yet we must learn empirically if economics is to advance mra offers a more objective statistical method to summarize our empirical knowledge and to explain the wide study to study variation in economic research mra is used to assess the evidence for ricardian equivalence and its findings are contrasted to those of conventional narrative review furthermore mra establishes a platform from which to distinguish genuine empirical effect from the exploitable specification error that infests applied econometrics

factors explaining local privatization a meta regression analysis this paper aims at explaining the differences in the results of empirical studies of motivations for local privatization by undertaking a meta regression our results suggest that fiscal constraints and interest groups were especially relevant in the early studies of the us which considered several services further studies that focus on one service capture the influence of scale economies more accurately finally our results show that small towns are more affected by fiscal and political factors while ideology plays a major role for european and large cities thus no clear conclusions emerge from this literature because the findings of each study are sensitive to its characteristics

do remittances dampen the effect of natural disasters on output growth volatility in developing countries this article examines whether or not remittance inflows help mitigate the effects of natural disasters on the volatility of the real output per capita growth rate using a large sample of developing countries and mobilizing a dynamic panel data framework it uncovers a diminishing macroeconomic destabilizing consequence of natural disasters as remittance inflows rise it appears that the effect of natural disasters disappears for a remittance ratio above 8 of the gross domestic product gdp however remittances aggravate the destabilizing effects of natural disasters when they exceed 17 of the gdp finally the article shows that current and lagged remittance inflows significantly reduce the number of people killed by natural disasters and the number of people affected respectively

earthquake fatalities the interaction of nature and political economy to say that the level of fatalities resulting from an earthquake is inversely related to a country s per capita level of income is hardly novel what makes our approach novel is that we relate fatalities to both per capita income and the level of inequality that exists within a country through their joint impact on the likelihood of collective action being taken to mitigate the destructive potential of quakes we first develop a theoretical model which offers an explanation as to why in some environments different segments of society prove incapable of arriving at what all parties perceive to be an agreeable distribution of the burden of the necessary collective action causing the relatively wealthy simply to self insure against the disaster while leaving the relatively poor to its mercy following this we test our theoretical model by evaluating 269 large earthquakes occurring worldwide between 1960 and 2002 taking into account other factors that influence a quake s destructiveness such as its magnitude depth and proximity to population centers using a negative binomial estimation strategy with both random and fixed estimators we find strong evidence of the theoretical model s predictions that is while earthquakes themselves are natural phenomena beyond the reach of humankind our collective inaction with respect to items like the creation and enforcement of building codes failure to retrofit structures and to enact quake sensitive zoning clearly plays a part in determining the actual toll that a given quake takes and it is through these and other examples of collective inaction that limited per capita income and inequality couple together with a given quake s natural destructive power in determining the actual fatalities resulting from a quake

natural disasters and human capital accumulation the empirical literature on the relationship between natural disaster risk and investment in education is inconclusive model averaging methods in a framework of cross country and panel regressions show an extremely robust negative partial correlation between secondary school enrollment and natural disaster risk this result is driven exclusively by geologic disasters exposure to natural disaster risk is a robust determinant of differences in secondary school enrollment between countries but not necessarily within countries natural disasters human capital education school enrollment bayesian model averaging

remittances and household consumption instability in developing countries this paper analyzes the impact of remittances on household consumption instability in a large panel of developing countries there are four main results first remittances significantly reduce household consumption instability second remittances play an insurance role by dampening the effects of various sources of consumption instability in developing countries natural disasters agricultural shocks discretionary fiscal policy systemic financial and banking crises and exchange rate instability third the stabilizing role played by remittances is stronger in less financially developed countries fourth the overall stabilizing effect of remittances is mitigated when remittances exceed 6 of gdp

the evolution of financial intermediation evidence from 19th century ontario microdata microdata for ontario decedents in 1892 and 1902 is analyzed to help explain the dramatic growth of the canadian banking system in the late 19th century combining data from probate inventories with census data at the township level we find that the expansion of deposit banking happened at the extensive rather than intensive margin and was correlated with the expansion of the branch network of the banking system although we cannot assign causation wealth and urbanization help to explain the growth of deposit banking but the significance of a dummy variable for 1902 points to other time correlated factors such as innovations in transportation and financial innovations that lowered costs and facilitated access to banking services resume l evolution de l intermediation financiere resultats a partir de micro donnees pour l ontario au 19e siecle les auteurs analysent les micro donnees pour les personnes decedees en ontario en 1892 et en 1902 pour tenter d expliquer la croissance dramatique du systeme bancaire canadien a la fin du 19 siecle en combinant des donnees provenant d inventaires apres deces avec celles de recensements au niveau des cantons on decouvre que l expansion du systeme bancaire va se produire a la marge extensive plutot qu a la marge intensive et etre co reliee a l expansion du reseau de succursales du systeme bancaire encore qu on ne puisse assigner un lien de causalite richesse et urbanisation aident a expliquer la croissance des banques de depots mais la signification de la variable fictive pour 1902 pointe vers des facteurs comme l innovation dans le transport et l innovation financiere qui ont reduit les couts et facilite l acces aux services bancaires

the case for restricting fiscal policy discretion this paper studies the effects of discretionary fiscal policy on output volatility and economic growth using data for 91 countries we isolate three empirical regularities 1 governments that use fiscal policy aggressively induce significant macroeconomic instability 2 the volatility of output caused by discretionary fiscal policy lowers economic growth by more than 0 8 percentage points for every percentage point increase in volatility 3 prudent use of fiscal policy is explained to a large extent by the presence of political constraints and other political and institutional variables the evidence in the paper supports arguments for constraining discretion by imposing institutional restrictions on governments as a way to reduce output volatility and increase the rate of economic growth

another look at long run money demand abstract this paper investigates the long run demand for m1 in the postwar united states previous studies based on data ending in the late 1980s are inconclusive about the parameters of postwar money demand this paper obtains precise estimates of these parameters by extending the data through 1996 the income elasticity of money demand is approximately 0 5 and the interest semi elasticity is approximately 0 05 these parameters are significantly smaller in absolute value than the corresponding parameters for the prewar period a caveat is that the analysis assumes there is no trend in money demand resulting from technological change

are external shocks responsible for the instability of output in low income countries external shocks such as commodity price fluctuations natural disasters and the role of the international economy are often blamed for the poor economic performance of low income countries the author quantifies the impact of these different external shocks using a panel vector autoregression var approach and compares their relative contributions to output volatility in low income countries vis a vis internal factors he finds that external shocks can only explain a small fraction of the output variance of a typical low income country internal factors are the main source of fluctuations from a quantitative perspective the output effect of external shocks is typically small in absolute terms but significant relative to the historic performance of these countries

beyond publication bias abstract this review considers several meta regression and graphical methods that can differentiate genuine empirical effect from publication bias publication selection exists when editors reviewers or researchers have a preference for statistically significant results because all areas of empirical research are susceptible to publication selection any average or tally of significant insignificant studies is likely to be biased and potentially misleading meta regression analysis can see through the murk of random sampling error and selected misspecification bias to identify the underlying statistical structures that characterize genuine empirical effect meta significance testing and precision effect testing pet are offered as a means to identify empirical effect beyond publication bias and are applied to four areas of empirical economics research minimum wage effects union productivity effects price elasticities and tests of the natural rate hypothesis

remittances transaction costs and informality abstract recorded workers remittances to developing countries reached 167 billion in 2005 bringing increasing attention to these flows as a potential tool for development in this paper we explore the determinants of remittances and their associated transaction costs we find that recorded remittances depend positively on the stock of migrants and negatively on transfer costs and exchange rate restrictions in turn transfer costs are lower when financial systems are more developed and exchange rates less volatile the negative impact of transactions costs on remittances suggests that migrants either refrain from sending money home or else remit through informal channels when costs are high we provide evidence from household surveys supportive of a sizeable informal sector

remittances and vulnerability in developing countries this paper examines how international remittances are affected by structural characteristics macroeconomic conditions and adverse shocks in recipient economies we exploit a novel rich panel data set covering bilateral remittances from 103 italian provinces to seventy nine developing countries over the period 2005 2011 we find that remittances are negatively correlated with the business cycle in recipient countries and in particular increase in response to adverse exogenous shocks such as large terms of trade declines this effect is stronger where the migrant communities have a larger share of newly arrived migrants finally we show that recipient country financial development is negatively associated with remittances suggesting that remittances help alleviate credit constraints

the impact of natural disasters on remittances to low and middle income countries abstractin this paper we offer novel empirical evidence on the impact of natural disasters on remittance flows towards low and middle income countries we consider a panel of 98 countries over th

does the exchange rate regime matter for real shocks evidence from windstorms and earthquakes abstract does the choice of exchange rate regime affect an economy s adjustment to real shocks exploiting the unpredictability and economic exogeniety of windstorms hurricanes and typhoons and earthquakes this paper assesses the often contrasting answers found in the theoretical literature there is robust evidence that exchange rate flexibility helps an economy better adjust to real shocks and consistent with the channels emphasized in the classic literature on exchange rates and shocks differences in the behavior of the export sector help explain the different reactions between the two regimes

revisiting the threshold effect of remittances on total factor productivity growth in south asia a study of bangladesh and india abstractboth bangladesh and india are among the top recipient of remittances in absolute terms however in relative terms remittances as a per cent of gdp the two countries stand at 6 1 and 2

the income elasticity of money demand a meta analysis of empirical results abstract in this paper we use meta analytic methods to investigate possible sources for the large variation in empirical findings about the income elasticity of money demand our results suggest that the broadness of the monetary aggregate the inclusion of wealth and the consideration of financial innovation exert a significant influence on estimated income elasticities furthermore we find substantial cross country differences in particular between the us and other countries these differences can to some extent be explained by the macrofeconomic environment and the dissemination of payment cards

the macroeconomic consequences of disasters abstract natural disasters have a statistically observable adverse impact on the macro economy in the short run and costlier events lead to more pronounced slowdowns in production yet interestingly developing countries and smaller economies face much larger output declines following a disaster of similar relative magnitude than do developed countries or bigger economies a close study of the determinants of these adverse macroeconomic output costs reveals several interesting patterns countries with a higher literacy rate better institutions higher per capita income higher degree of openness to trade and higher levels of government spending are better able to withstand the initial disaster shock and prevent further spillovers into the macro economy these all suggest an increased ability to mobilize resources for reconstruction financial conditions also seem to be of importance countries with more foreign exchange reserves and higher levels of domestic credit but with less open capital accounts appear more robust and better able to endure natural disasters with less adverse spillover into domestic production

non linear growth effects of financial development does financial integration matter using both macro and industry level data this paper analyses the non linear effects of financial development and international financial integration on economic growth in europe special attention is devoted to modeling threshold effects with respect to the depth of financial markets as a measure of economies absorption capacity results reveal evidence of significant non linear effects with less developed european countries gaining more from financial development in contrast benefits of international financial integration become significant at higher levels of financial development the data show that monetary integration in europe significantly contributed to a higher degree of financial integration entry of new eu members to the european monetary union may thus be the mechanism ensuring a virtuous development circle as the adoption of the euro may allow the development of domestic financial markets and financial integration to go hand in hand

trade openness and volatility abstract this paper examines the mechanisms through which output volatility is related to trade openness using an industry level panel data set of manufacturing production and trade the main results are threefold first sectors more open to international trade are more volatile second trade is accompanied by increased specialization these two forces imply increased aggregate volatility third sectors that are more open to trade are less correlated with the rest of the economy an effect that acts to reduce overall volatility the point estimates indicate that each of the three effects has an appreciable impact on aggregate volatility added together they imply that the relationship between trade openness and overall volatility is positive and economically significant

a money demand function with output uncertainty monetary uncertainty and financial innovations in a general equilibrium framework incorporating the money in the utility function approach we show that output uncertainty and monetary uncertainty as well as output interest rates and financial innovations affect money demand the estimated long run relationships are consistent with our postulated relation but not with the conventional one our model delivers a high income elasticity consistent with cross sectional evidence and helps resolve m1 demand puzzles the model estimated in dynamic error correction form exhibits a good level of stability and forecastability providing little support for the recent de emphasis of monetary aggregates due to the instability of money demand

determinants of risk sharing through remittances abstract the sending of remittances is a decentralised decision of migrant workers nevertheless it has macroeconomic implications in providing insurance against domestic output shocks in the recipient economies a phenomenon known in literature as risk sharing income smoothing using a large sample of 86 developing countries for the period 1990 2010 we establish that remittance inflows serve as an important channel through which risk sharing takes place in the developing world the extent of income smoothing via remittances stands at around 5 on average subsequently we explore the underlying factors that explain countries ability to share risk through remittances the diversification of migrants turns out to be the leading explanation for the extent of risk sharing via remittances the more diverse the migration destinations of a country the higher the amount of risk shared in addition the size of remittance flows appears to have a strong and statistically significant impact on enhancing risk sharing we also find suggestive evidence that a higher proportion of remittances originating from farther countries facilitate more risk sharing compared to those originating from neighbouring or regional economies

which fundamentals drive exchange rates a cross sectional perspective standard present value models suggest that exchange rates are driven by expected future fundamentals implying that exchange rates contain information about future fundamentals we test this key empirical prediction of present value models in a sample of 35 currency pairs ranging from 1900 to 2009 employing a variety of tests we find that exchange rates have strong and significant predictive power for nominal fundamentals inflation money balances nominal gdp whereas predictability of real fundamentals and risk premia is much weaker and largely confined to the post bretton woods era overall we uncover ample evidence that future macro fundamentals drive current exchange rates

growth volatility and financial liberalization we examine the effects of both equity market liberalization and capital account openness on real consumption growth variability we show that financial liberalization is mostly associated with lower consumption growth volatility our results are robust surviving controls for business cycle effects economic and financial development the quality of institutions and other variables countries that have more open capital accounts experience a greater reduction in consumption growth volatility after equity market openings we also find that financial liberalizations are associated with declines in the ratio of consumption growth volatility to gdp growth volatility suggesting improved risk sharing our results are weaker for liberalizing emerging markets but we never observe a significant increase in real volatility moreover we demonstrate significant differences in the volatility response depending on the size of the banking and government sectors and certain institutional factors

cross country evidence on the link between volatility and growth this paper presents empirical evidence against the standard dichotomy in macroeconomics that separates growth from the volatility of economic fluctuations in a sample of ninety two countries as well as a sample of oecd countries the authors find that countries with higher volatility have lower growth the addition of standard control variables strengthens the negative relationship the authors also find that government spending induced volatility is negatively associated with growth even after controlling for both time and country fixed effects copyright 1995 by american economic association