European Monetary Union Countries Research Articles

On the relationship between corruption and bank lending activity: European evidence

PurposeThis paper aims to study the effect of country-level perceptions of corruption on commercial banks’ lending activity over the importance of loans and the quality of loan portfolios of banks in Europe.Design/methodology/approachThe paper uses country-level perceptions of corruption scores from Transparency International, individual bank-specific data from ORBIS and macroeconomic data from the World Bank. The sample is composed of 640 commercial banks in 42 European countries from 2013 to 2019. The authors estimate, by pooled OLS, the relationship between corruption and the importance of loans and the quality of the banks’ loan portfolios. In addition, several robustness tests reinforce the results.FindingsThe results show that corruption negatively impacts the importance of loans in bank assets and positively impacts the proportion of bad loans. In addition, trade openness increases the weight of loans and the weight of nonperforming loans. Bank size, capital and risk also affect bank lending activity. Finally, European Monetary Union (EMU) membership reinforces the negative (positive) effect on loans (bad loans).Research limitations/implicationsThe results highlight the importance of fighting corruption. Governments, regulators and banks benefit from pursuing transparency-oriented policies to decrease the perception of corruption and foster economic development.Originality/valueThe literature on the impact of corruption on bank lending activity focuses mainly on high-corruption countries. This paper studies the European case, scarcely investigated in the literature, in the aftermath of two international financial crises and when significant regulatory transformations in banking supervision were instituted in the EMU countries.

Cross-border Italian sovereign risk transmission in EMU countries

Financial contagion is a major risk in the European Monetary Union (EMU) due to the interdependence of government and the banking system. As highlighted by the literature, a doom-loop cycle between governments and banks may well exist. This work empirically investigates the sovereign-bank risk transmission across eight EMU countries from 2012 to 2018 to ascertain to what extent an increase in risk of Italian government bonds can affect the sovereign and banking risk of non-stressed countries. We employ a global VAR (GVAR) technique and measure spatial proximity with the cross-country “distance” in the debt-to-GDP ratio. We find that an increase in Italian risk causes a heterogeneous increase in the sovereign and financial risk of other countries. The results confirm the hypothesis of a cross-border doom-loop and show that contagion depends on market integration among countries. Spillover effects indirectly amplify the shock spread through financial linkages and similarities in fiscal fundamentals.

Dollar-Cost Average plan in EMU countries: could it be beneficial? What the data say.

This study examines a real case scenario using real data under the assumption of a long-term investment horizon. We examine the Dollar Cost Average, Cost Average Plan (CAP) in our case, and attempt to ascertain whether it could prove beneficial for an investor that does not have a significant amount of money to invest when the plan begins. We compare the outcome of the CAP with the alternative scenario of investing a monthly amount in a deposits account, which is in real terms the most comparable plan to the CAP. Using data from January, 2003 to November, 2021 from a wide range of ten (10) European Monetary Union countries, we compare the empirical evidence of these results and we reach the conclusions that CAP outperforms the seasonal bank deposits plan. Moreover, we compare these strategies with the Buy-and-Hold (BnH) strategy, as most studies do, and we conclude that CAP is more beneficial for highly volatile and less uptrend markets than a BnH strategy.
 
 
 
 Jel Classifications: G1; G11; N2
 Keywords: Dollar Cost Averaging; Investment Strategies; Investment Decisions; Investment Plans.
 
 

Evaluating the Outcomes of Monetary and Fiscal Policies in the EU in Times of Crisis: A PLS-SEM Approach

The asymmetric level of integration within the European Union (EU) regarding membership in the European Monetary Union (EMU) has resulted in inconsistent responses to crises such as the Great Recession of 2007–2009 and the European sovereign debt crisis of 2010–2013. Furthermore, it has led to varying outcomes of monetary and fiscal policies implemented across EU countries. This paper aims to investigate the impact of monetary and fiscal policies on economic development and employment through the inflation channel in the EU between 2007 and 2015, using Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM). The results indicate that the outcomes of monetary policy have been mixed between EMU and non-EMU countries, resulting in different measures and negative spillover effects of the European Central Bank’s (ECB) policy on countries outside of the EMU. Meanwhile, the ability of fiscal policy to lower inflation and boost economic growth and employment has been limited, which means that the impact of fiscal policy on both economic development and employment and inflation has been minor. Based on the findings of this study, there should be better coordination of monetary and fiscal policies at the EU level to support the macroeconomic stability of the Union during times of crisis.

Covid-19, sovereign risk and monetary policy: Evidence from the European Monetary Union

This paper investigates the impact of Covid-19 pandemic and monetary policy measures adopted by the European Central Bank (ECB) on the sovereign risk for the European Monetary Union (EMU) countries for the period between March-2020 and November-2020 using daily data. The impact of Covid-19 and monetary policy shocks on the credit default swap rates and bond yields are investigated relying on a fixed effects panel regression model for five core (Germany, France, Austria, Netherlands, Belgium) and three periphery (Italy, Portugal and Spain) countries. To investigate the cross-country differences in responses, the interactions of the independent variables with periphery dummy and other country-specific variables are included in the regressions. The results of the empirical analysis suggest that Covid-19 shock increased the sovereign risk in the periphery EMU countries significantly and monetary policy measures have been effective in easing financial conditions in these countries. The results are insignificant for the core countries. The results also show that financial stability alleviates the negative impact of Covid-19 on the sovereign risk.

Financial Integration in the Context of the European Union

As the world continues to see various facets of financial integration, the topic has sparked a great deal of discussions among policymakers and economists. The article analyzes benefits and risks of financial integration in the context of the European Union, which has facilitated global financial integration immensely by creating common currency among European Monetary Union countries and harmonizing regulations across the region. Upon examining main pros and cons of financial integration in detail, I conclude that financial integration can be beneficial in the longrun if corrective and preventive measures are enforced to curtail risks and threats it poses.

Investigating the behaviour of sovereign risk for Eurozone countries

ABSTRACT The article examines the determinants of sovereign risk for European Monetary Union countries taking into consideration the global financial crisis, which emerged as a sovereign debt crisis in Europe. Using CDS prices, as a proxy of sovereign risk, this study finds that bond yields, equity prices and exchange rate are the key drivers of CDS prices. Moreover, our findings support models with dynamic components and regional effects between core and peripheral Eurozone countries, providing evidence of major differences in risk evaluation.

The Effects of Corruption in a Monetary Union

72% of Europeans in European Monetary Union countries think that corruption is widespread in their country. Corruption can affect the individual country’s performance and, in turn, impact on the performance of the other members of the monetary union. In this article, we will present a monetary union composed of two countries and we will study how the presence of corruption in one member country will affect its economy and the neighbour’s economy. Additionally, we will analyse what measures could reduce the negative spillover effects generated by the presence of corruption.

Globalization and economic growth of Eurozone economies

Globalization is a process of world economic integration which leads to the global economy without borders. The paper estimates the impact of globalization on economic growth in the case of European Monetary Union countries (EMU). Authors used three components of globalization – economic, social, and political globalization. Pooled Mean Group estimator (PMG) was used to estimate the long-run and short-run relationship between globalization and economic growth. The results showed that in the short-run, economic and social globalization has a positive impact on economic growth, while political globalization has a negative effect on the economic growth of EMU countries. In the long-run, economic globalization has a statistically significant positive impact on the economic growth of EMU countries, while social and political globalization has a negative effect on the economic growth of EMU countries. Authors recommend, for each country, case by case approach in accepting the globalization process. The approach depends on the country’s development stage, social, and political background. Thus, the approach for developing and least developed countries could be an evolutionary way, while for the developed ones a faster way of acceptances of globalization, for developed countries.

Debt Relief for the EMU Countries: A Chance to Restore Europe’s Power and to Stabilize the Euro. – A Discussion Paper

Government spending on bailing out banks and financing a variety of stimulus packages following the US real estate and financial crisis led to a sharp increase in the already very high level of public debt also of the member countries of the European Monetary Union (EMU). Countries such as Greece, Italy, Belgium, France and even Germany in particular depend on very low or at least low interest rates to stabilize their financial situation. Thus, the central reason for the European Central Bank's low interest rate policy, which has been in place for almost 10 years, is to provide the highly indebted countries of the EMU with a significant reduction in the interest burden in favor of a solution to the debt problem: giving time for a lot of necessary reforms to increase economic development. But none of this has succeeded in the last 10 years. Instead, the budgetary situation in the euro countries is getting worse, the disparities in economic development are increasing rather than diminishing, thereby endangering the stability of the euro and thus the future of the single currency. There is an urgent need for sustained higher net investments in nearly all sectors of all countries from Greece to Germany: instead, net investment in the countries of the EMU is clearly decreasing and Europe is in danger of being left behind not only by the two economic powers USA and China. This outlines a problem that is as pressing as it is topical: the question of how to restore Europes’ economic power. The key lies in the question of how can we be able to solve the crippling debt problem of European countries quickly and sustainably. The answer given by the discussion paper is a kind of debt relief, implemented as a conversion of a relevant amount of the government bonds held by the ECB. Conversion means extending the repayment to 80-100 years and the interest rate to be set very low. Of course a binding agreement is inevitable that net new debt can only be taken up to the maximum value of the GDP growth of a certain period. Only countries can participate in the debt conversion which commit themselves to making higher net investments to be specified more precisely, to carry out reforms especially concerning the efficiency of taxation, respectively set lower and upper limits for some taxes of the central government, and harmonize them within narrow ranges. Also it is necessary to reasonably reduce and largely deregulate bureaucracy and put an end to shadow economy and corruption. By regaining financial strength as a result of a debt conversion, which is only possible within a strong supranational framework, the advantages of membership in the European Monetary Union will once again become evident, and the European Union can again become a shining example of freedom and prosperity, the way that Robert Schuman did formulate as a vision in.

The negative side of inflation targeting: revisiting inflation uncertainty in the EMU

ABSTRACT This article tests the Friedman–Ball hypothesis for the European Monetary Union (EMU) countries, using a GARCH methodology. The empirical results show a positive relationship between inflation and inflation uncertainty, largely supportive of the Friedman–Ball hypothesis. Furthermore, the ECB’s price stability mandate is found to have asymmetric, if not limited, effects on inflation uncertainty since 1999, with the findings different for the so-called peripheral countries when compared to the core. For the majority of the EMU countries, shifts away from the 2% target served to increase inflation uncertainty. The credibility of the ECB since the financial crisis, in attempting to meet its 2% inflation target has seen inflation uncertainty increase for some, likely driven by inflation failing to re-anchor. Furthermore, recent periods of deflation are found to generate inflation uncertainty, with short-term price variability increasing in line with observed negative price growth for the majority of the EMU countries. The results are supportive of a U-shaped relationship between inflation and inflation uncertainty. Using spline techniques, we formally provide support for such a U-shaped relation where inflation uncertainty broadly increases below a certain threshold for each country’s inflation rate. Asymmetric effects across countries are found in the level of this threshold.

Specialization and KIBS in the Euro area: a vertically integrated sector perspective

ABSTRACTThe imbalances among countries belonging to the European Monetary Union (EMU) have been analysed under several angles in recent years, but often neglecting the evolution of economic and productive structures. In this work, we aim to fill this gap analyzing the countries specialization through the differences in the inter-industrial linkages that affect economic systems competitiveness and production processes. We use the input-output subsystem approach exploiting the latest WIOD release (2018) to investigate the role of business services, with a special focus on KIBS, in shaping the EMU countries productive structures through their integration in the manufacturing sectors. The results show that disparities are growing in the composition of productive structure and they are even more pronounced when we consider intersectoral dynamics; in particular, when KIBS are addressed to satisfy the manufacturing final demand and when we control for manufacturing subsystem technological intensity.

Eurozone Prices: A Tale of Convergence and Divergence

This article provides a methodology to test absolute and relative price convergence (in mean and variance) based on a model of relative prices that includes a transition path, and offers a way to measure the speed of price convergence across countries. By applying this test to the European Monetary Union (EMU) price indices from 2001 to 2011, we find empirical evidence of different price level patterns and the lack of price level convergence in the long run for most countries. In terms of the price gap between countries, only when we compare the German with French and Italian prices, we do get zero-gap (absolute) price level convergence. A few other countries report relative price level convergence. These results underscore the existence of a “convergence cost” that EMU countries with lower price levels paid and that does not tend toward zero in the long-term in the absence of convergence. This finding might be of particular interest to European monetary policymakers as it implies that implemented monetary policy does not affect (benefit/harm) all EMU members equally. Monitoring the relative and absolute price level convergence is advised to understand the monetary policy efficiency in the long run.

Revisiting the Euro’s Trade Cost and Welfare Effects

AbstractWhen, about twenty years ago, the Euro was created, one objective was to facilitate intra-European trade by reducing transaction costs. Has the Euro delivered? Using sectoral trade data from 1995 to 2014 and applying structural gravity modeling, we conduct anex postevaluation of the European Monetary Union (EMU). In aggregate data, we find a significant average trade effect for goods of almost 8 percent, but a much smaller effect for services trade. Digging deeper, we detect substantial heterogeneity between sectors, as well as between and within country-pairs. Singling out Germany, and embedding the estimation results into a quantitative general equilibrium model of world trade, we find that EMU has increased real incomes in all EMU countries, albeit at different rates. E. g. incomes have increased by 0.3, 0.6, and 2.1 percent in Italy, Germany, and Luxembourg, respectively.

Evaluating the effect of the introduction of the euro on tourist flows: A synthetic control approach

AbstractThe purpose of this paper is to investigate the effect of the introduction of the euro on bilateral outflows of tourism among European Monetary Union (EMU) countries in the period 2002–13. Descriptive statistics indicate heterogeneous paths in tourism flows, arising from several potential drivers. In order to analyse this observed heterogeneity, we use the synthetic control method, which does not require a large set of independent variables and allows for the development of separate analyses for each country. Results indicate that the introduction of the euro favoured tourism flows within EMU countries compared to flows between EMU and non‐EMU countries in three (Belgium, Italy, and Spain) out of the 10 considered countries. These findings underline the presence of significant heterogeneity and emphasise the importance of non‐parametric methods in understanding the effect of EMU.

Rangiranje perfomansi turističkog tržišta u zemljama EMU - rezultati PROMETHEE - GAIA pristupa

Using data from 19 countries of the European Monetary Union (EMU), this paper examines the nature of tourism performance and the ranking of countries according to given parameters in tourism in the period 2012-2017. As tourism cannot be analyzed as an isolated scientific discipline, it is necessary to use a multidimensional and multicriteria approach when studying and researching this field. For this reason, this paper implements a simple methodology for measuring tourism performance in EMU countries using the multicriteria PROMETHEE - GAIA decision model. The paper will, through the analysis of 8 parameters important for the development and evaluation of the tourism industries (number of foreign tourists, number of domestic tourists, quantity of hotel accommodation, cost of living, air pollution, population density, length of railway and number of airports), rank the mentioned countries and provide a deeper analysis of individual parameters. For the entire period of observing and reviewing the performance of the tourism industry, the results of the paper will outline the performance evaluation as well as policy recommendations and conclusions for further consideration and analysis.

Short and Long Term Determinants of the Net International Investment Position Resulting from the Balance of Payments of the European Monetary Union Countries

The paper aims at analysing the level, composition and factors determining changes of the net international investment position (NIIP) of the euro area countries. Although the improvement in the euro area’s NIIP during the period from 2Q2012 to 2Q2016 was largely driven by current account surpluses in 13 out of 19 countries, there is a visible difference between the NIIP changes and their components in the surplus and deficit countries. The group of net foreign assets countries increased its position primarily by running current account surpluses reflecting mainly a positive balance on goods and, on a minor scale, a positive primary income balance. The NIIP in the group of net foreign liabilities countries deteriorated although the cumulative current accounts were in surplus for this period. Here, the current account improvement was largely driven by services which, in contrast to the net foreign asset countries, were in surplus. In turn, the cumulative primary income in the group of net foreign liabilities countries was in minus. Statistical analysis aimed at estimation of determinants of the changes in the NIIPs over the subsequent quarters shows that their short term behaviour was on a large scale positively driven by the changes of valuation effect resulting, for example, from exchange rates and prices movements. It should not be surprising that the signs which indicate the direction of valuation effect on the NIIP pattern are different in the short and long term. It should be stressed that the valuation effect influence decreases over time since valuation gains and losses overlap and largely neutralise each other. Nevertheless, combined losses were higher than total gains and therefore its impact on the NIIP was negative in the analysed period. On the other hand, the EMU current account surpluses were repetitive and persistent, being the main factor behind the improvement of the cumulative euro area NIIP changes.

Sustainability and comovement of government debt in EMU Countries: A panel data analysis

We investigate the sustainability of fiscal policy in a set of 19 European Monetary Union (EMU) countries over the period 1970–2016. Panel unit root tests in the presence of cross‐section dependence show that the government debt series is stationary, indicating that the solvency condition would be satisfied for these countries. This confirms the effectiveness of the austerity measures implemented by these member states. Moreover, an unobserved common factor drives the comovement of government debt in the Eurozone.

Government debt in EMU countries

We investigate the sustainability of fiscal policy in a set of 19 European Monetary Union (EMU) countries over the period 1970–2016. Panel unit root tests in the presence of cross-section dependence show that the Government debt series is stationary, indicating that the solvency condition would be satisfied for the EMU-19 countries. This implies the effectiveness of the austerity measures implemented by member countries. Moreover, Markov-switching models estimates show that for 12 selected countries two different regimes exist, with statistically different coefficients across states. For all these countries, the mean of government debt in the more recent years (state 2) is incredibly higher than the mean of the 1970s (state 1).

Asset liability management and the euro crisis

PurposeThis paper aims to investigate the long-term relationships of long-term European Monetary Union (EMU) government bond yields. From an asset managers’ or risk managers’ perspective during the euro crisis, the relevance of sovereign credit and redenomination risk became a major issue. Furthermore, it has to be differentiated between core and non-core EMU member countries.Design/methodology/approachMethods of applied time series analysis are used to investigate EMU government bond yields and EMU government bond yield spreads for Spain, Italy, The Netherlands, Austria and Germany. Both standard unit root testing procedures and breakpoint unit root tests are used to examine cointegrating relationships and structural changes in these relationships.FindingsThe empirical results deliver clear evidence for structural shifts in the long-term relationship between German and the two non-core EMU countries (Italy and Spain). The timing of the breaks coincides with the timing of the euro crisis. On the contrary, the results for Austria and The Netherlands are different from the findings for the two non-core countries.Research limitations/implicationsOne major limitation of the study is the limited availability of data regarding to the reaction of asset managers or risk managers to the euro crisis. Especially in the context of the discussion with regard to the relevant risk-free rate for investors, this strand of research is relatively new.Practical implicationsA deeper understanding of changes in the long-term relationship between government bond yields and the re-emergence of redenomination risk is important for asset managers and risk managers in the financial services industry. This is especially true for German life insurers.Originality/valueThe study provides various empirical contributions to the literature on the euro crisis and sovereign credit risk. First, previous results with regard to the structural changes in the long-term relationship between German and Spanish, German and Italian, German and Austrian as well as Germany and Dutch government bond yields are confirmed using unit root breakpoint tests. Second, investigating the autoregressive coefficient and the timing of the breaks delivers evidence that non-core countries have been more exposed to the fear of redenomination risk. Third, we raise the question which risk free interest rate is relevant for the affected countries.