Positive Growth Shocks Research Articles

Emerging Markets Currency Factors and US High-Frequency Macroeconomic Shocks

Relying on the structural vector autoregression developed by Cieslak and Pang, the authors identify four shocks to the US economy based on the US Treasury yield curve and the stock market: two fundamental news shocks (growth and money) and two risk-premium shocks (common and hedging). They find that these shocks explain over 40% of the time-series variation of emerging markets currency (EMFX) returns. Additionally, EMFX returns increase significantly with positive growth shocks and decrease with monetary tightening and risk-premium shocks. The authors show that growth and common shocks are priced in the cross section of EMFX, with a positive and negative risk premiums, respectively. They then build long–short currency portfolios based on several academically researched style factors and test their performance and relative exposure to the macroeconomic shocks affecting the US economy. They find that only carry and macro momentum long–short portfolios generate positive and significant alphas and excess returns over their sample. However, all single-factor portfolios have sizable exposure to the four shocks. The authors show that a simple multifactor approach to investing in EMFXs eliminates the exposure of excess returns to all macroeconomic shocks.

Growth Spillover Dynamics from Crisis to Recovery

Can positive growth shocks from the faster-growing countries in Europe spill over to the slower growing countries, providing useful tailwinds to their recovery process? This study investigates the potential relevance of growth spillovers in the context of the crisis and the recovery process. Based on a VAR framework, our analysis suggests that the U.S. and Japan remain the key source of growth spillovers in this recovery, with France also playing an important role for the European crisis countries. Notwithstanding the current export-led cyclical upswing, Germany generates relatively small outward spillovers compared to other systemic countries, but likely plays a key role in transmitting and amplifying external growth shocks to the rest of Europe given its more direct exposure to foreign shocks compared to other European countries. Positive spillovers from Spain were important prior to the 2008 - 09 crisis, however Spain is generating negative spillovers in this recovery due to a depressed domestic demand. Negative spillovers from the European crisis countries appear limited, consistent with their modest size.

Growth Spillover Dynamics from Crisis to Recovery

Can positive growth shocks from the faster-growing countries in Europe spill over to the slower growing countries, providing useful tailwinds to their recovery process? This study investigates the potential relevance of growth spillovers in the context of the crisis and the recovery process. Based on a VAR framework, our analysis suggests that the U.S. and Japan remain the key source of growth spillovers in this recovery, with France also playing an important role for the European crisis countries. Notwithstanding the current export-led cyclical upswing, Germany generates relatively small outward spillovers compared to other systemic countries, but likely plays a key role in transmitting and amplifying external growth shocks to the rest of Europe given its more direct exposure to foreign shocks compared to other European countries. Positive spillovers from Spain were important prior to the 2008 - 09 crisis, however Spain is generating negative spillovers in this recovery due to a depressed domestic demand. Negative spillovers from the European crisis countries appear limited, consistent with their modest size.