Publications

This special issue of International Economics aims at providing some theoretical and empirical perspectives on the European economy from a macroeconomic viewpoint. The contributions have been selected after the fourth international workshop on European Macroeconomics (Strasbourg, France, 3rd December 2021) entitled “The European Economy in the Time of Covid-19: Towards a New Dawn?” organized by the research team in European Macroeconomics of the Bureau of Economic Theory and Applications (BETA, CNRS, INRAE, Agro Paris Tech) at the University of Strasbourg. Twenty-four papers were selected from forty submissions from sixteen countries and international institutions.

While it is widely recognized that the development of a sound financial system may contribute to foster economic growth, the relation between economic growth and financial activities is complex. In this perspective, our contribution investigates the existence of threshold effects in the relationship between economic growth and bank credit. Our sample of ASEAN countries is examined over the period spanning from 1993 to 2019. We use the approach of Kremer et al. (2013) to estimate threshold effects in a dynamic panel where a group of explanatory variables can be endogenous. Our results confirm the vanishing effect of finance on economic growth. We found a threshold of 96.5% (significant at the 5% level) for the credit-to-GDP ratio, the threshold variable. In the short run, for observations inferior or equal to the threshold, the positive effect of bank credit expansion on economic growth is around 0.08 (significant at the 1% level). Whereas, for observations superior to the threshold, the positive effect of bank credit expansion on economic growth is around 0.01, but not significant. The role of exporting firms is essential in ASEAN countries, as they are more export-oriented than other regions in the world economy. Our results may indicate that the beneficiary of the credit (firms versus households), the structural features (export-led growth), and the regional heterogeneity have to be considered in empirical investigations of threshold effects in the relation between economic growth and bank credit. This empirical evidence may help to formulate sound policy recommendations.

According to the Schumpeterian endogenous growth theory, the efficacy of R&D is lowered by the proliferation of products. To be consistent with empirical data, the ratio between innovative activity and product variety (also called R&D intensity) must be stationary. In this perspective, our contribution investigates whether the R&D intensity series are stationary when structural breaks are considered. Our sample of G7 countries is examined over the period spanning from 1870 to 2016. Our results indicate that traditional unit root tests (ADF, DF-GLS and KPSS) conclude that the R&D intensity series are non-stationary in contradiction with the Schumpeterian endogenous growth theory. The conclusions of these traditional unit root tests may be misleading, as they ignore the presence of structural breaks. Indeed, we use several types of Fourier Dickey-Fuller tests to consider the presence of structural breaks. In the Fourier Dickey-Fuller unit root tests using double frequency and fractional frequency, the R&D intensity is significantly stationary at least at the 5% level for Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and the UK when a deterministic trend is included in the tests. Nevertheless, the R&D intensity is non-stationary for the US, even when we consider structural breaks. Indeed, the integration analyses aimed at discriminating between competing theories of endogenous growth should be careful of the presence of structural breaks. Especially when historical data are used, traditional unit root tests may lead to erroneous economic interpretations. These findings may help to understand the true nature of long-run economic growth and may help to formulate sound policy recommendations.

This empirical investigation aims at exploring the determinants of money demand in Vietnam by using both linear and nonlinear autoregressive distributed lag models over the period spanning from the third quarter of 2000 to the first quarter of 2018. Our findings can be summarized as follows: firstly, when the shock is symmetric (i.e. a permanent nominal appreciation of 1%), the money demand increases by 3.7% in the long term. Secondly, when the shock is asymmetric, for a permanent nominal appreciation of 1%, we observe an increase of 15.6% in the money demand. Whereas, for a permanent nominal depreciation of 1%, we observe a decrease of 7.4% in the money demand. These results are consistent with symmetry tests and lead us to think that asymmetries occur mainly in the short run and are transmitted to the long run.

From the onset of the euro crisis to the Brexit vote, we have witnessed impressive reductions of current account imbalances in peripheral countries of the euro area. These reductions can be the result of either a compression of internal demand or an improvement in external competitiveness. In this paper, we compute exchange rate misalignments within the euro area to assess whether peripheral countries have managed to improve their external competitiveness. After controlling for the reduction of business cycle synchronization within the EMU, we find that peripheral countries have managed to reduce their exchange rate misalignments thanks to internal devaluations. To some extent, these favorable evolutions reflect improvements in external competitiveness. Nevertheless, these gains could only be temporary if peripheral countries do not improve their non-price competitiveness, their trade structures and their international specializations in the long run.

The reduction of global imbalances observed during the climax of crisis is incomplete. In this context, currencies realignments are still proposed to ensure global macroeconomic stability. These realignments are based on equilibrium rates derived from equilibrium exchange rate models. Among these models, we have the fundamental equilibrium exchange rate model introduced by Williamson (1994). This approach is often labelled as normative, mainly because the equilibrium is not uniquely determined. If the FEER is not related either in the short or in the long to the real exchange rates, we see no clear justification to intervene in foreign exchange markets based on these equilibrium rates. In this case, the FEER does not include any element of long run predictive value and should not be used to reduce global imbalances. This paper provides panel empirical evidences that the FEER is related to real exchange rate in the long run and thus could be a useful tool to prevent the resurgence of large global imbalances and associated risks.

We investigate whether financial openness has played a major role in the evolution of global imbalances over the period before the crisis of 2008. We estimate, with panel regression techniques, the impact of financial openness on medium run trends in current account imbalances for industrialized and emerging countries by using a de jure measure of financial openness and a de facto measure of financial openness. Nowadays, current account imbalances are larger in reason of higher capital mobility. Nevertheless, a large part of imbalances may be considered as unrelated with the evolution of macroeconomic fundamentals.

This paper investigates the temporal links between two models of equilibrium exchange rate, namely the behavioral and the fundamental approaches. Our results show that, even though in the long-run they are closely related, important differences are observed for some countries and/or some periods. Contrary to previous contributions, we analyze the factors that explain this disconnection. We outline structural changes in matter of competitiveness, the dynamics of foreign assets and valuation effects as explanations. This novel evidence is important if the two approaches for assessing misalignments are used for policy decisions such as setting tariffs to cope with the “currency war”.