Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

(Wp 2015-01) Can Ten Do It Better? Impact Of Red Card In The English Premier League, Abdur Chowdhury

Abdur R. Chowdhury

After penalties and goals, red cards are the next most significant event that can impact the outcome of a soccer (football) game. Using data from the English Premier League, this paper statistically analyzes the impact of whether a sending-off of a player actually turns out to be a punishment for the penalized team, or if - as a popular soccer myth states – penalized teams perform better than they would have performed, had they not received a red card. The results show that the sending-offs negatively affect the performance of the penalized team, no matter when the sending-off occurs. Getting …

Inflation And Inflation-Uncertainty In India: The Policy Implications Of The Relationship, Abdur Chowdhury

Abdur R. Chowdhury

Purpose – Inflation and its related uncertainty can impose costs on real economic output in any economy. This paper aims to analyze the relationship between inflation and inflation uncertainty in India. Design/methodology/approach – The methodology uses a generalized autoregressive conditional heteroscedasticity (GARCH) model and Granger Causality test. Findings – Initial estimates show the inflation rate to be a stationary process. The maximum likelihood estimates from the GARCH model reveal strong support for the presence of a positive relationship between the level of inflation and its uncertainty. The Granger causality results indicate a feedback between inflation and uncertainty. Research limitations/implications – …

What Determines Public Education Expenditures In A Transition Economy?, Inna Verbina, Abdur Chowdhury

Abdur R. Chowdhury

Recent studies suggest that the allocation of expenditures in education matters for growth. Public education spending in many transition economies, however, is often inefficient and inequitable with education outlays misallocated across sectors. This highlights the need for an assessment of the nature of education expenditures in these countries. This paper attempts to fill the gap in the literature by estimating the determinants of education expenditures in the Russian Federation. Results from panel data analysis show that revenue and the student-population ratio have a positive impact on education expenditures while the effect of population density is negative. Three regional variables also …

Monetary Policy, Fiscal Policy, And Aggregate Economic Activity In Korea, Abdur Chowdhury

Abdur R. Chowdhury

No abstract provided.

Changes In R&D Expenditure And Productivity Growth: A Causal Analysis, Mawdudur Rahman, Abdur Chowdhury

Abdur R. Chowdhury

A study was conducted to directly test the presence of causal relationship between changes in research and development (R&D) expenditure and productivity growth. Granger causality tests are performed using annual time series data for the period 1956-1983. Three measures of productivity are used -- National Income, National Income per person employed, and National Income per hour of work in the nonresidential business sector. Results show that changes in R&D expenditure affect the growth rate of the 3 productivity measures with different degrees of intensity. National Income per hour of work shows the highest growth rate, with the peak effect occurring …

Monetary And Fiscal Impacts On Economic Activity In Bangladesh: A Note, Abdur Chowdhury

Abdur R. Chowdhury

No abstract provided.

Do Asymmetric Terms Of Trade Shocks Affect Private Savings In A Transition Economy?, Abdur Chowdhury

Abdur R. Chowdhury

This paper examines whether terms of trade shocks have an asymmetric effect on private savings in transition economies. A simple three-period framework is developed to show that, in the presence of binding credit constraints in bad states of nature, savings rates can be sensitive to favorable movements in the permanent component of the terms of trade. This result contrasts with the prediction of the conventional consumption-smoothing model. Empirical analysis with a dynamic panel model further confirms that while favorable movements in the permanent component of the terms of trade have an asymmetric effect on private savings, the magnitude of the …

The Economic Impact Of U.S. Foreign Direct Investment On The Asia Pacific Region, Abdur Chowdhury

Abdur R. Chowdhury

No abstract provided.

Digital Currency And Financial System: The Case Of Bitcoin, Abdur Chowdhury, Barry K. Mendelson

Abdur R. Chowdhury

No abstract provided.

Speculative Attacks Or Economic Fundamentals: Evidence From The Asian Currency Crisis, Abdur Chowdhury

Abdur R. Chowdhury

This paper argues that what led to the Asian financial crisis was a fatal combination of several self-reinforcing factors including external sector weaknesses, fragility in domestic financial markets due to inadequately administered financial liberalisation, loss of confidence, and short-term capital flows, maturing within less than a year and denominated in unhedged dollars. Some of these factors were country-specific while others were common to the entire region.

Asia's financial crisis will almost certainly lead to important changes in the international financial system, as countries try to find an appropriate balance between the benefits from gaining access to intentional capital flows and …

The Political Investment Cycle Within China: The Next Transition And Its Investment Implications, Abdur Chowdhury, Barry K. Mendelson

Abdur R. Chowdhury

No abstract provided.

Does The Stock Market's Equity Risk Premium Respond To Consumer Confidence Or Is It The Other Way Around?, Abdur Chowdhury, Barry K. Mendelson

Abdur R. Chowdhury

The increase in the equity risk premium during the 2007- 2009 Great Recession and the aging of the baby boomers in the United States have led analysts and financial industry experts to believe that risk aversion among stock investors has moved to a more-permanently higher range. If so, stocks would cease being an attractive asset class to be investing in for the future. In the past few years private investors have by and large shunned equities, just when stocks have become attractively priced and offer long-term potential for superior above-historical-average returns. Our empirical findings show that the recent increase in …

The Impact Of Financial Reform On Private Savings In Bangladesh, Abdur Chowdhury

Abdur R. Chowdhury

Over the course of the last decade, Bangladesh has implemented a broad-based program of financial and market reforms, encompassing changes in the structure of the financial system, prudential and supervisory frameworks, and monetary management. This paper estimates a savings function to evaluate the impact of various determinants of private savings in Bangladesh—with special emphasis on the impact of financial reform. The results show that the level of income, real interest rates, and the share of agriculture in GDP have a positive impact on the savings rate. Dependency rate and public savings rate, on the other hand, have a negative impact …

By How Much Does Conflict Reduce Financial Development?, Tony Addison, Abdur Chowdhury, Syed M. Murshed

Abdur R. Chowdhury

Financial development is vulnerable to social conflict. Conflict reduces the demand for domestic currency as a medium of exchange and a store of value. Conflict also leads to poor quality governance, including weak regulation of the financial system, thereby undermining the sustainability of financial institutions. Conflict therefore reduces the social return to financial liberalization and other financial-sector reforms. This paper presents a theoretical model integrating the effects of conflict and financial liberalization, and then tests the model on data for 79 countries. Using an explanatory variable that measures the intensity of conflict (from low to high) the results show that …

Wto Accession: What's In It For Russia?, Abdur Chowdhury

Abdur R. Chowdhury

Prospects for Russia’s membership in the WTO now look better than any point since accession negotiations began almost a decade ago. Good progress with economic and legal reforms within Russia has left the country’s economy better prepared for membership. Nevertheless, the economy still suffers from various weaknesses including, but not limited to, pervasive subsidies for different sectors, lack of liberalization and foreign participation especially in the service sector, inefficiency in custom administration, lack of enforcement of intellectual property rights, etc. For all their sensitivity, the negotiations on the import tariff levels and access to the service sectors are the least …

External Debt And Growth In Developing Countries: A Sensitivity And Causal Analysis, Abdur Chowdhury

Abdur R. Chowdhury

The paper aims to enhance the existing literature on the debt-growth nexus by analysing the relationship in two separate country groups using the extreme bounds analysis for sensitivity tests and the mixed, fixed, and random coefficient approach that allows for heterogeneity in the causal relationship between debt and growth. Irrespective of the debt measure used, the results are robust across the two country groups—HIPC and non-HIPC—as well as two different testing procedures. The extreme bounds analysis shows that the relationship between a debt measure and economic growth is robust to changes in the conditioning set of information included in the …

Money, Monetary Policy, Productivity And Inflation: A Dynamic Analysis, Abdur Chowdhury

Abdur R. Chowdhury

No abstract provided.

The Velocity Of Us M2 In The 1990s: Some Further Evidence, Abdur Chowdhury, Mark Wheeler

Abdur R. Chowdhury

This paper investigates the behaviour of M2 velocity in recent years with special emphasis on the post-1989 period. Unlike previous studies in this area, M2 velocity is analysed in the context of a small vector autoregressive (VAR) model which includes income, prices, interest rates, and money growth volatility. The hypothesis of a structural shift in M2 velocity associated with the post-1989 period is rejected by the VAR model. This suggests that the unusual behaviour of M2 velocity since 1989 may be traced to the variability in its determinants, rather than to a shift in the process generating velocity. Variance decompositions …

(Wp 2014-01) Is Bitcoin The 'Paris Hilton' Of The Currency World? Or Are The Early Investors Onto Something That Will Make Them Rich? [Updated Version], Abdur Chowdhury

Abdur R. Chowdhury

The bitcoin phenomenon, and the technological innovation that made it possible, is interesting - but for investors large and small, the more pertinent question is whether they should buy the digital currency or avoid it. We analyze a bitcoin investment from the standpoint of an investor with a diversified portfolio using both in-sample and out-of-sample settings. Within the in-sample setting, bitcoin does not yield added value to investors with utility function consistent with the mean-variance setting. On the other hand, they do offer diversification benefits to investors with negative exponential and power utility functions. However, these benefits are not preserved …

Is Money More Productive In A Developing Economy?, Abdur Chowdhury, Yingqui Liu

Abdur R. Chowdhury

This paper tests the frequently cited hypothesis that money is more productive in a developing economy relative to a developed economy. Output elasticity of money is estimated for 20 countries over the 1977-92 sample period. These countries represent various stages of economic development. Two important conclusions can be derived from the results. First, irrespective of the monetary aggregate employed, the output elasticity of money is extremely low for all 20 countries. Second, the elasticity figure is sensitive neither to the stage of economic development in a particular country nor the period of time under consideration. Consequently, it can be argued …

(Wp 2013-08) Economic (In)Security And Gender Differences In Trade Policy Attitudes, Jeffrey Drope, Abdur Chowdhury

Abdur R. Chowdhury

Over time and across countries, researchers have noted frequent and mostly unexplained gender differences in the levels of support for policies of free or freer trade: women tend to be less favorable toward policies of liberalizing trade than men. Yet, no well substantiated theoretical or empirical account of the gender component of trade attitudes has emerged. Using an economic security explanation based principally on a mobile factors approach, we find that it is not women generally who are more negative toward trade but particularly economically vulnerable women – i.e. women from the scarce labor factor. We utilize recent survey data …

Purchasing Power Parity In The Major Ems Countries: The Role Of Price And Exchange Rate Adjustment, Abdur Chowdhury, Fabio Sdogati

Abdur R. Chowdhury

In this paper we address the issue of whether the European Monetary System has contributed to real exchange rate stability between France, Germany, and Italy. We first ask whether bilateral PPP holds between any pair of these countries and between each of them and the United States. We find that PPP never holds before the EMS was created, and that it does among EMS countries, but not relative to the U.S. since. Next we assess the role of relative prices and exchange rates in the adjustment process toward PPP. We find that PPP between France and Germany is solely due …

The Demand For Money In A Small Open Economy: The Case Of Switzerland, Abdur Chowdhury

Abdur R. Chowdhury

The paper uses cointegration analysis to investigate the demand for money in Switzerland in the context of an open economy. It considers the general process of financial asset substitution and tests for the relevance of an exchange rate and a foreign interest rate variable in a conventional money demand equation. The results show that the variables entering into the demand for either monetary base or narrow money equation may not form a cointegrated system unless the exchange rate or foreign interest rate variable is included. This provides support to both the currency substitution and capital mobility hypotheses.

Review Of International Business: Competing In The Global Marketplace, Abdur Chowdhury

Abdur R. Chowdhury

No abstract provided.

Review Of Prices, Wages And Business Cycles By Burton H. Klein, Abdur Chowdhury

Abdur R. Chowdhury

No abstract provided.

The Asian Currency Crisis: Origins, Lessons, And Future Outlook, Abdur Chowdhury

Abdur R. Chowdhury

What started in the summer of 1997 as a regional economic and financial crisis in East and Southeast Asia had developed into a global financial crisis within the span of a year. This crisis followed the crisis in the European Monetary System in 1992-3 and the Mexican peso crisis in 1994-5. However, unlike the previous two crises, the scale and depth of the Asian crisis surprised everyone. Obvious reason for this is East and Southeast Asia's track record of economic success. Since the 1960s, no other group of countries in the world has produced more rapid economic growth or such …

(Wp 2013-03) War And The Fiscal Capacity Of The State, Abdur Chowdhury, Syed M. Murshed

Abdur R. Chowdhury

We examine the role of war in retarding state fiscal capacity in developing countries, measured by tax revenue ratios to GDP. This in contrast to the European experience from the Renaissance to the 20th century, where it is believed that war and state-building were inseparable, enhancing the fiscal capacity of the state; in turn enlarging the scope and magnitude of government expenditure. We build a simple theoretical model of a factionalized state, where patronage substitutes for common interest public goods, along with the possibility of violent contestation over a rent or prize, typically in the form of natural resource revenues. …

Does Exchange Rate Variability Depress Trade Flows ? Evidence From Error Correction Models, Abdur Chowdhury

Abdur R. Chowdhury

This paper examines the impact of exchange rate volatility on the trade flows of the G-7 countries in the context of a multivariate error-correction model. The error-correction models do not show any sign of parameter instability. The results indicate that the exchange rate volatility has a significant negative impact on the volume of exports in each of the G-7 countries. Assuming market participants are risk averse, these results imply that exchange rate uncertainty causes them to reduce their activities, change prices, or shift sources of demand and supply in order to minimize their exposure to the effects of exchange rate …

A Global Lottery And A Global Premium Bond, Tony Addison, Abdur Chowdhury

Abdur R. Chowdhury

Proposals are evaluated, from both an economic and an ethical viewpoint, for development funding through a global lottery, along with a complement to this: a global premium bond (a loan instrument in which the interest takes the form of a lottery prize, the capital being repayable on request, so that it has the characteristics of a savings product, which makes it potentially attractive to ethical investors). The chapter starts by looking at how a global lottery might work, evaluating the issue by discussing lottery operators and their regulation, the market for lotteries, competition between the global lottery and national lotteries, …

Review Of Money, History, And International Finance: Essays In Honor Of Anna J. Schwartz By Michael D. Bordo, Abdur Chowdhury

Abdur R. Chowdhury

No abstract provided.