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Full-Text Articles in Social and Behavioral Sciences

On The Robustness Of Robustness Checks Of The Environmental Kuznets Curve, Marzio Galeotti, Matteo Manera, Alessandro Lanza Jan 2006

On The Robustness Of Robustness Checks Of The Environmental Kuznets Curve, Marzio Galeotti, Matteo Manera, Alessandro Lanza

Matteo Manera

Since its first inception in the debate on the relationship between environment and growth in 1992, the Environmental Kuznets Curve has been subject of continuous and intense scrutiny. The literature can be roughly divided in two historical phases. Initially, after the seminal contributions, additional work aimed to extend the investigation to new pollutants and to verify the existence of an inverted-U shape as well as assessing the value of the turning point. The following phase focused instead on the robustness of the empirical relationship, particularly with respect to the omission of relevant explanatory variables other than GDP, alternative datasets, functional …


The Asymmetric Effects Of Oil Shocks On Output Growth: A Markov-Switching Analysis For The G-7 Countries, Alessandro Cologni, Matteo Manera Jan 2006

The Asymmetric Effects Of Oil Shocks On Output Growth: A Markov-Switching Analysis For The G-7 Countries, Alessandro Cologni, Matteo Manera

Matteo Manera

In this paper we specify and estimate different Markov-switching (MS) regime autoregressive models. The empirical performance of the univariate MS models used to describe the switches between different economic regimes for the G-7 countries is in general not satisfactory. We extend these models to verify if the inclusion of asymmetric oil shocks as an exogenous variable improves the ability of each specification to identify the different phases of the business cycle for each country under scrutiny. Following the wide literature on this topic, we have considered six different definitions of oil shocks: oil price changes, asymmetric transformations of oil price …


Hunting The Living Dead: A 'Peso Problem' In Corporate Liabilities Data, Umberto Cherubini, Matteo Manera Jan 2005

Hunting The Living Dead: A 'Peso Problem' In Corporate Liabilities Data, Umberto Cherubini, Matteo Manera

Matteo Manera

Recent literature has pointed out that information asymmetries may be the reason for the poor performance of structural credit risk models to fit corporate bond data. It is well known in fact that these models lead to a strong understatement of the credit spread terms structure, particularly on the short maturity end. Possible explanations stem from strategic debt service behavior and, as discovered more recently, the problem of accounting transparency. This raises the possibility that some of these flaws could be reconducted to a sort of “peso problem”, i.e. that the market may ask for a premium in order to …


Modeling Factor Demand Systems With Sem And Var: An Empirical Comparison, Matteo Manera Jan 2005

Modeling Factor Demand Systems With Sem And Var: An Empirical Comparison, Matteo Manera

Matteo Manera

The empirical analysis of the economic interactions between factors of production, output and corresponding prices has received much attention over the last two decades. Most contributions in this area have agreed on the neoclassical principle of a representative optimizing firm and typically use theory-based structural equation models (SEM). A popular alternative to SEM is given by the vector autoregression (VAR) methodology. The most recent attempts to link the SEM approach with VAR analysis in the area of factor demands concentrate on single-equation models, whereas no effort has been devoted to compare these alternative approaches when a firm is assumed to …


Asymmetric Error Correction Models For The Oil-Gasoline Price Relationship, Margherita Grasso, Matteo Manera Jan 2005

Asymmetric Error Correction Models For The Oil-Gasoline Price Relationship, Margherita Grasso, Matteo Manera

Matteo Manera

The existing literature on price asymmetries does not systematically investigate the sensitivity of the empirical results to the choice of a particular econometric specification. This paper fills this gap by providing a detailed comparison of the three most popular models designed to describe asymmetric price behaviour, namely asymmetric ECM, autoregressive threshold ECM and ECM with threshold cointegration. Each model is estimated on a common monthly dataset for the gasoline markets of France, Germany, Italy, Spain and UK over the period 1985-2003. All models are able to capture the temporal delay in the reaction of retail prices to changes in spot …


Econometric Models Of Asymmetric Price Transmission, Giliola Frey, Matteo Manera Jan 2005

Econometric Models Of Asymmetric Price Transmission, Giliola Frey, Matteo Manera

Matteo Manera

In this paper we review the existing empirical literature on price asymmetries in commodities, providing a way to classify and compare different studies which are highly heterogeneous in terms of econometric models, type of asymmetries and empirical findings. Relative to the previous literature, this paper is novel in several respects. First, it presents a detailed and updated survey of the existing empirical contributions on the existence of price asymmetries in the transmission mechanism linking input prices to output prices. Second, this paper presents an extension of the traditional distinction between long-run and short-run asymmetries to new categories of asymmetries, such …


Oil Prices, Inflation And Interest Rates In A Sstructural Cointegrated Var Model For The G-7 Countries, Alessandro Cologni, Matteo Manera Jan 2005

Oil Prices, Inflation And Interest Rates In A Sstructural Cointegrated Var Model For The G-7 Countries, Alessandro Cologni, Matteo Manera

Matteo Manera

Sharp increases in the price of oil are generally seen as a major contributor to business cycle asymmetries. Moreover, the very recent highs registered in the world oil market are causing concern about possible slowdowns in the economic performance of the most developed countries. While several authors have considered the direct channels of transmission of energy price increases, other authors have argued that the economic downturns arose from the monetary policy response to the inflation presumably caused by oil price increases. In this paper a structural cointegrated VAR model has been considered for the G-7 countries in order to study …


Conditional Correlations In The Returns On Oil Companies Stock Prices And Their Determinants, Massimo Giovannini, Margherita Grasso, Alessandro Lanza, Matteo Manera Jan 2004

Conditional Correlations In The Returns On Oil Companies Stock Prices And Their Determinants, Massimo Giovannini, Margherita Grasso, Alessandro Lanza, Matteo Manera

Matteo Manera

The identification of the forces that drive stock returns and the dynamics of their associated volatilities is a major concern in empirical economics and finance. This analysis is particularly relevant for determining optimal hedging strategies based on whether shocks to the volatilities of returns of oil companies stock prices, relevant stock market indexes and oil spot and futures prices are high or low, and positively or negatively correlated. This paper investigates the correlations of volatilities in the stock price returns and their determinants for the most important integrated oil companies, namely Bp (BP), Chevron-Texaco (CVX), Eni (ENI), Exxon-Mobil (XOM), Royal …


Modelling Dynamic Conditional Correlations In Wti Oil Forward And Futures Returns, Alessandro Lanza, Matteo Manera, Micheal Mcaleer Dec 2003

Modelling Dynamic Conditional Correlations In Wti Oil Forward And Futures Returns, Alessandro Lanza, Matteo Manera, Micheal Mcaleer

Matteo Manera

This paper estimates the dynamic conditional correlations in the returns on WTI oil onemonth forward prices, and one-, three-, six-, and twelve-month futures prices, using recently developed multivariate conditional volatility models. The dynamic correlations enable a determination of whether the forward and various futures returns are substitutes or complements, which are crucial for deciding whether or not to hedge against unforeseen circumstances. The models are estimated using daily data on WTI oil forward and futures prices, and their associated returns, from 3 January 1985 to 16 January 2004. At the univariate level, the estimates are statistically significant, with the occasional …


Oil And Product Price Dynamics In International Petroleum Markets, Alessandro Lanza, Matteo Manera, Massimo Giovannini Jan 2003

Oil And Product Price Dynamics In International Petroleum Markets, Alessandro Lanza, Matteo Manera, Massimo Giovannini

Matteo Manera

In this paper we investigate crude oil and products price dynamics. We present a comparison among ten price series of crude oils and fourteen price series of petroleum products, considering four distinct market areas (Mediterranean, North Western Europe, Latin America and North America) over the period 1994-2002. We provide first a complete analysis of crude oil and product price dynamics using cointegration and error correction models. Subsequently we use the error correction specification to predict crude oil prices over the horizon January 2002-June 2002.The main findings of the paper can be summarized as follows: a) differences in quality are crucial …


Star-Garch Models For Stock Market Interactions In The Pacific Basin Region, Japan And Us, Giorgio Busetti, Matteo Manera Jan 2003

Star-Garch Models For Stock Market Interactions In The Pacific Basin Region, Japan And Us, Giorgio Busetti, Matteo Manera

Matteo Manera

We investigate the financial interactions between countries in the Pacific Basin region (Korea, Singapore, Malaysia, Hong Kong and Taiwan), Japan and US. The originality of the paper is the use of STAR-GARCH models, instead of standard correlationcointegration techniques. For each country in the Pacific Basin region, we find statistically adequate STAR-GARCH models for the series of stock market daily returns, using Nikkei225 and S&P500 as alternative threshold variables. We provide evidence for the leading role of Japan in the period 1988-1990 (pre-Japanese crisis years), whereas our results suggest that the Pacific Basin region countries are more closely linked with the …


Modelling The Load Curve Of Aggregate Electricity Consumption Using Principal Components, Matteo Manera, Angelo Marzullo Jan 2003

Modelling The Load Curve Of Aggregate Electricity Consumption Using Principal Components, Matteo Manera, Angelo Marzullo

Matteo Manera

Since oil is a non-renewable resource with a high environmental impact, and its most common use is to produce combustibles for electricity, reliable methods for modelling electricity consumption can contribute to a more rational employment of this hydrocarbon fuel. In this paper we apply the Principal Components (PC) method to modelling the load curves of Italy, France and Greece on hourly data of aggregate electricity consumption. The empirical results obtained with the PC approach are compared with those produced by the Fourier and constrained smoothing spline estimators. The PC method represents a much simpler and attractive alternative to modelling electricity …


Long-Run Models Of Oil Stock Prices, Alessandro Lanza, Matteo Manera, Massimo Giovannini, Margherita Grasso Dec 2002

Long-Run Models Of Oil Stock Prices, Alessandro Lanza, Matteo Manera, Massimo Giovannini, Margherita Grasso

Matteo Manera

The identification of the forces that drive oil stock prices is extremely important given the size of the Oil&Gas industry and its links with the energy sector and the environment. In the next decade oil companies will have to deal with international policies to contrast climate change. This issue is likely to affect companies’ shareholder values. In this paper we focus on the long-run financial determinants of the stock prices of six major oil companies (Bp, Chevron-Texaco, Eni, Exxon-Mobil, Royal Dutch Shell, Total-Fina-Elf) using multivariate cointegration techniques and vector error correction models. Weekly oil stock prices are analyzed together with …


Rockets And Feathers Revisited: An International Comparison On European Gasoline Markets, Marzio Galeotti, Alessandro Lanza, Matteo Manera Jan 2002

Rockets And Feathers Revisited: An International Comparison On European Gasoline Markets, Marzio Galeotti, Alessandro Lanza, Matteo Manera

Matteo Manera

This paper re-examines the issue of asymmetries in the transmission of shocks to crude oil prices onto the retail price of gasoline. Relative to the previous literature, the distinguishing features of the present paper are: i) use of updated and comparable data to carry out an international comparison of gasoline markets; ii) two-stage modeling of the transmission of oil price shocks to gasoline prices (first refinery stage and second distribution stage), in order to assess possible asymmetries at either one or both stages; iii) use of asymmetric error correction models to distinguish between asymmetries that arise from short-run deviations in …


Forecasting Volatility In European Stock Markets With Non-Linear Garch Models, Giancarlo Forte, Matteo Manera Dec 2001

Forecasting Volatility In European Stock Markets With Non-Linear Garch Models, Giancarlo Forte, Matteo Manera

Matteo Manera

This paper investigates the forecasting performance of three popular variants of the nonlinear GARCH models, namely VS-GARCH, GJR-GARCH and Q-GARCH, with the symmetric GARCH(1,1) model as a benchmark. The application involves ten European stock price indexes. Forecasts produced by each non-linear GARCH model and each index are evaluated using a common set of classical criteria, as well as forecast combination techniques with constant and non-constant weights. With respect to the standard GARCH specification, the non-linear models generally lead to better forecasts in terms of both smaller forecast errors and lower biases. In-sample forecast combination regressions are better than those from …