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This paper investigates the long‐ and short‐run determinants of aggregate private savings in Greece employing data over the period 1961‐2000. The long‐run savings function is estimated based on an extended life‐cycle hypothesis taking into account the economic and demographic developments during this period. A long‐run saving function sensitive to fertility changes, old dependency ratio, real interest rate, liquidity and public finances is found to exist and the importance of short‐run deviations is presented using vector error‐correction model estimation. The empirical evidence suggests the existence of a stable long‐run savings function in Greece both in the long‐ and short‐run periods and the policy implications of such a relationship are presented.

PurposeA growing amount of micro-data analyses has highlighted the importance of information trails, such as generated by card transactions, for improving tax compliance. Yet, time series evidence indicating a positive effect of card payments on VAT revenue performance has been scarce. This paper revisits the question of the effect of card payments on VAT revenue by using annual and quarterly panel data for the 19 euro area member states, covering the period 2000–2016.Design/methodology/approachA panel VECM is employed in order to address endogeneity issues and to account for common stochastic trends, which, is shown to be crucial in revealing the anticipated positive effect of card use on the performance of VAT.FindingsThe analysis confirms that a higher share of card payments in private consumption increases VAT revenue and the efficiency of revenue collection. Higher gains are estimated for countries with above average self-employment.Originality/valueThe contribution of the paper is twofold. First, to our knowledge it provides the first confirmation of the well-established literature on information trails using aggregate macroeconomic time series in a multi-country setting. Second, it has very timely policy implications, as low-hanging fruit are identified in euro-area economies with much to gain from strengthening the credibility of their fiscal performance, such as Greece.

AbstractThe paper studies the dynamic relationship between real stock returns and expected and unexpected inflation utilizing a Markov Switching vector autoregressive model (MS‐VAR). The MS‐VAR model has the advantage that it is able to capture the dependence structure of the series both in terms of mean and variance. Univariate and multivariate innovation decompositions are employed to separate inflation into two components, the expected and unexpected. The empirical evidence suggests that real stock returns are not related to expected and unexpected inflation and this result is independent of the method used to separate inflation into the two components. Rather, the results suggest that stock market movements are regime dependent, implying that stock market performance is not predictable.

This paper tests the validity of the Buchanan-Wagner hypothesis for Greece, ie, that increases in public spending are the result of the tolerance of large deficits over the period 1961-1994. To test this hypothesis, three unit-root pretests, the Dickey-Fuller, Phillips-Perron, & Kwiatkowski et al, & maximum likelihood estimation techniques of cointegrating vectors & a vector error-correction model are employed. A long-run relationship is found to exist among government spending, deficit, income, wages, & adult population, & the importance of short-run deviations are presented. The empirical evidence suggests that the Buchanan & Wagner hypothesis seems to find support for Greece in the long run & the short run. Further, productivity in the public sector is lower than in the private sector, & the growth of income is not an important determinant of the increase in the relative size of public spending. 4 Tables, 29 References. Adapted from the source document.