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Abstract: East is East and West is West? Comparing Party System Stability in Europe 2008–2019This article compares trends in party system stability in Central/ Eastern Europe (CEE) and Western Europe, to see if recent studies indicating that the two regions have become more similar hold when the results of outcomes of several post-financial-crisis elections are taken into consideration. Further, it enquires into the underlying causes of electoral volatility and whether they differ between the two regions. In all, 82 parliamentary elections in 25 EU countries 2008–2019 are analyzed as regards electoral volatility (Pedersen's Index) and support for new parties ('volatility type A'). The results show that, when the most likely confounding variables are controlled for, a significant difference between the two regions remains, but also that there is a converging trend on both indicators. Moreover, whereas electoral volatility in the West is driven by the level of corruption together with the effective number of parties, unemployment and economic growth as well as the number of effective parties are the main factors explaining the same phenomenon in CEE. There is also evidence that volatility in CEE, unlike in Western Europe, is also driven by a path-dependent logic, where previous volatility scores explain subsequent ones. That finding may have implications for the prospects of future party system stabilization.

Foreign exchange markets are extremely sensitive to rare events. Kenyan election violence of January and February 2008 was such an event. Kenya, an emerging market has information asymmetry, skewed perception and inherent volatility. We analyze the election violence shocks on the foreign currency rates. Daily time series data is from January 2007 to December 2008, for pre-violence, violence and post-violence periods. The GARCH model tests for asymmetry volatility and estimates annual volatility. Friedman nonparametric test was used to test for the significance difference between the countries' and periods' volatility. Correlation tests for linear relationship between the countries and each of the three periods under study, while descriptive statistics summarizes the data. The violence period had highest correlation with GARCH parameters indicating a reactive period, showing over reaction in the market. Emerging and developed markets exchange rates correlate negatively but positively amongst themselves, with similar perception on the crisis. The violence shocks adversely affected the exchange rates by increasing asymmetrical volatility, market over reaction and negative perception of the country. Emerging and developed markets differed in perception, information flow and reactions to the violence. Therefore, significant change in economic and political scene is bound to shift the market equilibrium. Keywords: Foreign exchange, currency, volatility, election, violence

This paper shows that the explanation of the decline in the volatility of GDP growth since the mid-eighties is not the decline in the volatility of exogenous shocks but rather a change in their propagation mechanism.

Macro-finance asset pricing models provide a rationale for connectedness dynamics between equity and Treasury risk-neutral volatilities. In this paper, we study the total and directional connectedness, in the sense of spillover effects, between risk-neutral volatilities from the equity and Treasury markets. In addition, we analyze the economic and monetary drivers of connectedness dynamics. Most of the time, but especially during bad economic times, we find significant net spillovers from Treasury to equity risk-neutral volatility. The spillover channel between risk-neutral volatilities arises mainly through the government fixed income market. ; This study was funded by the Ministerio de Ciencia, Innovación y Universidades (PGC2018-095072-B-I00), the Conselleria d'Educació, Investigació, Cultura I Esports (Prometeo/2017/158), the Secretaría de Estado de Investigación, Desarrollo e Innovación (PID2019-104304-GB-I00), and the Universidad Pública de Navarra (Grant for Young Researchers, 2018).

International audience ; The smoothing impact of fiscal stabilizers (proxied by government expenditures) on business cycle volatility is studied for a panel of EU countries in the period 1970-1999. Special emphasis is put on the investigation of possible nonlinearities in the relationship between GDP growth volatility and fiscal stabilizers. The results show that the business cycle volatility smoothing effect of fiscal stabilizers may revert at high levels. The results also hold when using government revenues as a proxy for fiscal stabilizers.

The smoothing impact of fiscal stabilizers (proxied by government expenditures) on business cycle volatility is studied for a panel of EU countries in the period 1970-1999. Special emphasis is put on the investigation of possible nonlinearities in the relationship between GDP growth volatility and fiscal stabilizers. The results show that the business cycle volatility smoothing effect of fiscal stabilizers may revert at high levels. The results also hold when using government revenues as a proxy for fiscal stabilizers.

In diesem Beitrag wird die Entwicklung der Preisvolatilität auf deutschen Agrarmärkten analysiert. Ziel ist es das Ausmaß der Preisvolatilität auf ausgewählte deutsche Agrarmärkte zu quantifizieren und festzustellen inwiefern sie sich im Zeitablauf verändert hat. Soweit möglich wird eine Vergleichbarkeit zwischen den Entwicklungen auf nationalen und internationalen Produktmärkten hergestellt, bzw. es werden die jeweiligen Entwicklungen zueinander in Bezug gestellt. In diesem Zusammenhang gestellte Fragen sind: – Hat es eine Erhöhung der Preisvolatilität gegeben? – Stammt diese aus den Weltmärkten? – Welche Auswirkungen hat die Preisvolatilität auf die Marktakteure? – Welche Rolle spielen dabei die Instrumente der Agrarpolitik und welche Instrumente stehen zur Verfügung, um die nachteiligen Folgen der Volatilität für die Landwirtschaft zu begrenzen? Die Ergebnisse der Analyse zeigen, dass die Preisvolatilitäten auf den untersuchten deutschen Agrarmärkten in den letzten 40 Jahren gestiegen sind. Dies steht im Gegensatz zur Entwicklung der Volatilitäten auf den Weltmärkten. Diese Entwicklung ist dennoch nachvollziehbar, da Deutschland, als Mitglied der EU in den letzten Jahren an dem anhaltenden Reformprozess der GAP teilgenommen hat, deren letztliches Ziel es ist, die Märkte der EU dem Weltmarkt zu öffnen. Der Rückzug der Politik im Rahmen der Reformen der GAP führt in der EU und in Deutschland zu einer Erhöhung des Austausches von Preissignalen zwischen den EU-Binnenmärkte und dem Weltmarkt. Während dieses Prozesses erhöht sich die Preisvolatilität auf den europäischen Märkten. Ein erhöhtes Niveau der Preisvolatilität führt zu erhöhter Marktunsicherheit und hat zur Folge, dass die auf Investitionen beruhenden Innovationsprozesse ausbleiben oder nur zögerlicher umgesetzt werden. Summa summarum zeichnet sich für die deutschen und europäischen Unternehmer des Agrarsektors ein Wandel bezüglich der Risikominimierungsstrategie ab. Die auf staatliche Intervention basierenden Strategien treten in den Hintergrund, während die auf unternehmerische Kompetenz, Geschicklichkeit und Vorsorge basierenden Strategien in den Vordergrund rücken. Vor dem Hintergrund des Pfades der Reformen der Agrarpolitik und der gegenwärtige Debatte um die 'Finanzialisierung' der Agrarmärkte ist es zunehmend Aufgabe der Politik die Funktionsfähigkeit der Märkten (sowohl physische als auch Warenterminmärkte) zu stärken. Wesentliche Beiträge sind in der Erhöhung der Markttransparenz auf den Finanzmärkten und der Gewährleistung von Marktinformation auf den physischen Märkten zu sehen. ; In this paper, the development of price volatility on German agricultural markets is analyzed. The goal is to quantify the degree of price volatility for selected German agricultural markets and determine how it evolutes over time. Where possible a comparison between the developments in national and international product markets is established. In this context, questions are: – Was there an increase in price volatility? – Did it came from the world markets? – What is the impact of price volatility on the market players? – What role do the instruments of agricultural policy play and what tools are available to limit the adverse consequences of volatility for agriculture? The results of the analysis shows that price volatility on the investigated German agricultural markets increased along the last 40 years. This stays in contrast to the trend of volatility in world markets. This development is still reasonable, since Germany has participated as a member of the EU in the reform process of the CAP, whose ultimate goal is to open the markets of the EU the world market. The withdrawal of the policy during the reforms of the CAP in the EU and in Germany to increase the exchange of price signals between the EU's internal markets and the global market. During this process, the increased price volatility in European markets. An increased level of price volatility leads to increased market uncertainty and has the effect that the investment-based innovation processes is interrupted or occurs only haltingly. All in all the German and European operators in the agricultural sector are amid a change in relation to risk minimization strategies. The strategies based on state intervention turn into the background, while those based on entrepreneurship, skill-based, and prevention oriented come to the fore. Against the background of the path of reform of agricultural policy and the current debate on the 'financialisation' of agricultural markets, it is increasingly a mission of the policy, to assure the functioning and strength of markets (both physical and futures market). Major contributions are seen in measures that increase transparency in financial markets and that guarantee broad market information on the physical markets.

In this work, I study the impact of high-frequency trading (HFT) on price discovery and volatility in the Bund futures market. Using a new dataset based on microseconds, the focus of the study is on the reaction of high-frequency traders (HFTs) to major macroeconomic news events. I show that through their fast and strong reaction to news, HFTs contribute more to price discovery compared to Non-HFTs, but also add a higher share to noise than to permanent volatility. Moreover, I find evidence that HFTs tend to supply less liquidity after an unexpected rise in market volatility and prior to upcoming macroeconomic news events. These findings suggest that in times of high market stress, HFT behavior may exacerbate intraday price volatility and amplify the risk of market disruptions in fixed income markets.

"Wage setters take into account the future consequences of their current wage choices in the presence of downward nominal wage rigidities. Several interesting implications arise. First, nominal wages tend to be endogenously rigid also upward, at low inflation. Second, a closed-form solution for a long run Phillips curve relates average unemployment to average wage inflation; the curve is virtually vertical for high inflation rates but becomes flatter as inflation declines. Third, macroeconomic volatility shifts the Phillips curve outward, implying that stabilization policies can play an important role in shaping the trade-off. Fourth, when inflation decreases, volatility of unemployment increases whereas the volatility of inflation decreases: this implies a long-run trade-off also between the volatility of unemployment and that of wage inflation"--National Bureau of Economic Research web site

In this thesis I study the investment climate in the four rapidly growing emerging economies Brazil, Russia, India and China (BRIC). The first study, Chapter 2, uses a bivariate EGARCH methodology with time varying conditional correlation to study the global and regional integration of the BRICs and to identify the existence of diversification opportunities for international investors. The second study, Chapter 3, employs a restricted version of the model to explore the relationship between equity market returns and volatility of equity returns in the BRIC countries and global oil prices. Chapter 4 is an extension of Chapter 3, and focuses on the sustainability of Russia's economic growth in view of its large dependence on oil income. A qualitative analysis of the oil industry in Russia, including an overview of the operations of the largest oil producing companies, government regulations, oil production and proven oil reserves, is conducted for the purpose of this study. The last study, Chapter 5, uses a panel data methodology to explore the determinants of changes in sovereign bond spreads for the BRICs as an asset class and for each of the BRIC countries individually. I conclude that the regional and global level of integration of the BRICs is relatively low, and portfolio investors can enjoy sound diversification benefits particularly by taking investment positions in the Indian and Chinese equity markets. Despite the aggressive economic growth of the BRICs and their increased oil consumption, the volatility of stock returns from the BRICs does not have a significant impact on global oil prices; however, oil prices do impact the volatility of equity returns in India and China, and particularly the level of returns and volatility of equity returns in Russia. Based on this and the qualitative analysis in Chapter 4, it is concluded that in the short to medium term Russia's continued economic growth will depend on increased reinvestment in the oil industry and in the longer term the government should diversify ...

ABSTRACTThe stability of Okun's law coefficient in the United States from 1949 to 2015 is examined using a regression with GARCH errors in order to capture the volatility of the series. Rolling estimations suggest that taking the volatility of the series into account yields more stable results compared to the simple OLS estimation, irrespective of the specification (gap or growth model), the data frequency (monthly or quarterly), or the length of the rolling window. The results also suggest that the persistence of shocks became much more important in explaining contemporaneous volatility when data from the recent global financial crisis were incorporated. In contrast, the feedthrough of output shocks in next period's output volatility was more important in the past, and especially during the 1970s stagflation period, but has been declining since.

We present evidence on the changing dynamics of the yield curve from 1998 to 2011. We identify four different phases. As expected, the financial crisis represents a period of elevated yield volatility, but it can be split into two distinct periods. The split occurs when the Federal Reserve reached the zero lower bound. This bound suppressed volatility in the short end of the yield curve while increasing volatility in the long end — despite lower overall volatility in financial markets. In line with previous studies, we find that announcements with regard to the Federal Reserve's large scale asset purchases reduce longer term yields. We also quantify the effect of widely observed economic news, such as the non-farm payrolls and other items, on the yield curve.

This paper examines (1) whether revenue diversification leads to greater instability as represented by revenue volatility, and (2) whether revenue complexity produces fiscal illusion as represented by increased public expenditures. These questions are answered by analyzing panel data on municipal governments between 1970 and 2002. The findings suggest that fiscal illusion does not occur among municipal governments, but revenue diversification does influence levels of volatility. However, the way in which municipalities diversify is important for achieving revenue stability. When diversification is considered in isolation, both tax and nontax diversification reduce revenue volatility. When diversification and complexity are considered simultaneously, the statistical effect of nontax diversification disappears. But, when a tax revenue structure is both diversified and complex, the likely outcome is greater revenue volatility rather than stability.

AbstractThe increases in volatility after stock splits have long puzzled researchers. The usual suspects of discreteness and bid‐ask spread do not provide a complete explanation. We provide new clues to solve this mystery by examining the trading of when‐issued shares that are available before the split. When‐issued trading permits noise traders to compete with a more homogenous set of traders, decreasing the volatility of the stock before the split. Following the split, these noise traders reunite in one market and volatility increases. Thus, the higher volatility after the ex date of a stock split is a function of the introduction of when‐issued trading, the new lower price level after the split date, and the increased activity of small‐volume traders around a stock split.

AbstractWe compare trade size clustering of morning, afternoon, and after‐hours trades in both the E‐mini S&P 500 and E‐mini NASDAQ‐100 futures markets. Morning and afternoon volatility is higher than after‐hours volatility. Morning and afternoon trades cluster more at round sizes than do after‐hours trades, and morning and afternoon trades cluster more on days with macroeconomic announcements than without announcements. Taken together, our results are consistent with the prior literature that trade size clustering increases with volatility.