Global Economy Journal

This paper employs a multivariate constant conditional correlation (CCC) GARCH model and the VAR-AGARCH model to examine whether the U.S. equity and money market have a volatility spillover effect on the returns of the most important agricultural export products of Latin America over the turbulent 2005–2016 period. These results indicate the strengthening of crossmarket linkages between U.S. equity and money market and agricultural raw material commodities (notably sugar and soy) during the period of an upward trend and financial turmoil.

In this paper we study the natural resource curse by analyzing the cross-regional sample from Kazakhstan. Our focus is to understand if the institutional quality within the country explains the resource curse. Using the data for 14 regions in Kazakhstan between 2000 and 2010 and employing various panel data approaches, we find that the institutional quality is not a determinant of the resource curse as institution changes very slowly within the country over time. This statement surely contradicts with previous resource curse literatures that utilized cross-country sample counting the fact that institutions vary across countries. Instead here, we argue that the resource curse within the country arises as a result of commodity price volatility.

The twenty-first century is characterised by major shifts in the global economic paradigms. Europe constantly diminishes its importance in the world slowly drifting towards the secondary roles in determining the progress of human civilisation. The European Union as the main integrational structure on the continent is set to offer Europe a global perspective and consolidate the member countries’ common influence in international relations. Several enlargement waves were undertaken comprising countries of different economic development level. The main mechanism of the European Union in enhancing the economic cohesion among the member states is the Regional policy. The largest portion of financing is allocated towards enhancing the economic potential of least developed EU regions. Considering this fact, the present research is set to analyse the inter-regional development discrepancies in the Eastern European countries i.  e. Poland, Hungary, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Romania and Bulgaria in the context of raising global competition and to identify the key economic growth determinants of the nations. The results underline that there is a strong necessity to empower the prerogatives of the EU to increase its ability to decide the issues related to discrepancies reduction, infrastructure investments and improvement of the regional business opportunities.

The relationships between globalization, foreign direct investment (FDI), and exports (trade) have been the subject of in-depth studies leading to mixed and inconclusive results. This study investigates how globalization and FDI influence and affect export, as well as the responsiveness of exports to globalization shocks in the West African ECOWAS region over the period 1980–2014. To investigate these phenomena, the study uses Panel VAR, cointegration methods and long-run estimation methods to estimate the short-run, cointegration and long-run relationships, as well as the responsiveness of export shocks due to economic globalization and FDI. The Panel VAR and Granger causality test results showed that there is a positive and significant effect as well as a causal relationship between economic globalization, non-export GDP, and short-term exports. Further, the study also shows that there is no significant effect and no causal relationship between FDI and exports in the short-run, but, FDI has a positive and significant relationship with export in the long-run in the ECOWAS region. The cointegration and long-run analysis showed the existence of cointegration and a long-run relationship between exports and the regressors included in this study.

Does inflation affect economic growth in Botswana over the short-run and long-run? In applying bounds procedure for modelling ARDL cointegation effects applied to empirical data collected between 1975 and 2016 we find that this hypothesis does not hold true for Botswana as inflation is found to be insignificantly related with economic growth over both the short and long-run. Our growth equation estimates point to exports (positive), government size (negative) and an Pula/Dollar exchange rate (negative) as being significantly correlated with steady-state GDP growth. Further empirical exercises show that an appreciated Pula/dollar exchange rate increases inflation whilst bearing no effect on economic growth. Conversely, a depreciated Pula/Dollar exchange simultaneously decreases inflation and economic growth for the Botswana economy. Policymakers should be this aware that attainment of lower inflation rates which occurs through a depreciated Pula/Dollar currency will only retard economic growth.