This paper returns to the issue of whether high budget deficits have had any inflationary consequences in Greece. In a recent paper, Hondroyiannis and Papapetrou (1997) report results denying any direct impact of the deficit on inflation. It is shown here that their evidence lacks weight owing...

The relation between financial market development and the severity of business cycles in the economy of the United Arab Emirates is investigated. No evidence is found of a dampening effect from financial deepening on cyclical fluctuations in the short-run, but strong effects in the long-run....

The study examines empirically whether, and to what extent, equity markets in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) are integrated inter-regionally. According to the official Charter of the GCC, building stronger ties among financial and capital markets of member states is a chief objective of the...

The degree of short- and long-term interreactions between the mortgage and other capital markets in the USA is explored. The study also investigates whether financial market deregulation impacts the underlying interrelations. Theory alone provides little practical guidance on both issues. The...

This paper revisits the issue of the efficiency of the Islamic interest-free banking system. Recently, Yousefi et al. (1997) used a testing methodology proposed in Darrat (1988) and claimed that the evidence does not support interest-free banking in the case of Iran. However, by their own...

It is examined whether the six countries comprising the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) are sufficiently compatible to form a viable economic and financial block in the Gulf region. Despite long and numerous governmental attempts since the mid 1980s, and in spite of public pressures to expedite...

This paper revisits the relationship between government budget deficits and interest rates in Greece. Contrary to the results of Vamvoukas (1997), the evidence I deduce from system estimations of error-correction models consistently denies any causal impact of the deficits on interest rates....