We analyze the performance of the Maastricht convergence criteria (inflation, long-term interest rate, annual and overall public debt to GDP) of the European Monetary Union (EMU) that led to the introduction of the Euro on Jan. 1st 1999 as book currency. For our analysis we define 3 regimes: a)...

This study sheds new light on the question of whether or not sentiment surveys, and the expectations derived from them, are relevant to forecasting economic growth and stock returns, and whether they contain information that is orthogonal to macroeconomic and financial data. I examine 16...

We utilize non-linear models to examine the stationarity of oil prices (Brent, Dubai, WIT and World) over the period 1973:2-2011:2. Real oil prices are calculated and expressed in the domestic currencies of seven Asian countries (Indonesia, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore and...

In 1973-1974, the U.S. faced the so-called “Energy Crisis” due to the Arab oil embargo and a quadrupling of world crude oil prices by OPEC. This led the U.S. to use a” Price Control” policy in the domestic energy market. The effects of such policy are explored and well documented....

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...

This work discusses potential pitfalls of applying linear regression models to explaining the relationship between spot and futures prices in electricity markets. We briefly introduce the theory for the analysis of the spot-futures price relationship and highlight selected issues of multiple...

This paper investigates the relationship between intra-industry trade (IIT) and immigration flows using a gravity model for the period 2000-2010 between Portugal and European Union’s Member States (EU-27). The present study uses the methodology of Kandogan (2003) for separating IIT into its...

Under the hypotheses IA and IB, OLS estimators are both linear and stationary. For it to provide the same minimum variance of all linear and stationary estimators and to take part of BLUE, it is necessary that the classical assumptions IIB and IIC should be available. As in the case of...

The macroeconomic indicators concern both the flows that are not fully or partially compensated over a time interval, which can be cumulated or integrated, and the stocks or funds identified in a particular moment. These indicators are addressed either as free real and nominal indicators, or as...

This paper aims to assess the operational efficiencies and technology gaps in hotel and guesthouse business in Thailand. The study classified the hotels and guesthouse into five groups with distinctive levels of operational technologies. A meta-frontier analysis is applied to evaluate the...