The primary objective of this paper is to investigate the interaction of formal and informal financial markets and their impact on economic activity in quasi-emerging market economies. Using a four-sector dynamic stochastic general equilibrium model with asymmetric information in the formal...

This paper develops a model positing a nonlinear relationship between pub- lic investment and growth. The model is then applied to a panel of African countries using nonlinear estimating procedures. The growth-maximizing level of public investment is estimated at about 10 percent of GDP based on...

We test the inertial properties of South African inflation in a Markov-Switching autoregressive fractionally integrated moving average model. This allows us to test for long memory and study the persistence of inflation in multiple regimes. We show that inflation is more volatile and persistent...

We try and detect whether there exists a threshold level of inflation for the US economy over 1801-2013, beyond which it has a negative effect on economic growth. We use a combination of nonparametric (NP) and instrumental variable semiparametric (SNP-IV) methods to obtain inflation thresholds...

Conventional models of social status purport a positive infl ation-growth relationship, and attribute this empirical contradiction to the presence of a consumer's desire for social status. These models are dominated by a substitution effect of money holdings for capital holdings, as an increase...

This paper re-examines the stochastic properties of US State real per capita personal income, using new panel unit-root procedures. The new developments incorporate non-linearity, asymmetry, and cross-sectional correlation within panel data estimation. Including nonlinearity and asymmetry finds...

We combine new developments in decision theory with a standard consumption-based asset-pricing framework. In our model the efficient market hypothesis is violated if and only if agents' beliefs express ambiguity about the stochastic process driving economic fundamentals. Asset price fluctuations...

Why do people choose bank deposit contracts over a direct participation in asset markets? In their seminal paper, Diamond and Dybvig (1983) answer this question by claiming that bank deposit contracts can implement allocations that are welfare superior to asset markets equilibria. The present...

This paper develops and estimates an open economy dynamic stochastic general equilibrium model of South Africa. We devote special attention to the impact of stock price wealth effects on output and the interest rate. For this reason we adopt a perpetual youth approach, which allows for a limited...

This paper investigates causality between oil prices and the prices of agricultural commodities in South Africa. We use daily data covering the period April 19, 2005 to July 31, 2014 for oil prices and the prices of soya beans, wheat, sunflower and corn. The test for Granger causality in...