Naser Yenus Nuru and Hayelom Yrgaw Gereziher
The main purpose of this study is to investigate the short-run and long-run asymmetric effects of fiscal policy, namely government spending on economic growth over the sample…
Abstract
Purpose
The main purpose of this study is to investigate the short-run and long-run asymmetric effects of fiscal policy, namely government spending on economic growth over the sample period 2004Q2 up to 2018Q1 for the South African economy.
Design/methodology/approach
Nonlinear autoregressive distributive lag model is used to examine the short-run and long-run asymmetric effects of government spending on economic growth.
Findings
The results exhibit the negative change effect of government spending is found to be greater than the positive change effect of government spending on economic growth. Real effective exchange rate is found to have a positive and significant effect on economic growth both in the short run and long run. Whereas, inflation rate affects economic growth negatively and significantly in the short run and long run.
Originality/value
Previous empirical studies on the effect of fiscal policy on growth, at least for South Africa, consider only the asymmetric short-run effect while this paper extends the literature by incorporating asymmetries into the long-run effect. It provides a detailed analysis to the recent controversies on the effects of fiscal policy on growth.
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Naser Yenus Nuru and Hayelom Yrgaw Gereziher
The main purpose of this study is to investigate the symmetric and asymmetric effects of exchange rate uncertainty on employment in South Africa’s manufacturing sector over the…
Abstract
Purpose
The main purpose of this study is to investigate the symmetric and asymmetric effects of exchange rate uncertainty on employment in South Africa’s manufacturing sector over the period 1985Q1–2019Q2.
Design/methodology/approach
Jorda’s (2005) local projection method is employed and following Koop et al. (1996); generalized impulse response functions are generated to see the effect of exchange rate uncertainty on employment in South Africa’s manufacturing sector.
Findings
The results show that exchange rate uncertainty affects negatively and significantly employment in South Africa’s manufacturing sector. Employment also responds negatively and significantly to export shock. Inflation and output shocks, however, positively and significantly affect employment on impact. Asymmetric responses of employment to exchange rate uncertainty are also found in this study. While high exchange rate uncertainty leads to a reduction in employment, low exchange rate uncertainty brings an increase in employment in South Africa’s manufacturing sector.
Originality/value
This research adds to the scarce empirical literature on the effect of exchange rate uncertainty on employment in South Africa’s manufacturing sector by incorporating mainly non-linearities into the model.
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Naser Yenus Nuru and Hayelom Yrgaw Gereziher
The main purpose of this study is to examine the effect of commodity price shock on the Ethiopian economy for the sample period of 1991 Q1–2016 Q1.
Abstract
Purpose
The main purpose of this study is to examine the effect of commodity price shock on the Ethiopian economy for the sample period of 1991 Q1–2016 Q1.
Design/methodology/approach
The effect of commodity price shock is analyzed using Jorda's (2005) local projection method. The shock is, however, identified by applying short-run contemporaneous restrictions in a vector autoregressive model based on Cholesky decomposition.
Findings
The results signify that output is positively affected by the shock to the commodity price. In addition, domestic consumer price responds positively and significantly to world commodity price shock after the first quarter. The commodity price shock has also a positive effect, on impact, on money supply. Foreign exchange reserve increases significantly from the fourth quarter onwards and real effective exchange rate appreciates on impact, though insignificantly, in response to the increase in commodity price.
Originality/value
This paper adds to the limited available literature on the effect of commodity price shock for developing countries in general and the Ethiopian economy in particular.
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Hayelom Yrgaw Gereziher and Naser Yenus Nuru
The purpose of this paper is to estimate the size of government spending components’ multipliers for the Ethiopian economy over the sample period of 2001Q1 up to 2017Q4.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to estimate the size of government spending components’ multipliers for the Ethiopian economy over the sample period of 2001Q1 up to 2017Q4.
Design/methodology/approach
The effects of government spending are analyzed by applying short-run contemporaneous restrictions for the identification of shocks in an SVAR in order to estimate multipliers for the small open economy. Accordingly, recursive identification scheme is used in this study.
Findings
From the impulse response functions, the authors found that aggregate government spending is less effective in stimulating the economy for the study period as evidenced by almost zero multipliers. This can be due to many structural and conjunctural factors that tend to lower the multiplier effects. At a disaggregate level, real GDP responds negatively to capital spending while its effect on recurrent spending is positive and insignificant on impact. The variation to real GDP is best explained by the variation in capital spending as compared to recurrent spending.
Originality/value
Though almost none in number, little research has been conducted in Ethiopia related to the effect of government spending shock on output. But this research deviates from the previous study by introducing a new methodology which is SVAR with cholesky decomposition. The previous study, however, used Bayesian VAR. Besides to that, using cholesky identification scheme, government spending is decomposed in to recurrent and capital spending to see the effect of government spending components on output and government spending multipliers are also computed both at an aggregate and disaggregate level.
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Hayelom Yrgaw Gereziher and Naser Yenus Nuru
The main purpose of this study is to investigate the determinants of foreign exchange reserve accumulation in a foreign exchange constrained economy, namely Ethiopia, over the…
Abstract
Purpose
The main purpose of this study is to investigate the determinants of foreign exchange reserve accumulation in a foreign exchange constrained economy, namely Ethiopia, over the period of 1981 up to 2017.
Design/methodology/approach
In this study, autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) model is used. Besides, standard unit-root tests such as augmented Dickey Fuller (ADF) and Phillips–Perron (PP) tests are employed to check for the stationarity of the series.
Findings
According to the results of unit-root tests, our variables are found to be a mixture of I(0) and I(1), and none of our series is I(2). The results of our ARDL model indicates, in the short run, foreign exchange reserve accumulation of Ethiopia is negatively and significantly affected by inflation rate and exchange rate. But, in the long run, inflation rate affects foreign exchange reserve positively and significantly. Additionally, in the long run, external debt affects foreign exchange reserve positively. Similar to its effect in the short run, exchange rate also affects foreign exchange reserve negatively in the long run.
Originality/value
This paper has its originality as it contributes in reasoning out the factors determining, both in the short-run and long-run, foreign exchange deficiency in any developing country with foreign exchange deficiency, taking Ethiopian economy as a case study, and fills the scarce literature on the determinants of foreign exchange reserve accumulation in a developing country.
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Hayelom Yrgaw Gereziher and Naser Yenus Nuru
This paper aims to examine the asymmetric effects of exchange rate shocks on inflation for a small open economy, namely South Africa, over the period 1970Q1–2020Q1.
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to examine the asymmetric effects of exchange rate shocks on inflation for a small open economy, namely South Africa, over the period 1970Q1–2020Q1.
Design/methodology/approach
A threshold vector autoregressive model that allows parameters to switch according to whether a threshold variable crosses an estimated threshold is employed to address the objective of this paper. The threshold value is determined endogenously using the Hansen (1996) test. Generalized impulse responses introduced by Koop et al. (1996) are used to study the effects of exchange rate shocks on inflation depending on their size, sign and timing to the inflation cycle. The authors also employed a Cholesky decomposition identification scheme to identify exchange rate shocks in the non-linear model.
Findings
The results show that there is a non-linearity effect of the exchange rate shock on inflation. In particular, the effects of 1 or 2 standard deviations of positive (appreciation) or negative (depreciation) exchange rate shock on inflation are small in the long run but a bit larger in the high inflation regime than the low inflation regime.
Originality/value
This paper contributes to the literature on the non-linear effects of exchange rate pass-through (ERPT) to inflation for Sub-Saharan African economies in general and the South African economy in particular by incorporating the size and timing of the exchange rate shocks to the inflation cycle.