Dr Dimitrios Asteriou

We examine whether the stock return performance of 620 Eurozone companies based on their ESG ratings both before and during the Covid-19 pandemic on both a nominal and risk adjusted basis. We also look at how country level governance indicators interact with our samples of ESGHigh and ESGLow companies to affect both nominal and risk adjusted investment returns. We use both panel data and cross-sectional regressions as well as the difference-in-differences approach to derive the empirical results. We generally find some evidence that highly rated ESG firms performed slightly worse than lower rated ESG both overall and during the pandemic. However, once we control for governance at the country level, we find that in high governance scoring countries ESGHigh companies perform better than ESGLow companies. Finally, when we examine the relative performance of EU companies compared to companies in economies less impacted by the Covid-19 pandemic, namely South Korea and Australia, we find that during the pandemic, the South Korean and Australian companies performed much better than their counterparts in Europe.

The aim of this paper is to explain the growth disparity between the four major emerging economies that are widely known with the acronym BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India, and China) and the non-BRIC countries. There is ample evidence in the literature that FDI is growth enhancing, however there is little discussion whether FDI is the main driving factor of growth disparities between different countries. We utilise a balanced panel dataset for the BRICs and 50 other developing economies from 1980 to 2020. Our findings advocate that foreign direct investments, gross capital formation, human capital, and infrastructure are particularly important for economic growth. However, foreign direct investments, gross capital formation and human capital are observed to be more efficacious in BRICs. Also, the relative significance of foreign direct investments seems to be conditional on the presence of better-quality human capital and higher levels of domestic investments in BRICs, thus explaining the growth disparities.

This article empirically explores the finance-growth relationship and the performance of the financial system measured by financial depth, accessibility, and efficiency of both financial sectors, that is, institutions and stock markets. It also examines the role of fiscal policy in conjunction with the performance of financial development during both normal and stress times. The data consists of a panel of 26 European Union countries over the period 1990–2020. The results show that during normal times, the finance-led growth relationship and the stock market are greatly important, while during stress times the relationship becomes insignificant. Interestingly, financial institutions are found to be more effective at promoting growth and there is clear evidence that a potentially dynamic positive effect of institutions to growth is absorbed by macroeconomic shocks. In addition, there is evidence for a threshold at a lower level compared to those previously identified in the literature. This latter finding can be attributed to different measures of financial institutions used and the impact of macroeconomic shocks. The inability of both financial sectors to enhance economic activity seems to exhibit persistence from the occurrence of the global financial crisis until the onset of the recent Covid-19 pandemic.

This paper investigates how the credit to private sector affects the impact of household debt on economic growth in 25 European Union countries over the period 1995-2018. The findings reveal that the positive effect of household debt on economic growth turns to negative with the onset of the 2008 global financial crisis (GFC) and beyond a certain point at around 58% of GDP, thus suggesting that their relationship is non-linear. Interestingly, the adverse effect subjects to the increased pressure of the credit to private sector when it is above 70%, and the pressure becomes even higher when the ratio is above 90%.

Purpose - The paper aims to explore the mechanisms linking the impact of financial development on economic growth and focuses on the long-term post-global financial crisis.

 Design/ Methodology/Approach - The study employs panel data for twenty-five European Union countries over the period 1995-2017. Principal Component Analysis is employed to produce two aggregate indices, namely financial banking sector development and stock market sector development. The empirical analysis is based on estimates through the autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) method.

Findings - The results suggest that the outbreak of the crisis has led to a disruption of the positive finance-growth relationship, and the banking sector dominates in this adverse effect. The foreknowledge of the current study is that the linking mechanisms of the negative impact of financial development on economic growth, ten years after the global financial crisis, are household debt, private debt, and non-performing loans for the banking sector, while for the equity market this is the case through savings. Interestingly, the results reveal that unemployment increase excessively the borrowers’ debt level and then the non-performing loans. 

Research Implications - An implication is that the increase of credit supply and any monetary expansion along with lack of regulatory control and monitoring can lead banks to a higher risk exposure through household and private debt as well as non-performing loans. Besides, the higher levels of unemployment rates call attention for the trade-off between prudential regulation on the supply of loans and economic activity, since higher unemployment affect the non-performing loans and, as a consequence discourage the demand, increase precautionary savings, and cancel or postpone investment decisions, thus, affecting the equity market.

Originality/Value – The paper provides useful insights to economists and policymakers who are interested in understanding the weakness of banking and stock market sectors to promote economic growth for a long time after the global financial crisis.

This paper examines the impact of corruption, economic freedom, bank regulation and transparency on bank profitability and bank stability using a sample of 326 banks from the 19 Eurozone countries over the period 2005-2018. We use a balanced panel data set and the Arellano-Bond Generalized Method of Moments dynamic panel estimation procedure. We find that corruption and transparency have a negative effect on bank profitability and bank stability. By contrast, greater economic freedom boosts profitability and banking stability. Our results
show that regulation is positively related to bank profitability and its precise effects on stability depend upon the nature of the regulation. We additionally examine how our results are affected by Governance issues and the addition of 5 other European countries from outside the Eurozone. Our overall results indicate that the impact of the variables of interest is sensitive to the precise measures chosen to calculate profitability and financial stability.

This paper investigates the lending behavior of banks with different ownership types (domestic‐private, foreign, and government‐owned) during normal and financial crisis periods. Using panel data for the period 2004–2013, our results indicate that the 2008–2009 crisis caused a negative shock to banking sector loan growth rates which was considerably higher during 2008 compared to 2009. Although loan supply decreased during the crisis, there were differences under different ownership types and between high and upper‐middle income countries. Our findings suggest that consumer and retail loans declined significantly more in high income economies compared to upper‐middle income countries. Further, in upper‐middle income economies, the reduction in consumer and retail loans in 2009 was higher under foreign bank ownership in comparison to domestic‐private bank ownership. Overall, the results indicate that the lending behavior of banks with different types of ownership is significantly different in upper middle income countries compared to high‐income countries.

We build four different dynamic stochastic general equilibrium (DSGE) models for a small open economy reflecting both neoclassical and Keynesian specifications. A DSGE model with full price and wage flexibility is initially constructed and then modified through nominal wage and price rigidities. The ability of the models to replicate important features of the business cycle activity in the UK is explored through statistical and econometric analysis. Evidence suggests that a monetary shock under the Taylor model with price stickiness can replicate a significant portion of the business cycle activity in the UK economy.

The first contribution we make to research on measuring U.S. mutual fund performance is to show
that the cross-section bootstrap procedure used in one prominent publication on this topic can easily accommodate conditional asset pricing models. Using this result, we reestimate US fund performance using the conditional asset pricing model of Ferson and Schadt (1996) for the period of time covering January 1984 to September 2006, the same period of time used in this prominent publication. Unlike most of the current research on the performance of U.S. mutual funds, including the latter research, the estimates of fund performance produced here suggest that some funds, on a net return basis, performed very well over this period. Our second contribution is to update the U.S. mutual fund data to the end of 2018 and then to re-estimate fund performance over this longer period of time. These results show that fund performance, on a net return basis, is poor, confirming the findings of previous research that used data ending before 2018. The third contribution is to provide a detailed guide on how the mutual fund data widely used in this literature is constructed. Until now much of the information required to do this has not been made widely available. Our last contribution is to make some policy recommendations that should better align fund manager incentives with the interests of investors, an alignment which current practices have hindered.

In this paper, a game-theoretic framework is proposed to address the problem of fraud deterrence and detection taking into consideration fundamental principles and threats that may affect the performance of an audit process. Based on evidence from social psychology and on the outcomes of statistical sampling theory on audit quality, a mathematical model based on game theory is proposed providing reasonable assurance that the financial statements as a whole are free from material misstatements. It is proven that the auditing/fraud detection game between two new engagement parties has a unique mixed strategy equilibrium, between an experienced auditor and a client has a unique pure strategy equilibrium, whereas in the long-run the game converges to a pure strategy equilibrium that is governed by sympathy. Furthermore, a closed form solution to the optimal auditor’s replacement problem is extracted. The validity of the proposed scheme is tested on empirical data and modeling results comply with the International Federation Accountants Code of Ethics that requires the key audit partner to be rotated after a predefined period.

This paper examines the impact of the financial crisis and economic recessions on bank shares compared to the overall stock market index for 18 OECD countries from 1993 to 2015. The empirical methodology utilizes the changes-in-changes approach. We compare and contrast the returns of the banking stock price index (treatment group) in each country with their general stock price index (control group), which experiences smaller changes. Our results suggest that bank returns on average perform significantly worse than that of the general stock price index during recessions. In addition we also find significantly greater volatility in bank share returns.

This paper aims to examine the relationship between financial development and economic growth on the face of the recent financial crisis, using a panel dataset of 26 European Union countries over the period 1990-2016. The empirical approach uses multiplicative dummies to compare two distinct sub-periods before/after the crisis. The results show that before crisis, financial development promoted economic growth, while after the crisis it hindered economic activity. Also, the findings suggest that during the years 2008 and 2009 the capital adequacy of banks protected depositors and promoted the stability of the financial system.

The aim of this paper is to empirically explore the relationship between energy demand and real Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth and to investigate the role of regional externalities on per capita Final Energy Consumption (FEC) in 34 countries during the period from 2005 to 2013. The paper utilizes a Dynamic Panel Generalized Method of Moments (DPGGM) approach in order to analyse the effect of real GDP growth rate on FEC through an Error Correction Model (ECM) and spatial econometric techniques in order to examine clustered patterns of energy consumption. The results show that a) the demand is elastic both in the industrial and the household/services sectors, b) electricity and natural gas are demand substitutes, c) the relationship between real GDP growth rate and per capita energy consumption exhibits an inverted U-shape for all the sample countries under scrutiny (34 countries, Eurozone and EU28), but not for all the employed sectors of the economy, d) price (electricity and gas) and GDP growth asymmetries are supported from the employed parametric tests, and, e) distance does not affect per capita FEC, but economic neighbours have a strong positive effect.

This study investigates the real estate stock market in Portugal, Italy, Ireland, Greece and Spain from the introduction of the REIT legislation in each country until April 2014. We examine their descriptive statistics and we use various GARCH and asymmetric EGARCH models to their daily returns. The results suggest that the general index of each stock market has a significant impact on real estate stock returns except of the Italian BNS REIT and the Irish GREEN REIT. Except Greece, the general indices tend to report lower standard deviations than the REIT companies. The asymmetry of the volatility response to news seems to be present due to the fact that Italian IGD and BNS, Irish HIBERNIA, Spanish AXIA, MERLIN and PROMORENT along with the Greek Grivalia and TRASTOR report asymmetric transition dynamics for positive and negative shocks.