AUT School of Economics

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https://hdl.handle.net/10292/10766
The AUT School of Economics has an established record and an on-going commitment to excellent research, high-quality supervision, and community and professional engagement. Members of the School sit on editorial boards and serve as referees for professional journals. The school has particular research strength in; Micro and macroeconomics, Econometrics, Industrial organisation, International trade and finance, Natural resource and environmental economics, Labour economics, Economic development, Health economics, and Public policy.

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Now showing 1 - 5 of 46
  • Item
    The Potential Impact of Tariff Liberalisation on India’s Automobile Industry GVC Trade: Evidence from an Economy-Wide Model
    (SAGE Publications, 2023-07-19) Narayanan, Badri G; Sen, Rahul; Srivastava, Sadhana
    The impact of tariff barriers affecting participation in global value chain (GVC) trade has received attention in recent literature. However, the empirical evidence in the context of mega-regional trade agreements, such as the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP), from which India opted out recently, remains non-existent. Our study contributes to the empirical literature by undertaking an economy-wide modelling exercise, augmenting it to the automobile sector trade in GVC goods in the Indian context. We conduct two policy simulations with an aim to analyse how India’s auto-industry and auto-parts trade, involving forward and backward linkages in GVCs, have been affected by its decision to opt out of RCEP compared to a hypothetical scenario of not doing so. Our results suggest that a potential RCEP membership would have created net trade in both the finished automobile and intermediate auto-parts sectors, although imports would exceed exports. Further, we infer that both backward linkages and forward linkages in this industry will be adversely affected by opting out of RCEP, as there is export diversion in the auto-parts sectors globally, with India facing terms of trade losses due to higher import prices. This informs policymakers that developing domestic resilience and improving productivity are critical for India to improve its long-run export competitiveness while contemplating future trade agreements, including those with RCEP members. JEL Codes: F15, F61, O53.
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    The Effect of Late Payment Penalties on the Payment Timing of Owed Taxes
    (Elsevier BV, 2023-06) Skov, Peer Ebbesen
    This paper studies the effectiveness of a policy designed to influence the timing decision for payments of owed taxes. Owed taxes arise when the sum of the foregoing tax year’s preliminary tax payments falls short of the total tax liability. In 2009 the Danish tax authority (SKAT) introduced an annualised penalty rate of 4.6%. Using administrative tax data, I show that the penalty rate introduction led to a 50-day advancement of payments.
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    Monetary Policy, Investment and Firm Heterogeneity
    (Elsevier, 2022-09-01) Vermeulen, P; Durante, E; Ferrando, A
    This paper provides new evidence on the channels of monetary policy transmission combining 9 million observations on firm level investment and high-frequency identified monetary policy shocks. We show that the reaction of firms’ investment to a monetary policy shock is heterogeneous along dimensions that correspond to the two main channels of monetary policy transmission. First, we show that young firms are more sensitive to monetary policy shocks and that high leverage amplifies the effects, supporting the existence of a credit channel of monetary policy. Second, we document large cross-sectional heterogeneity related to the industry the firm operates in. We find that firms producing durable goods react more than others, which is consistent with traditional interest rate channel effects of monetary policy. Furthermore, this sectoral effect is longer lived. In line with the demand effects of the interest rate channel, we also provide evidence that sales growth of durables producing firms reacts stronger to a monetary policy shock.
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    Do You Know That I Know That You Know…? Higher-Order Beliefs in Survey Data
    (Oxford University Press (OUP), 2021-01-30) Kumar, S; Coibion, O; Gorodnichenko, Y; Ryngaert, J
    We implement a new survey of firms, focusing on their higher-order macroeconomic expectations. The survey provides a novel set of stylized facts regarding the relationship between first-order and higher-order expectations of economic agents, including how they adjust their beliefs in response to a variety of information treatments. We show how these facts can be used to calibrate key parameters of noisy-information models with infinite regress as well as to test predictions made by this class of models. We also consider a range of extensions to the basic noisy-information model that can potentially better reconcile theory and empirics. Although some extensions like level-k thinking are unsuccessful, incorporating heterogeneous long-run priors can address the empirical shortcomings of the basic noisy-information model.
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    Happiness Lost: Was the Decision to Implement Lockdown the Correct One?
    (University of Pretoria, 2021-04-28)
    Background: Amid the rapid global spread of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), many governments enforced country-wide lockdowns, likely with severe well-being consequences. The actions by governments triggered a debate on whether the costs of a lockdown, economically and in well-being, surpass the benefits perceived from a lower infection rate. Aim: To use the Gross National Happiness index (GNH), derived from Big Data, to investigate the determinants of happiness before and during the first few months of a lockdown in a country as an extreme case, South Africa (a country with low levels of well-being and stringent lockdown regulations). Next, to estimate (1) the probability of being happy during a pandemic year, before and after the implemented lockdown, relative to the mean happiness levels of the previous year, and (2) to utilise simulations to estimate the probability of being happy if there were no lockdown. Setting: This study considers the effect of government-mandated lockdown on happiness in South Africa. Methods: We use Big Data in the forms of Twitter and Google Trends to derive variables and ordinary least squares and ordered probit estimation methods. Results: What contributes to happiness under lockdown, except for COVID-19 cases, are the factors linked to the implemented regulations themselves. If we compare scenarios pre- and post-lockdown, we report a happiness cost of 9%. The simulations indicate that assuming there were no lockdown in 2020, the relative well-being gain is 3%. Conclusion: If policymakers want to increase happiness levels and the probability of achieving the same happiness levels as in 2019, they should consider factors related to the regulations that can increase happiness levels.
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