There is a large volume of literature documenting the analysis of spatial market integration based on individual commodity prices. This paper, instead, contributes to the literature by delineating the existence of spatial market integration using intra-regional price indices. In this context, we use monthly price indices for Kathmandu valley, Hill and the Terai region, which are the only available spatial indices in Nepal. Employing Johansens' bi-variate cointegrating approach for the period from August 1995 to December 2010, we found a strong proposition of Law of One Price (LOP) across the region indicating the fact that spatial markets are highly integrated albeit speed of adjustment is rather slow. This may be due to the existence of oligopolistic pricing behaviour, carteling, asymmetric market information, and syndicate in the transportation system as discussed in various literatures.
This paper attempts to identify appropriate methods for government revenues forecasting based on time series forecasting. I have utilized level data of monthly revenue series including 192 observations starting from 1997 to 2012 for the analysis. Among the five competitive methods under scrutiny, Winter method and Seasonal ARIMA method are found in tracking the actual Data Generating Process (DGP) of monthly revenue series of the government of Nepal. Out of two selected methods, seasonal ARIMA method albeit superior in terms of minimum MPE and MAPE criteria. However, the results of forecasted revenues in this paper may vary depending on the application of more sophisticated methods of forecasting which capture cyclical components of the revenue series. The prevailing forecasting method based particularly on growth rate method extended with discretionary adjustment of a number of updated assumptions and personal judgment can create uncertainty in revenue forecasting practice. Therefore, the methods recommended here in this paper help in reducing forecasting error of the government revenue in Nepal.
This paper attempts to investigate the stability of time-varying parameters of the random walk model of inflation in Nepal. This study has been motivated with the Lucas Critique (1976) that the monetary/fiscal policy that is exposed to change over time affect the expectations of forward looking economic agents which hence lead to non-constant time-varying parameters of the model. Monthly time series of inflation ranging from August, 1997 to July, 2012 has been utilized for the analysis. Applying the Kalman Filter technique for the estimation of coefficients of random walk model, we found non-constant time varying parameters of both the constant and autoregressive of order one AR(1) coefficient of inflation over the long run. The changes in the expectations of rational economic agents on macroeconomic policies as a result of the problems of policy commitment, credibility and dynamic consistency might have attributed such non-constant timevarying parameters. Therefore, in addition to supply smoothing policies to control inflation in Nepal, consistent and credible policies that are not exposed to change over time may reduce the gap of actual inflation from its targets and hence trigger inflation into desired level.
This paper examines discretionary fiscal policy response to the business cycle of Nepal using annual time series ranging from 1975 to 2013. The Cyclically Adjusted Balance (CAB) of overall budget balance is utilized as a measure of discretionary fiscal actions and the output gap a measures of business cycles. Graphical depiction of the CAB accompanied with the output gap shows that the government of Nepal has been pursuing counter-cyclical fiscal policy in the post liberalization period and pro-cyclical in the pre-liberalization period. In line with the recent empirical finding that only counter-cyclical fiscal policy is capable in performing stabilization function, this paper found that the fiscal stimulus of the government of Nepal has also been adding aggregate demand during downturns (bad time) and withdrawing demand during upturns (good time) as envisaged by counter-cyclical discretionary fiscal policy. The counter-cyclicality as such is strong during 2000s whereas there is mild pro-cyclicality during the period 2011-13. For computing CAB, this paper assumes unitary elasticity of revenue with respect to output gap and zero expenditure elasticity with respect to output gap. The output gap has been estimated based on the trend component of the GDP using Kalman filter method. Factors like stronger institutions and sound macroeconomic policies might overcome recent pro-cyclicality of Nepal and allows room for counter-cyclical fiscal policy in the future. Similarly, the phenomenon of high fluctuations in the fiscal impulse over time indicates uncertain and inconsistent fiscal stance of the government. It demands for focus more on automatic stabilizers rather than more discretionary fiscal actions by broadening tax bases and social safety nets.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.
hi@scite.ai
10624 S. Eastern Ave., Ste. A-614
Henderson, NV 89052, USA
Copyright © 2024 scite LLC. All rights reserved.
Made with 💙 for researchers
Part of the Research Solutions Family.