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AbstractThis paper examines the joint impact of infrastructure capital and institutional quality on economic growth using a large panel dataset covering 99 countries and spanning the years 1980–2015. The empirical strategy involves estimating a simple growth model where, in addition to standard controls, infrastructure, institutional quality, and their interaction are included as explanatory variables. Potential endogeneity concerns are addressed by employing generalized method of moments estimators that utilize internal instruments. We find that the interaction terms between infrastructure capital and institutional quality show a positive and significant impact on economic growth. These results are robust to a variety of alternative specifications and institutional quality measures. Hence, our results suggest that maximizing returns from infrastructure capital requires improving the quality of institutions.

Noting that many economic variables display occasional shifts in their second order moments, we investigate the performance of homogenous panel unit root tests in the presence of permanent volatility shifts. It is shown that in this case the test statistic proposed by Herwartz and Siedenburg (2008) is asymptotically standard Gaussian. By means of a simulation study we illustrate the performance of first and second generation panel unit root tests and undertake a more detailed comparison of the test in Herwartz and Siedenburg (2008) and its heteroskedasticity consistent Cauchy counterpart introduced in Demetrescu and Hanck (2012a). As an empirical illustration, we reassess evidence on the Fisher hypothesis with data from nine countries over the period 1961Q2-2011Q2. Empirical evidence supports panel stationarity of the real interest rate for the entire subperiod. With regard to the most recent two decades the test results cast doubts on market integration, since the real interest rate is diagnosed nonstationary. pt

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This paper empirically investigates the role of culture in explaining the frequently reported differences in financial literacy between women and men. Using nationally representative survey data from India, we find that women are significantly less financially literate than men. This gender gap is not observable, however, when we only consider matrilineal states. Moreover, matrilineal women are more financially knowledgeable than patriarchal women. Using the Blinder-Oaxaca decomposition method, we find that education, English language skills and the use of different information sources, such as newspapers and TV, are key transmission channels in explaining differences in financial knowledge between men and women in patriarchal states, and between patriarchal and matrilineal societies.

This paper re-examines the long-run finance-growth nexus in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) using data from 17 countries over the period . We apply error correction-based panel cointegration tests that take into account crosssectional dependence among countries. Our resultsunlike a previous study using the same dataindicate the existence of a long-run relationship between financial and economic development in SSA countries. Moreover, our results clearly show that the long-run causality runs from financial to economic development, although a muted support for the reverse causal impact is observed when financial development is measured by the percentage of liquid liabilities in GDP. The estimated long-run parameters measuring the finance-growth link are positive and statistically significant. Therefore, our results strongly support policies aimed at developing the financial sector in SSA in order to promote long-run economic development.

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Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen:Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden.Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen.Sofern die Verfasser die Dokumente unter Open-Content-Lizenzen (insbesondere CC-Lizenzen) zur Verfügung gestellt haben sollten, gelten abweichend von diesen Nutzungsbedingungen die in der dort genannten Lizenz gewährten Nutzungsrechte. Simulation results reveal that the test tends to be conservative but shows remarkable power in finite samples. Terms of use: Documents in EconStor mayJEL Classification: C23, C12, Q40.