Traditional demonstration of price fluctuation in the wheat market, by the theory of supply and demand is not comprehensive enough. With limited understanding of macroeconomic effects on the wheat market, accurate prediction of wheat price is impossible. Given the Chinese self—sustainable food policy, grain imports is a sensitive topic which may incur fierce argument. In this paper, however, I emphasize effect of exchange rate on nominal wheat price. By application of the cointegration theory, CPI shows slight negative correlation with nominal wheat price, yet GDP and population move in the same direction as the wheat price. The cointegration study of exchange rate implies, with appreciating Chinese RMB, domestic buyers incline to purchase wheat from the cheaper foreign market. According to the Granger causality test, the whole package of variables suggests significant causal relation with the wheat price.

This research paper investigates the causality issue between economic growth rate (GDP) and Information and Communication Technology (ICT) investment in Sweden by applying modern time series techniques. It mainly covers time series analyses of 30 years of Sweden data (1980-2009). During that period, development in Information and communication technology (ICT) infrastructure of Sweden was an evolutionary process based on innovation and technological knowledge. Telecommunication revolution which occurred and developed on the basic idea that economic change can be explained as co-evolution of technologies, institutions and development blocks (such as investment). The other way of describing it as an analysis of a long wave based on telecommunication technological revolution and key factor involved the share of investment in it. Standard tests of Unit roots, Cointegration and Granger Causality tests are presented. The main reason of such study is the assessment of ICT investment influence directly on economic growth. The results provide an interesting aspect that ICT investment share can possibly be a contributing factor to telecommunications infrastructure development but it cannot be as a whole sufficient enough for stimulating economic growth (GDP).It is found that one way causality running from ICT investment to economic growth (GDP) but only at one year lagged values not at other higher lagged values. The lack of long run relationship may be due to the inadequacy in reflecting the full effect of ICT investment in other complementary segments. The other complementary factors of ICT 's infrastructure are quite essential as well in describing economic growth and development level.

Τις τελευταίες δεκαετίες η υψηλή μεταβλητότητα που παρατηρείται στις χρηματοοικονομικές μεταβλητές, έχει δημιουργήσει έντονη την ανάγκη για αποτελεσματική διαχείριση του κινδύνου. Τα παράγωγα χρηματοοικονομικά προϊόντα παρέχουν τα μέσα για αντιστάθμιση του κινδύνου. Προς αυτή την κατεύθυνση έχει κατασκευασθεί ένας δείκτης που αντιπροσωπεύει την τεκμαρτή μεταβλητότητα των παραγώγων χρηματοοικονομικών προϊόντων, ο δείκτης VIX. Σκοπός της εργασίας είναι η διερεύνηση της σχέσης του δείκτη VIX με την αγορά του S&P500 και η σχέση συνολοκλήρωσης τεκμαρτής και δεσμευμένης μεταβλητότητας του S&P500. / --

Researchers tend to disagree on the direction of the relation among R&D and economic growth, suggesting that if economic performance determines R&D investments countries might overinvest in their R&D expenditure. The purpose of this thesis is therefore to shed new light to this question by first establishing a relation among the variables and thereafter investigate the Granger causality between them. This paper is based on a panel study consisting of 60 countries, with various levels of income during the period 1996-2015. Using a fixed effects model, we can establish a positive relation between growth in R&D expenditure and GDP growth and using Granger causality tests and the Toda-Yamamoto augmented Granger causality tests, we can conclude that the growth of R&D expenditure determines economic performance in the short-run for countries in all income levels, however no conclusions can be made regarding the direction of Granger causality in the long-run. Hence, our results show that R&D investments stimulate economic growth and should, to some extent, be favoured by policy regardless of a nation's level of development.

Background: In 2008, the financial crisis led to the deterioration of the global economy. The financial industry suffered severe setbacks. On the one hand, regulators strengthened their supervision over financial institutions and raised capital requirements. On the other hand, publics’ confidence in financial institutions declined. At the same time, the fintech industry has rapidly developed during this decade, they use technology to make financial innovation and pose a threat to the traditional financial industry. Purpose: This paper aims to study the linkage between U.S. fintech and the traditional financial sector, trying to figure out which industry's stock price changes will affect the stock price changes in another industry. In particular, it also considers whether the global financial crisis will affect this relationship. Method: We first perform the Granger causality test under the VAR framework for several selected indices sequences, and then use the Toda Yamamoto version of Granger causality approach to verify the reliability of the above tests. Testing is divided into different time intervals in order to detect the impact of financial crisis on the relationship between time series. Conclusion: The empirical analysis results show that the correlation between the index in the long-term and short-term is inconsistent, and also shows that the correlation between the index will be affected by the financial crisis, or say, it will change as time varying.

Previous work has linked the onset and progression of Alzheimer’s Disease (AD) to changes in the Default Mode Network (DMN), including greater atrophy within the hippocampus (HC) as well as diminished functional connectivity and effective connectivity between anatomical DMN structures. Animal models have described the HC as a primary region of interest in studying the effects of exercise on adult neurogenesis and memory performance. Human studies have demonstrated that aerobic exercise leads to greater cardiorespiratory fitness and improved functional connectivity in the DMN for healthy adults. The goal of this study is to go beyond the predictions of human and animal studies to investigate how cardiorespiratory fitness may be used to estimate effective connectivity between the HC and the other DMN structures for young adults using resting state fMRI. Due to the data driven nature of this study, no hypothesis has been formulated. To investigate, data from 25 sedentary young adults was analyzed. Data included a resting state fMRI procedure and a cardiorespiratory fitness test, each taken from part of a larger ongoing clinical trial in the Brain Plasticity and Neuroimaging (BPN) Lab at Boston University (BU). We utilized group independent component analysis (GICA) to identify the regions that define the DMN and Conditional Granger Causality Analysis (CGCA) to determine effective connectivity between these regions. GICA indicated 9 structural regions in the DMN, consistent with previous work. This resulted in 72 possible instances of effective connectivity. The difference of causal influence between regions was calculated for each pair of DMN regions for CGCA, resulting in 36 possible instances of causal connectivity. Linear regression models were created to analyze the effect of cardiorespiratory fitness on effective connectivity between DMN regions and found 11 linear models which exhibited a significant (p > 0.05) relationship. Eight of eleven models involved the left or right hippocampus, showing that greater cardiorespiratory fitness is correlated with changes effective connectivity between the HC and the PCC, MPFC, or LTC. These results provide proof of concept that cardiorespiratory fitness in young adults is associated with changes DMN effective connectivity, particularly involving the hippocampus. This adds to the literature suggesting extended aerobic exercise, which is known to increase cardiorespiratory fitness and has been shown to increase the volume of the HC in older adults, may be neuroprotective of the HC across the lifespan. Further investigation is required to explore how effective connectivity in the DMN changes following an aerobic exercise intervention.

O objetivo desta dissertação será analisar a dinâmica do processo de integração financeira entre o mercado acionário brasileiro e o norte americano. Buscaremos identificar a relação de interdependência entre os dois mercados acionários ao longo do tempo por meio de testes de cointegração, e de causalidade de Granger com rolling windows, e através de um modelo de correção de erros estimado por meio do filtro de Kalman. Por fim, verificaremos se as séries temporais obtidas nos procedimentos iterativos possuem relação com a volatilidade ou quantidade de negócios dos contratos analisados. Evidenciamos nesta dissertação que a relação de integração financeira observada apresenta caráter variável ao longo do tempo. Isso vale tanto para a relação de cointegração, quanto para a relação de causalidade de Granger entre as séries temporais observadas. Evidenciamos também que a volatilidade das séries apresenta uma relação positiva e significativa com a relação de cointegração observada através dos testes de cointegração por meio de rolling windows. / The aim of this dissertation is to analyze the dynamics of financial integration between the Brazilian and the North American stock market. We will seek to identify the interdependence relationship between the two stock markets over time using rolling cointegration tests, rolling Granger causality tests, and estimating an error correction model using Kalman filter. Finally, we look if the time series obtained in the iterative procedures are related to volatility or quantity of trades from the contracts. We show in this dissertation that the financial integration relationship observed has a time varying character over time. This goes for both the cointegration relationship, and for the Granger causality relationship between the observed time series. We show also that the volatility of the time series has a positive and significant relationship with the cointegration relationship observed through the rolling cointegration tests.

Food inflation in South Africa has been viewed as an important source of underlying inflationary pressures in the economy due to its persistence beyond that of other commodities. Although several studies found food to be one of the factors that influence purchase decisions, there still appears to be an absence of research that directly links food inflation to consumers’ decisions, especially when financing the purchase of new passenger vehicles in South Africa. In this regard, this study investigated whether the increase in the prices of food products has a significant effect on passenger vehicle purchases in South Africa. Leaning on the literature that argues that economic factors do not play much of a role in passenger vehicle purchase decisions in South Africa, it was hypothesised that there is no supported relationship between food inflation and passenger vehicle purchases in South Africa. Using secondary time series data, the Pearson correlation test revealed a negative but insignificant relationship between food inflation and vehicle purchases in South Africa. The ordinary least squares estimate of the purchase function, taking into account several economic factors that influence passenger vehicle purchase decisions in the literature, showed that disposable income of households along with vehicle purchases of the previous period are to be considered as main determinants of vehicle purchases in South Africa. In addition, it was also revealed that new vehicle prices are also a significant determinant of vehicle purchases. The Johansen cointegration test revealed that the variables in the vehicle purchase function were cointegrated in the long run. The vector error correction model showed a long-run relationship, albeit insignificant, between food inflation and vehicle purchases and no relationship between the two variables in the short run. The Granger causality test revealed that food inflation and vehicle purchases are independent from each other, meaning that no causal effect was found between the variables, regardless of the direction of the test. This study concluded that economic factors such as interest rate and fuel price have an insignificant influence on passenger vehicle purchases in South Africa. In the same line, the impact of food inflation on passenger vehicle purchases in South Africa was found to be insignificant, therefore, the conclusion was drawn that the increase in the prices of food products will not play a considerable role in consumers’ decisions regarding passenger vehicle purchase in South Africa. / Business Management / M. Com. (Business Management)

Market integration is a frequently discussed topic. This study presents an econometric analysis of the interlinkages between the Swedish, Norwegian, and Finnish coniferous roundwood assortment markets by conducting the Johansen’s co-integration test. It also investigates the directional causality between markets concluded integrated. The data utilised consists of quarterly, nominal prices for pine, and spruce saw logs and pulpwood for each country. Because of issues regarding stationary price series, the co-integration test could only be tested on five markets; Swedish and Norwegian pine saw logs and Swedish, Norwegian and Finnish spruce pulpwood. Swedish and Norwegian pine saw log prices were found integrated according to the Johansen’s test, but no relationship was found when performing the Granger causality test, implying that the underlying assumption of non-stationary prices may not have been fulfilled. No linkages were found concerning the spruce pulpwood markets; neither for all three countries nor bi-variate.

O objetivo desta dissertação será analisar a dinâmica do processo de integração financeira entre o mercado acionário brasileiro e o norte americano. Buscaremos identificar a relação de interdependência entre os dois mercados acionários ao longo do tempo por meio de testes de cointegração, e de causalidade de Granger com rolling windows, e através de um modelo de correção de erros estimado por meio do filtro de Kalman. Por fim, verificaremos se as séries temporais obtidas nos procedimentos iterativos possuem relação com a volatilidade ou quantidade de negócios dos contratos analisados. Evidenciamos nesta dissertação que a relação de integração financeira observada apresenta caráter variável ao longo do tempo. Isso vale tanto para a relação de cointegração, quanto para a relação de causalidade de Granger entre as séries temporais observadas. Evidenciamos também que a volatilidade das séries apresenta uma relação positiva e significativa com a relação de cointegração observada através dos testes de cointegração por meio de rolling windows. / The aim of this dissertation is to analyze the dynamics of financial integration between the Brazilian and the North American stock market. We will seek to identify the interdependence relationship between the two stock markets over time using rolling cointegration tests, rolling Granger causality tests, and estimating an error correction model using Kalman filter. Finally, we look if the time series obtained in the iterative procedures are related to volatility or quantity of trades from the contracts. We show in this dissertation that the financial integration relationship observed has a time varying character over time. This goes for both the cointegration relationship, and for the Granger causality relationship between the observed time series. We show also that the volatility of the time series has a positive and significant relationship with the cointegration relationship observed through the rolling cointegration tests.