Athanasios Koulakiotis

The impact of the Greek political elections on the return and volatility of the Athens Stock Exchange (ASE) is investigated using both the standard event study methodology and various univariate GARCH models. The empirical results reveal positive pre- and post-election abnormal returns, but negative on the day of the election. Strong evidence is also found that suggests that the election outcome significantly affects the ASE return; however, the evidence is rather limited for the ASE volatility. The empirical findings raise doubts about the efficiency of the Greek stock market and might have important implications for investors with respect to decisions regarding entering and/or exiting the market or investment strategies around time periods where political elections are going to take place

The present paper develops a general production function framework, augmented with two institutional variables namely bureaucracy and corruption on 28 transition economies over the period 2000-2015. The authors use various econometric specifications and apply both the Fixed Effects, as well as the advanced system Generalized Method of Moments (GMM) panel data techniques. Empirical findings suggest that the impact of openness in terms of foreign direct investment and international trade is advantageous to all the economies of the panel. Furthermore, the findings indicate that classical growth determinants, such as labor and physical capital, have the expected positive contribution, while macroeconomic instability has a negative effect on real economic activity. Regarding the impact of the two institutional variables, corruption, and bureaucracy, the authors retrieve more influential results, as their impact appears to be diametrically opposite between the former Soviet Union states and the rest of European transition economics.