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Saving is a main source of financing capital and R&D investment, which can facilitate economic growth and development. Saving also acts as a buffer against uncertainty and external shocks, which can smooth growth volatility and promote economic growth. Thus understanding the determination of saving is vital for policymaking. This paper evaluates the saving consequence of population aging in China, a fast growing economy that has been experiencing rapid population aging with high saving rates. However, whether and how population aging affects saving remains controversial. Instead of verifying whether population aging increases or decreases saving, this paper takes a step further to examine potential nonlinearity in the nexus, which allows one to address the reason for inconclusiveness. Using China's provincial data over the period 1989–2019, it indeed finds significant existence of nonlinearity. Household saving follows an inverted‐U process with population aging. The effect holds for regions with moderate saving rates. For regions with the least and highest saving rates, household saving follows a U‐shaped process. Similar results are found for total saving. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Quantifying the association between components of multivariate random curves is of general interest and is a ubiquitous and basic problem that can be addressed with functional data analysis. An important application is the problem of assessing functional connectivity based on functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), where one aims to determine the similarity of fMRI time courses that are recorded on anatomically separated brain regions. In the functional brain connectivity literature, the static temporal Pearson correlation has been the prevailing measure for functional connectivity. However, recent research has revealed temporally changing patterns of functional connectivity, leading to the study of dynamic functional connectivity. This motivates new similarity measures for pairs of random curves that reflect the dynamic features of functional similarity. Specifically, we introduce gradient synchronization measures in a general setting. These similarity measures are based on the concordance and discordance of the gradients between paired smooth random functions. Asymptotic normality of the proposed estimates is obtained under regularity conditions. We illustrate the proposed synchronization measures via simulations and an application to resting-state fMRI signals from the Alzheimer's Disease Neuroimaging Initiative and they are found to improve discrimination between subjects with different disease status. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper empirically examines whether globalization affects the level, volatility and structure of financial development as well as the competition and credit composition of the banking sector. Using dynamic panel estimation techniques, we find, in a sample of advanced and developing countries, that both trade and financial openness promote financial development, raise financial volatility, and result in a more market-based financial system, the effects that moderate with increased openness. It is also found that both trade and financial openness lead to a more competitive, less concentrated banking industry and a greater share of household credit relative to enterprise credit, the effects that dampen with increased openness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Fertility plays a crucial role in the process of economic development. Understanding its determinants is pivotal. While most studies emphasize real factors such as industrialization and education, they usually, with a few exceptions, overlook the financial sector channel of impact. To close the gap, the paper investigates the effect of banking development on fertility. Using panel time‐series techniques to a panel of developed and developing countries, it finds that fertility rises with banking development but decreases with banking volatility. It also finds asymmetric responses of fertility to changes in banking development. Households tend to have more children when the banking sector is expanding but do not have less children when the banking sector is declining. The evidence holds for both bank credit to households and to firms. In addition, as additional sources of funds and investment opportunities, development in securities markets is found to raise fertility. Asymmetry is also detected with a larger fertility effect during market booms than busts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article empirically investigates whether the link between foreign direct investment (FDI) and income inequality varies with financial development. Using a smooth transition regression model to a panel of developing and advanced countries over the period of 1976-2005, the results indicate that financial development indeed defines the relationship between FDI and inequality. FDI raises income inequality and the effect becomes stronger in magnitude with financial sophistication. The results also indicate a large variation in the FDI effect across countries and over time, contingent on financial development. (JEL C23, F40, O15), I. INTRODUCTION Rising income inequality coinciding with increasing financial globalization, especially in foreign direct investment (FDI), in most developed countries and some developing economies over the past decades has led [...]

Much effort has been devoted to exploring the effect of bank competition on economic growth and stability. This paper shifts the focus towards the unemployment outcome. Using the Boone and Lerner indicators as well as bank concentration ratios, it finds, in a panel of developing and developed countries, that unemployment declines with bank competition up to a certain level of bank competition, above which it rises with bank competition. The impact seems to operate through investment and self-employment. The data thus suggest that there exists an optimal bank competition level that minimizes unemployment and too less and too much competition in a banking sector is detrimental to unemployment as it impedes capital accumulation and entrepreneurship development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper uses a new comprehensive cross-state panel for the United States over the 1945-2004 period to reassess the relationship between income inequality and economic development. By employing the pooled mean group estimator of Pesaran, Shin, and Smith (1999), it detects a long-run cointegrating association between inequality and development (as well as its squared term). Moreover, their relationship is better characterized by a U shape rather than the inverted-U profile asserted by Kuznets (1955). The evidence is robust to a variety of sensitivity tests. (JEL C14, C21, O11, 015), I. INTRODUCTION The Kuznets hypothesis, Simon Kuznets' classic prediction for long-term evolution of income inequality, remains to date the most significant dictum in the development literature. Based on time-series observations [...]