The book is an edited proceedings volume from the 2017 International Conference on Applied Economics (ICOAE), held at Coventry University, edited by Nicholas Tsounis and Aspasia Vlachvei. It is not a single-authored monograph or a continuous argument; it gathers independent contributed papers in applied economics, with a stated emphasis on advances in panel-data analysis. The volume presents econometric panel-data methodologies and applications across microeconomics, macroeconomics, financial economics, and agricultural economics, and it includes country-specific empirical studies with policy relevance. At the same time, the table of contents shows that the collection is broader than panel data alone: many chapters use time-series, volatility, portfolio, and other applied econometric techniques.
The contributions cluster around several applied-economic themes. Financial-market and macro-financial chapters examine portfolio construction and risk forecasting using the CARBS indices, including mean-variance analysis of a global minimum-variance portfolio, univariate and multivariate GARCH models, and Value-at-Risk forecasting. Related financial-econometric work includes a vector error correction model of South African listed and capped property indices, liquidity proxies based on intraday data from the Polish order-driven stock market, and a study of financial integration dynamics in Euro-area stock markets. Other macro-financial and policy papers consider inflation targeting and economic growth in AEC countries, the dynamic effect of bank size on earnings volatility in the Iranian banking system, real options games between asymmetric firms in a competitive market, the valuation of radio spectrum for telecommunication market participants, and investment decision-making for leveraged projects.
A second group of chapters addresses innovation, industry, trade, and regional development. These include a spatial analysis of the research-productivity nexus in the Thai rice sector; a study of India’s economic and business cycle using evidence from the ICT sector; an analysis of patents and R&D cartels; an examination of ICT sectors and economic growth in ASEAN countries; and new evidence on FDI spillover effects in China’s manufacturing sector through forward and backward linkages. Trade and environmental applied work is represented by a chapter on why high-frequency data should be used to test the impact of exchange rates on trade, and by an Environmental Kuznets Curve analysis for Turkey using an ARDL approach. Agricultural-commodity volatility modelling also appears in the contents.
The volume further includes chapters on management, marketing, public finance, and institutional economics. Among these are a study of managerial success perception in Polish born globals; a chapter on CSR communication on social networks; a comparison of tax bonus versus tax allowance in the Slovak and Czech Republics; an application of nonparametric methods in the nonprofit sector; a study of human-resource selection in Slovak companies; and an analysis of the economics, marketing, and performance of U.S. classical music. There is also a conceptual chapter investigating the categories of “efficiency” and “efficiency of the investment project.”
Because the book is a proceedings volume, its chapters do not share one dataset, one model, or one concluding thesis. They are linked by their applied-economic focus and by the use of econometric and quantitative methods to analyse real-world economic problems. The volume’s title emphasizes panel-data advances, but its actual contents range across panel estimation, time-series econometrics, financial volatility modelling, spatial analysis, and policy-oriented country studies.
The book’s significance lies in its demonstration of the breadth and versatility of modern econometric techniques, particularly in the context of applied economic research. It showcases how various quantitative methods, from sophisticated panel data models to time-series analysis and spatial econometrics, are employed to address a diverse array of contemporary economic challenges. The collection highlights the practical application of these tools in understanding complex phenomena across different sectors and geographical regions, offering insights into financial markets, industrial dynamics, trade patterns, and public policy. The volume implicitly underscores the ongoing evolution of econometric methodologies and their increasing relevance in providing evidence-based solutions and informing decision-making in both academic and policy-making spheres.
