Overview
Advances in Time Series Data Methods in Applied Economic Research is an edited conference-proceedings volume in the Springer Proceedings in Business and Economics series, edited by Nicholas Tsounis and Aspasia Vlachvei. It gathers research papers presented at the International Conference on Applied Economics (ICOAE), the annual meeting whose 2018 edition was held in Warsaw, Poland. As the title indicates, the collection focuses on advanced methods of time-series estimation and their application across the fields of applied economics.
The volume is not a single sustained argument or narrative but a compilation of independent, largely empirical papers. Its unifying thread is methodological: the contributors share an interest in applied econometric technique — particularly time-series estimation — brought to bear on real-world economic problems, usually with an eye to economic-policy implications. Around 557 pages in length, the book brings together contributions from economists working in a range of subfields and countries, in keeping with the conference’s stated aim of encouraging exchange among researchers from different areas of applied economics.
Scope and Methodological Focus
The proceedings are organized around the application of time-series and related econometric methods to practical economic questions. The subject matter spans international economics, macroeconomics, microeconomics, finance, agricultural economics, and adjacent areas such as banking, corporate finance, and innovation studies. Contributions combine economic theory with econometric estimation to analyze contemporary problems, and many offer country-specific case studies whose findings carry potential implications for economic policy.
Because the book collects conference papers rather than expounding a single method, its methodological content is varied: contributors use time-series estimation and testing techniques appropriate to their particular questions, and several papers extend the analysis to panel, cross-sectional, or firm-level data where the research problem calls for it. The emphasis throughout is on empirical application rather than abstract theoretical exposition.
Representative Contributions
The table of contents illustrates the breadth of the collection. Several papers address banking and financial stability: Papík and Chorvatovičová examine the asset structure of commercial banks and its effect on profit levels; Dimelis, Giotopoulos, and Louri analyze banking concentration and firm growth, considering the roles of firm size, location, and financial crisis; and Noorbakhah, Shahchera, and Monfared test for a credit crunch in the Iranian banking system.
Macroeconomic and monetary questions appear in Nunes Montes and Moreira’s econometric study of whether credibility matters for interest-rate changes and output gaps in an emerging economy. International economic issues are represented by Shaikh’s analysis of Brexit and global implied-volatility indices and by Dovalova, Hošoff, and Stracová’s examination of the potential implications of Brexit for the Slovak Republic.
Microeconomic, industrial, and innovation topics include Karbowski’s study of patents and enterprise innovation in network industries and Prokop’s analysis of research-and-development activity in a differentiated-goods duopoly with a quadratic cost function. Corporate social responsibility and institutional themes appear in Vos and Oberholzer’s framework for analyzing the status of CSR practice in the South African business context and in Besana, Esposito, and Treu’s account of the “philanthropy tree” of community foundations, comparing their historical roots and branches in the United States and Italy. Further contributions, such as Sikora and Baranowska-Prokop’s work on internationalization indices and success perception, extend the collection’s coverage of firm-level and internationalization research.
Character of the Volume
Taken as a whole, the book is a research reference for economists, econometricians, and policy analysts rather than an introductory textbook. Each chapter stands alone as a self-contained empirical study, typically setting out a research question, describing the data and estimation strategy, and reporting results with policy relevance. The collection’s value lies in the diversity of countries, sectors, and estimation problems it assembles under a shared commitment to applied econometric analysis — an exchange of methods and findings among applied economists from a wide range of fields and national contexts.
Applied Econometric Practice as the Unifying Thread
What the volume offers is not a taxonomy of time-series techniques but a set of worked applications in which econometric evidence is used to characterize economic relationships over time and across contexts. The chapters collectively illustrate how applied economic research moves from a substantive question—bank behavior, monetary credibility, external shocks, innovation, institutional practice—to an empirical design and then to interpretation. In this sense the book’s significance is as much illustrative as reference-oriented: it provides examples of how time-series and related econometric methods are deployed when the object of inquiry is an economic system, market, firm, or policy regime rather than a purely statistical problem. The collection also shows applied econometrics functioning as a common language across otherwise distinct subfields, allowing financial, macroeconomic, industrial, and institutional studies to sit together without forcing them into a single theoretical model.
