Type of the article: Research Article AbstractCounterintuitive responses of prices and exchange rates to monetary policy shocks are widely reported in transitional economies, yet whether these anomalies reflect the economy’s structure or the way the shock is identified remains unresolved. Using monthly data from January 2013 to July 2025, we test whether the anomalies survive under agnostic sign restrictions, not previously applied to Uzbek data, benchmarked against the recursive and zero contemporaneous schemes of our earlier studies. The recursive baseline reproduces both anomalies; the alternative schemes remove them, indicating they are largely artefacts of identification. This robustness differs sharply across variables. The absence of a price puzzle holds under sign restrictions across the full sample, alternative lag lengths, and both post-2017 and post-2020 subsamples, and it strengthens after each regime change. The absence of an exchange rate puzzle is directionally consistent – the currency never significantly depreciates when left unrestricted – but its magnitude and significance are fragile: the full-sample appreciation (roughly 1% at 12 months) is several times larger than in either subsample, and it loses significance once the September 2017 liberalization outlier is accounted for. We therefore do not find robust support for the exchange rate channel dominating the price channel. The contribution is methodological rather than descriptive: it shows which conclusions about Uzbek monetary transmission survive a change of identification, and that this robustness itself varies by variable. For policy, the results support continued use of sterilized foreign exchange interventions to smooth volatility, but not robust support for explicit exchange rate targeting. AcknowledgmentThis study was conducted at the Széll Kálmán Public Finance Lab of the Ludovika University of Public Service. Thank you for the university’s support.The views expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official position of the Central Bank of the Republic of Uzbekistan. The Central Bank of the Republic of Uzbekistan does not bear responsibility for the content of the article.
Type of the article: Research Article AbstractThe purpose of this study is to examine whether country-specific uncertainty modifies the relationship between cross-border banking exposure and financial stability. The analysis uses an annual panel covering 53 countries over 2005–2024, with 788 country-year observations in the baseline estimation sample. Financial stability is measured by the ratio of bank non-performing loans to total gross loans, cross-border banking exposure by BIS consolidated cross-border claims relative to GDP, and uncertainty by the country-specific World Uncertainty Index. The empirical strategy employs country and year fixed effects with standard errors clustered at the country level and includes an interaction between cross-border banking exposure and uncertainty. Formal triple-interaction tests are used to assess heterogeneity across exchange-rate regimes, levels of economic development, and financial depth. Robustness checks include lagged explanatory variables, placebo leads, country-specific linear trends, bias-corrected dynamic estimation, alternative transformations of cross-border exposure, and sample checks. The results show that higher uncertainty makes the relationship between cross-border banking exposure and non-performing loans more positive, indicating a less favorable association with financial stability as uncertainty rises. This moderating relationship is significantly stronger under pegged exchange-rate regimes, in developing economies, and in countries with greater financial depth. The main finding remains robust across the alternative specifications and sample checks. However, because the study is based on observational cross-country panel data, the results should be interpreted as conditional associations rather than definitive causal effects. AcknowledgmentsThe author gratefully acknowledges the financial support of the Banking Academy of Vietnam.
Type of the article: Research Article AbstractThis study examines the predictive relationship between real non-oil economic growth and household bank deposit growth in Azerbaijan using annual data for 2000–2024. Real non-oil GDP and individual bank deposits are measured at constant 2010 prices and transformed into annual logarithmic growth rates. The empirical analysis combines conventional linear Granger causality testing with a nonlinear Kernel Granger causality approach based on radial basis function kernel ridge regression. Nonlinear predictive performance is assessed through expanding-window rolling-origin cross-validation and a circular-shift permutation test. The results indicate a modest improvement in predictive accuracy when nonlinear information is incorporated, with mean squared error declining from 402.41 to 376.16, corresponding to a 3.32% reduction in root mean squared error. Nevertheless, the Kernel Granger statistic is statistically insignificant (KGC = 0.067, p = 0.416), providing no robust evidence of nonlinear predictive causality. Conventional linear Granger testing initially suggests unidirectional causality from non-oil GDP growth to household deposit growth (F = 5.305, p = 0.032), with no evidence of reverse causality. However, introducing a 2015–2016 crisis pulse dummy substantially reduces the lagged GDP growth coefficient from 1.818 to 0.689 and eliminates its statistical significance, while the crisis indicator remains highly significant. These findings suggest that the apparent linear relationship is largely driven by the 2015–2016 macro-financial shock rather than a stable underlying mechanism. Overall, the evidence does not support a robust linear or nonlinear predictive relationship between non-oil economic growth and household deposit growth in Azerbaijan.
Type of the article: Research Article AbstractThis study examines the relationships among digital accounting implementation, financial reporting quality, usefulness of accounting information, top management support, and perceived operational performance in commercial banks. Data were collected from 562 accountants and managers working at 27 commercial banks in Vietnam, an emerging Asian economy. The study evaluated the proposed model using a two-stage Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modeling approach. The findings indicate that digital accounting implementation is positively associated with perceived operational performance. In addition, digital accounting implementation is indirectly associated with perceived operational performance through statistically significant indirect paths involving financial reporting quality and usefulness of accounting information. Financial reporting quality is also positively associated with the usefulness of accounting information. Furthermore, the positive associations between digital accounting implementation and both financial reporting quality and usefulness of accounting information were stronger at higher levels of perceived top management support, whereas the interaction between digital accounting implementation and perceived operational performance was not statistically significant. Collectively, the findings suggest that perceptions of digital accounting implementation are closely related to perceptions of information quality, information usefulness, managerial support, and perceived operational performance. This study contributes empirical evidence on the interrelationships among these perceived organizational constructs in the context of banking digital transformation in an emerging economy.
Type of the article: Research Article Abstract This study examines the influence of cognitive styles (rationality and intuition) on decision-making behavior among senior banking executives, utilizing an integrated Cognitive-Experiential Self-Theory (CEST) and Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) framework. Survey data from N = 220 middle/senior banking professionals (81 men, 139 women) in Tunisia were analyzed using Structural Equation Modelling (SEM) in AMOS. First-order confirmatory factor analysis confirmed robust construct validity and reliable fit. To rigorously evaluate structural dynamics across genders, a unified multi-group analysis was conducted using the identical structural model (estimating both Rationality and Intuition simultaneously across both groups). Bootstrapping analyses (5,000 resamples) revealed that both cognitive styles exert direct, residual effects on decision implementation speed, rejecting total mediation by behavioral intention. In the integrated model, rationality acts as a behavioral accelerator (β = 0.747, p < 0.001), whereas intuition functions as a risk-mitigating mechanism (β = –0.571, p = 0.003). Structural comparison demonstrates that male and female executives possess overlapping cognitive capacities to translate intentions into fast execution (β = 0.564 vs. β = 0.535, p < 0.001). These empirical findings show that operational execution in financial contexts relies on a dual-process balance between rational analysis and intuitive risk filtering rather than deterministic gender deficits.
