Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'Business Cycles'

This dissertation sets out to introduce a new calibration procedure building on Jermann (1998) and the iterative shock identification scheme of Benk et al. (2005) in Chapter 1. It incorporates the use of Simulated Annealing, a global optimization algorithm, into the Jermann (1998) calibration methodology that is applied to search for the combination of structural parameters within a bounded parameter space that yields the lowest distance between a vector of US data moments and its simulated moments counterpart in the frequency domain. It also extends the methodology of Jermann (1998) with the identification scheme of Benk et al. (2005) to obtain convergent estimates for shock parameters. After illustrating the workings of this new calibration methodology on the two sector business cycle model of Dang et al. (2011) with endogenous growth and human capital in Chapter 2 this dissertation sets out in Chapter 3 to introduce an extended version of the model of Dang et al. (2011) and to explain a number of real business cycle (RBC) problems that include the Gali (1999) labor response, the basic consumption-output and labor-output relationship, and the lack of an internal propagation mechanism as pointed out by Cogley and Nason (1995) and Rotemberg and Woodford (1996). This extension follows the suggestions of King and Rebelo (2000) to incorporate an external labor margin through a human capital investment sector and a physical capital utilization margin in the form of physical capital utilization rate to improve the performance of the standard RBC model. In the model introduced in Chapter 3 the physical capital utilization rate is further amended by the introduction of entrepreneurial capacity as in Friedman (1976) and Lucas (1988). The added margin of physical capital utilization is intra-temporal in nature, which enables the new calibration scheme to improve on the ability of the model significantly to explain the underlying real business cycle problems and US data moments in the frequency domain. Lastly, in Chapter 4 a simple monetary extension of the model in Chapter 3 is presented. In this chapter it is shown that the added physical capital utilization in a monetary model combined with the proposed calibration scheme is successful in explaining the empirical negative long term relationship between in ation and output.

La question centrale qui chapeaute cette thèse est : quelle sont les sources des fluctuations économiques ? De nombreux articles mettent en évidence le rôle majeur des facteurs et chocs financiers. A partir de ce postulat, j'analyse la capacité des modèles macroéconomiques dynamiques à reproduire les co-mouvements observés dans les données entre la production, la consommation, l'investissement et l'emploi, suite à un choc financier. Le premier chapitre montre que les modèles standards n'arrivent pas à générer ces co-mouvements, car ils impliquent des mouvements opposés entre la consommation et l'investissement. Une solution est de modéliser des banques qui prêtent à la fois aux entreprises et aux ménages, puis de considérer le choc financier comme un resserrement simultané des contraintes de crédit des deux types d'emprunteurs. Le second chapitre est une évaluation quantitative de cette idée. Avec David Gauthier, nous estimons un riche modèle macroéconomique sur données américaines à l'aide de méthodes bayésiennes. Nous motivons notre choc de collatéral par l'observation que les banques américaines ajustent les conditions de crédit de manière similaire pour les firmes et les ménages. Nous trouvons que le choc de collatéral explique une large partie des fluctuations économiques, car il est capable de générer les co-mouvements. Le troisième chapitre est l'étape suivante. Je souhaite endogénéiser les conditions de prêts bancaires. L'idée est de reproduire la récession de 2008, au cours de laquelle un choc dans le marché immobilier affectant initialement les ménages a été transmis au reste de l'économie à travers les banques qui ont diminué le crédit alloué aux entreprises
The main question at the heart of this thesis is, what drives business cycle fluctuations? A growing body of evidence suggests that financial factors and shocks matter most. Based on this premise, I ask whether financial shocks in dynamic macroeconomic models can generate the positive co-movements in output, consumption, investment, and hours worked observed in the data. The first chapter shows that standard models fail in doing so, because they typically imply a countercyclical response of consumption. One solution is to have banks lend both to firms and households, and to assume, that the financial shock is a common credit tightening on both. The second chapter offers a quantitative analysis of this idea. Together with David Gauthier, we motivate what we call the collateral shock by documenting that banks in the US effectively adjust standards in a similar way regard less if the borrower is a firm or a household. We estimate a rich macroeconomic model with Bayesian methods on US financial and macro data over the 1985-2015 period. We find that the collateral shock is the main driver of economic fluctuations. The reason is the collateral shock is able to generate pro cyclical consumption, investment, hours, and credit to firms and households, which are features of US business cycles. The third chapter attempts to go a step further by making lending standards endogenous. The idea is to have banks act as a propagation channel. A shock that emerges in the housing market and that initially affects households is transmitted to firms by a panic-prone financial sector that tightens credit to businesses. This model would replicate the story of the 2008 recession in the United States

Cette thèse étudie les cycles économiques provinciaux chinois durant la période 1989-2009. Dans un premier temps, Nous utilisons une variété de techniques afin d'examiner la nature et le degré de comouvement entre les cycles de croissance provinciaux chinois. Nous détectons différentes propriétés des cycles de croissance provinciaux. En utilisant une méthodologie de classification basée sur un modèle, nous constatons que les provinces peuvent être classées parmi cinq classes en fonction des mesures standards des caractéristiques cycliques. Bien que la majorité des provinces a connu la récession qui a eu lieu autour de la crise asiatique, la nation dans son ensemble a connu une phase d'expansion. En outre, toutes les provinces, ont connu la récession liée à la crise financière internationale qui a eu lieu en 2007/2008 à l'exception du Jiangsu et Tianjin. Toutes les provinces côtières, sauf Hainan, sont significativement synchronisées avec le cycle national. En outre, nous constatons que les quatre principales récessions nationales sont bien diffusées dans tout le pays. Ensuite, nous analysons la co-cyclicité entre les provinces dans chacune des six régions définies par Groenewold et al. (2008). Nous nous basons sur la décomposition tendance-cycle en utilisant le modèle à composantes inobservables univarié et multivarié. Nous trouvons que La majorité des cycles provinciaux reflètent des chocs de la demande plutôt que des chocs de l'offre. En examinant si des cycles communs existent au sein de chaque région, nous pouvons formuler des conclusions sur la pertinence de la définition de ces régions
This thesis deals with the Chinese provincial growth cycles over the period 1989-2009. First, we use a variety of techniques to examine the nature and degree of comovement among Chinese provincial growth cycles. We detect different properties of the provincial growth cycles. Using a model-based clustering methodology, we find that provinces can be classified among five major clusters as a function of standard measures of cyclical characteristics. Although the majority of provinces experienced the recession that occurred around the Asian crisis, the nation as whole experienced an expansionary phase. Moreover, all the provinces experienced the recession related to the subprime crisis that occurred in 2007/2008 except Jiangsu and Tianjing. However, All coastal provinces except Hainan are significantly synchronized with the national cycle. Furthermore, we find that the main four national recessions are well diffused across the country. Then, we analyse the co-cyclicality between provinces in each of the six regions defined by Groenewold et al. (2008). We rely on trend-cycle decomposition by using both univariate and multivariate unobserved component model. The majority of provincial cycles reflect demand rather than supply-side shocks. By examining the commonality of provincial growth cycles within each region, we ask whether the definition of these regions is supported by statistical analysis. We find mixed results. Finally, we use a Markov switching model that allow for the identification of business/seasonal cycle interaction

Until very recently, most emerging market economies have achieved higher growth rates for the last decade. It is controversial whether this good economic environment is due to domestic reforms or due to favorable external factors. In this framework, the main aim of this study is to investigate the structure and sources of business cycles in emerging market economies and to determine how these cycles differ than those in developed countries. The role of external and domestic factors on business cycles are analyzed by applying not only the conventional panel data estimations but also common correlated effects panel mean group method which is introduced by Peseran (2006). Besides, the convergence of business cycles in emerging market economies to the business cycles in developed countries is discussed based on factor analysis. The major results indicate the common global factors are the leading source of the business cycles both in emerging market economies and developed countries. However, domestic determinants of fluctuations differ across two groups of countries. In addition, results show that in the last two decades fluctuations in emerging market economies have started to be more dependent on the fluctuations in developed countries.

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Coordination failures are often said to play an important role in business cycles. If agents’ incentives of taking a given action depend on the amount of other agents expected to take the same action, coordination failures can often arise. Firms may not invest because they do not expect others to invest, confirming their initial expectations. Similarly, banks may not lend because they do not expect others to lend. This dissertation analyzes different environments in which crises arise as a result of coordination failures. The first chapter analyzes an economy that is subject to a dynamic coordination problem. Because of aggregate demand externalities, firms’ incentives to increase their production depend on expected demand, which in turn depends on the amount produced by other firms. The problem is dynamic since firms do not take investment decisions at the same time, implying that a firm deciding today is trying to forecast what other firms will decide in the future. This opens the possibility of dynamic coordination traps: firms do not invest today because they do not believe others will invest tomorrow, generating lower incentives for firms to invest at future dates. This chapter focuses on the following questions: In economies subject to dynamic coordination traps, what is the optimal stimulus policies? Should policy makers provide higher incentives to production in times of low economic activity? The answer is that a constant subsidy implements the first-best in an economy where beliefs are endogenously determined. The reason is that, although it is harder to coordinate in times of low economic activity, agents are naturally more optimistic about the future in times of poor economic activity and reasonably good fundamentals. This optimism arise from the fact that in bad times negative shocks do not change the level of economic activity, while positive shocks may end a recession. The second chapter proposes a model to study unusually deep financial crises. Previous empirical work has found that financial crises are very deep and persistent on average, but there is a lot of heterogeneity across different episodes. Some financial crises feature a very distressed financial sector, but little distress on the real sector, while others are real macroeconomic disasters. In light of this evidence, I propose a model in which there is a highly non-linear feedback between the real and the financial sector. Disaster episodes arise from the dynamic interaction of two frictions: coordination frictions and financial frictions. When banks have weak balance sheets they do not intermediate much capital. This causes firms to get trapped in a self-reinforcing regime with low aggregate demand, which ends up provoking further damage to banks’ balance sheets. I use the model as a laboratory to study unusually deep financial crises and the effects of some policies. It is shown that the effects of disasters go far beyond what we observe during those episodes: they imply very low asset prices, economic growth and welfare, even in good times and when their probability is very small. Policies that protect the financial sector from those episodes can be very beneficial. Moreover, higher risk-taking in bad times may improve economic growth, welfare and financial stability. The third chapter studies the policy trade-off of a regulator that wants to avoid coordination failures, but at the same time does not want to generate distortions arising from moral hazard. Banks have investment opportunities with an expected return that depends positively on the amount of other banks undertaking similar investments, opening room for coordination failures. At the same time, banks may risk-shift to projects with smaller expected return but higher volatility. By providing guarantees in case of failures, a regulator can enhance coordination, but that leads banks to switch to worse projects. It is shown that in some states a regulator will provide no guarantees, even if it that means allowing a coordination failure to happen. Moreover, the possibility of risk-shifting reduces the amount of guarantees needed to avoid a coordination failure.
Com frequência argumenta-se que falhas de coordenação têm um papel importante no ciclo de negócios. Se os incentivos dos agentes a realizar determinada ação depende da quantidade esperada de outros agentes que tomarão a mesma ação, falhas de coordenação podem acontecer. Empresas podem não investir porque não esperam que outras empresas irão investir, confirmando suas expectativas iniciais. De maneira similar, bancos podem não conceder empréstimos porque eles não esperam que outros bancos irão fazer o mesmo. Esta tese analisa diferentes ambientes onde crises surgem como o resultado de falhas de coordenação. O primeiro capítulo analisa uma economia que está sujeita a falhas de coordenação dinâmicas. Por causa de externalidades de demanda agregada, os incentivos para uma dada firma aumentar sua produção dependem da demanda esperada, que por sua vez depende da quantidade produzida por outras firmas. O problema é dinâmico porque as firmas não tomam decisões de investimento ao mesmo tempo, implicando que uma firma tomando decisões hoje está tentando prever o que outras firmas decidirão no futuro. Isso abre a possibilidade de falhas de coordenação dinâmicas: firmas não investem hoje porque elas não acreditam que outras firmas investirão amanhã, gerando incentivos menores para outras firmas investirem no futuro. Este capítulo foca nas seguintes questões: Em economias sujeitas a este problema de coordenação dinâmico, qual a política de estímulo ótima? O governo deveria prover mais estímulos em épocas de baixa atividade econômica? A resposta é que um subsídio constante implementa o ótimo nesta economia. O motivo é que, embora seja mais difícil coordenar em tempos de baixa atividade, os agentes estão naturalmente mais otimistas sobre o futuro em tempos de baixa atividade e fundamentos razoavelmente bons. Este otimismo surge do fato que em tempos ruins choques negativos não alteram o nível de atividade econômica, mas choques positivos podem acabar com uma recessão. O segundo capítulo desta tese propõe um modelo para estudar crises financeiras mais severas que o usual. Trabalhos empíricos prévios mostram que, em geral, crises financeiras são muito profundas e persistentes, mas também que há muita heterogeneidade entre diferentes episódios. Algumas crises financeiras causam enormes danos no sistema financeiro, mas pouco dano no setor real, enquanto outras são verdadeiros desastres macroeconômicos. À luz desta evidência, esta tese propõe um modelo onde há um feedback extremamente não linear entre o setor financeiro e o setor real. Desastres surgem através da interação dinâmica de duas fricções: fricções de coordenação e fricções financeiras. Quando os bancos estão com problemas em seus balanços, eles optam por intermediar menos capital. Isso leva as firmas a entrar em um regime com baixa demanda agregada, que causa ainda mais dano ao capital dos bancos. Este modelo é utilizado como um laboratório para estudar crises financeiras muito severas e o efeito de algumas políticas. É mostrado que os efeitos de desastres econômicos vão muito além do que observamos durante estes episódios. Eles levam à queda dos preços de ativos, baixo crescimento e perdas de bem-estar, mesmo que a probabilidade destes eventos seja muito pequena. Finalmente, quando os bancos tomam mais risco em tempos ruins, podemos ter um aumento de crescimento, bem-estar e estabilidade financeira. O terceiro capítulo estuda o trade-off enfrentado por um regulador que quer evitar falhas de coordenação, mas ao mesmo tempo não quer gerar distorções que surgem por conta de risco moral. Os bancos possuem oportunidades de investimento cujo retorno esperado depende positivamente da quantidade de outros bancos investindo em projetos similares, abrindo espaço para a possibilidade de falhas de coordenação. Ao mesmo tempo, bancos podem escolher investir em projetos com menor retorno esperado e maior volatilidade. Ao prover garantias em caso de falha de um banco, um regulador pode melhorar a habilidade que estes têm de coordenar, mas ao mesmo isto pode levar os bancos a tomarem risco excessivo. É mostrado que em alguns estados o regulador não proverá garantias, mesmo que isso implique permitir que uma falha de coordenação aconteça. Ainda, a possibilidade dos bancos tomarem risco excessivo reduz a quantidade de garantias necessárias para evitar uma falha de coordenação.

Over the last two decades, a large amount of macroeconomic research has been directed towards the business cycle theory. Until now, however, most literature has focused on the business cycle research in the developed economies like the United States and European countries. On the other hand, the studies on emerging markets are very limited. From this perspective, this thesis attempts to contribute to the current literature by investigating the main characteristics of Korean business cycles, comparing its findings with the previous findings in the developed countries, and then drawing out the economic or policy implications. Another motivation of this thesis arises from the experience of the Korean financial crisis in the later half of 1997, which had a catastrophic impact on the Korean economy. Although it is not fully agreed on what caused the Korean financial crisis, there are a large amount of literature on this subject. However, what have not been dealt in literature is whether the Korean financial crisis brought out any noticeable changes on the fluctuations of key macroeconomic variables such as output, consumption, worked hours and asset wealth in Korea. One possible excuse for this scarcity is the limitation of data span, namely too short to analyze the difference between the pre- and post-crisis periods. It appears that as a decade passed, this is the right time to investigate this issue. Therefore, across three essays, this issue will be discussed with a high priority. With these two purposes in mind, this thesis starts by investigating the relationship among consumption, financial wealth and labor income with Korean data. This issue is discussed in the framework of the vector error correction model by applying the full information maximum likelihood approach suggested by Johansen (1988, 1995). The main finding from this analysis is that only financial wealth shows the sizable and statistically significant error correction behavior. This finding is also confirmed by the permanent and transitory component decomposition, which shows that only fluctuations of financial wealth are largely associated with transitory components while consumption and labor income are mainly governed by the permanent shocks during the examined period. By comparing the pre- and post-crisis periods, we also find that although there were several policy and institutional changes during the crisis, most adjustment to the long run relation has been done by financial wealth across the two sample periods. The second and last essays explore Korean business cycles by estimating the micro-founded dynamic stochastic general equilibrium models, using maximum likelihood and Bayesian approaches, respectively. Based on the estimation, the second essay finds that the estimated DSGE model out performs VAR models in predicting hours worked but it has difficulty in predicting other key macrovariables. In addition, although the volatility of the economy has decreased in the recent, the Korean financial crisis seemed not to change the deep parameters in the model. Finally; by comparing the second moments from the HP filtered data with those from the simulated data, this essay finds that the estimated model successfully reproduces the relative volatility of consumption and hours worked as well as the pattern of contemporaneous correlations of output with consumption, investment and hours worked. The last essay extends the baseline model in the second essay by introducing money through cash-in-advance constraints, that is, firms should borrow cash to pay wages in advance while households have to hold cash to purchase consumption goods. After estimating two versions of cash-in-advance models, namely a baseline cash-in-advance model and a limited participation model, this essay shows that the limited participation model is better to match up the stylized facts in Korean business cycles. In particular, it successfully captures the rise of output in response to an expansionary money shock. Finally, the comparison between the pre- and post crisis periods shows a sharp decline of money shock and a slight decline of productivity shock.

This thesis documents the stylized facts of the business cycle in Thailand and analyzes the ability of real business cycle models to capture these facts. The models are solved by the method of finding a linear approximation to the first order condition proposed by King, Plosser and Rebelo (1988). By using the Baxter and King band pass filter to extract the cyclical component, we find that the volatility of investment and government spending are higher than that of aggregate output. The striking feature in developing countries, including Thailand, is that consumption is more volatile than output. These variables in general are pro-cyclical and highly persistent. Net exports are highly volatile and counter-cyclical. The business cycle features of developing countries tend to be more volatile than those of developed countries. The output fluctuations of the Asian countries are positively correlated. A real business cycle model is constructed and it includes permanent, pure and realistic shocks to technology and government spending. The technology shock of Thai economy during 1993-2006 is significantly persistent. The government spending shock cannot generate the real business cycle properties. The multiple shocks and the shocks off steady state are introduced to alternatively study the effect of fiscal policy by replicating the 1997 Asian crisis. The government spending seems to have a limited applicability for this model. The model fails to explain a high volatility of consumption. The difference between theory and data is also present in the volatility and contemporaneous correlation with output of labour, wages and interest rate. A one good two country international real business cycle model with complete market in line with Baxter and Crucini (1995) is built to explain the international facts of Thailand. The relationship between the Thai real aggregate fluctuations and those of the US from 1993-2006 is investigated. Technology spillovers significantly transfers from the US to Thailand, not another way around. The contemporaneous correlation of technology innovation of Thailand and the US is negative. The impulse response is done for permanent and realistic shocks of technology, government spending and taxation. The shocks off the steady state and the multiple shocks are also explored in the context of the open economy model. It is obvious from this analysis that large countries do not respond to small country shocks. Small countries, particular openness, are dominated by large iii country shocks. The responses in Thailand are significant if the shocks are originated in the US. The model requires a high variance of technology innovation to explain the Thai facts. The shock in the US can explain the co-movement in Thailand better than the shock originates in Thailand itself. The model performs poorly to match the data in term of international co-movement and predicts that the cross correlation of consumption is higher than that of output.

Diese Dissertation befasst sich mit europäischer und US-amerikanischer Konjunkturgeschichte und Marktintegration im 19. und 20. Jahrhundert. Zur Analyse von konjunkturellen Schwankungen stellt sie der weitverbreiteten Historischen Volkswirtschaftlichen Gesamtrechnung (VGR) die Methode dynamischer Faktoranalyse zur Seite, die dazu beiträgt, die begrenzten historischen Zeitreihen effizient zu nutzen. Die nationale und internationale Entwicklung von Weizenmärkten seit dem Ende der Napoleonischen Kriege wird mit einem multivariaten dynamischen Faktormodell untersucht. Spektralanalyse wird zur Berechnung frequenzspezifischer Kohärenz von historischen Börsenindizes und konkurrierenden Schätzungen des Nationalprodukts in Deutschland zwischen 1850 und 1913 herangezogen. Ein wichtiges Ergebnis ist, dass Finanzdaten die Datierung der Konjunktur im Deutschen Kaiserreich erleichtern, was auch durch die Ergebnisse der Faktoranalyse bestätigt wird. Der verwendete Aktienindex, einzelne reale Konjunkturindikatoren und der dynamische Faktor korrelieren eng miteinder. Die Bildung sektoraler Sub-Indizes zeigt, dass der Übergang von einer landwirtschaftlich zu einer industriell geprägten Volkswirtschaft vermutlich früher geschehen ist als Beschäftigungsanteile aus der Historischen VGR vermuten lassen. Die Untersuchung der U.S.-Konjunktur ergibt die Annahme zeitvariierender Strukturparameter eine Erhöhung der Konjunkturschwankungsbreite nach dem 2. Weltkrieg verglichen mit der Zeit vor dem 1. Weltkrieg. Für die Weizenmarktintegration in Europa zeigt sich, dass die Entwicklung vor der Mitte des 19. Jahrhunderts schneller voran ging als danach, was eine Neuinterpretation der Rolle von Technologien wie dem Metallrumpf und dem Dampfschiff sowie dem Eintritt Amerikas als Weizenproduzenten nahelegt.
This thesis addresses historical business cycles and market integration in Europe and America in the 19th and 20th centuries. For the analysis of historical business cycles, the widely used methodology of historical national accounting is complemented with a dynamic factor model that allows for using scarce historical data efficiently. In order to investigate how national and international markets developed since the early 1800s, a multivariate dynamic factor model is used. Spectral analysis helps in measuring frequency specific correlation between financial indicators and rivaling national income estimates for Germany between 1850 and 1913. One result is that the historical stock market index used helps to discriminate between competing estimates of German national income. A dynamic factor estimated from a broad time series data set confirms this result. Sub-indices for agriculture and industry suggest that the German economy industrialized earlier than evidence from national accounting shows. The finding for the U.S. business cycle is that relaxing the assumption of constant structural parameters yields higher postwar aggregate volatility relative to the period before World War I. Concerning market integration, it is found that European wheat markets integrated faster before mid-19th century than after. Thus, the impact of the metal hull and steam ship as well as the relevance of American wheat for the world wheat market have perhaps been overstated.

La crise financière de 2009 a ravivé le débat entre les classiques et les keynésiens concernant le rôle de la finance dans le cycle d’affaire. Cette thèse étudie les conséquences macroéconomiques des imperfections du marché de crédit ainsi que quantifie leur impact sur le marché de travail. L’interaction entre chômage et frictions financière passe par l’hypothèse que les postes vacants sont financés par des fonds externes qui sont plus couteux qu’un financement interne, de par de l’impact de l’asymétrie d’information sur le marché du crédit. Il est alors montré, à l’aide de simulation d’un modèle DSGE calibré sur données US., qu’un choc financier négatif, i.e. un choc qui augmente la prime de risque sur le marché du crédit ou un choc qui détériore le bilan des entrepreneurs, réduit de manière significative les capacités d’emprunt, et, par conséquent, la création d’emplois diminue spécialement. En outre, un choc d'incertitude engendre une augmentation du taux de chômage et rend cette augmentation plus persistante en période de crise. Ce résultat est confirmé par une évidence empirique qui consistait à estimer un modèle VAR bayésien, où des variables de marché de travail réelles et financières
The crisis of 2009 raised the question whether the financial conditions matter for the business cycles and the propagation of shocks originating in the financial sphere. I tried to drive a fine analysis of this issue using micro-founded general equilibrium models. The modelling choice was backed by empirical motivations. In three essays, i study the impact of monetary and financial shocks on growth and labour market dynamics. First, an expansionary monetary policy eases credit conditions, raises risk tolerance and the quality of borrowers and generates a liquidity effect. The potency of the monetary policy and the size of the credit channel depend considerably on the degree of financial frictions in the credit market. Second, a restrictive monetary policy shock, an positive credit shock and a positive uncertainty shocks have similar effects on the economy: they plunge the economy in a recession, with output, job creations, and hours worked decreasing, while unemployment and job destructions increase. In all cases the interest rate spread increase, therefore indicating that financial conditions deteriorate, which is interpreted as a sign that financial frictions play a critical role in the propagation of these shocks. Third, the interaction between financial and labour market frictions does exist. The interplay between the two indeed plays a role in propagating the shocks. A shock to net worth, a credit shock and an uncertainty shock play a non-trivial role for the dynamics on the labour market

This thesis studies the cyclical aspect of job polarization in Europe. Contributions include offering a comparison to the findings of previous research on the United States, and extending the analysis by introducing labor market institutions. The analysis is done in two parts, first showing that the observed link between job polarization and jobless recoveries in the US is observed in Europe, but not across all countries and business cycles. In Scandinavia, the process of job polarization appears smoother than the spurts observed in the US. The second part involves regression analyses of the relationship between labor market institutions, the business cycle and occupational employment. The results indicate that stricter labor market institutions are less robustly associated with Routine employment than other occupational groups and that Routine employment is more sensitive to the business cycle than other types of employment. Further, rigid labor market institutions may prevent some of the Routine decline associated with economic downturns, while not necessarily affecting the long run employment. Limitations of the analysis regards rough estimates of the key variables, number of observations and the lack of identification associated with cross-country analyses.

Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to apply the concept of business cycle and real estate cycle in term of their characteristics, period and sequence of the cycle to the Kuala Lumpur’s office market. Design/methodology/approach - The paper is based on previous literature review, facts, reports, and data in arriving at the conclusion of the study. Findings - This paper revealed the characteristics, period and sequence between business and real estate cycles to Kuala Lumpur’s office market. Research limitation/ Implications - The framework and flows of this paper act as an introduction for the paper. Lacks of literature and attention on the business and real estate cycles in Kuala Lumpur’s have created difficulties to gains information and data on this paper. Practical implications - This paper is important for the students, government and policy maker in order to further a research and develop a foundation for business and real estate cycles in Kuala Lumpur.

Tesis para optar al grado de Magíster en Análisis Económico
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In this paper, an attempt is made to explore the relevance of a consumer confidence index in forecasting business cycles in the Netherlands. Furthermore, the possible heterogeneity regarding the information content of individual questions is addressed, and it is investigated whether this information can be attributed to the information view or to the animal spirits view. This paper constructs a Bayesian VAR (BVAR), which includes a consumer confidence index, the unemployment rate, a composite leading indicator, producer confidence, and the Michigan consumer sentiment index. The results show that for the 24-month-ahead forecast and the 48-month-ahead forecast of unemployment, consumer confidence explains respectively 3.96% - 8.06% and 10.25% - 15.99% of the error variance. Moreover, there seems to be significant heterogeneity among the individual questions in the consumer confidence survey. Finally, it is concluded that the additional predictive power of consumer confidence can be attributed to the information view.

This thesis consists of three chapters on macroeconomic policy and business cy-cles. In chapter 1, I estimate a time-varying structural VAR to study the effects of government spending shocks on a number of U.S. macroeconomic variables. In contrast to the predictions of the standard New Keynesian models, I find no significant changes in the size of the government spending multiplier when the federal funds rate hits the Zero Lower bound (ZLB). I propose a theoretical model where the central bank, through either conventional or unconventional policies, directly controls the market interest rate, and where the policy rule parameters are subject to regime switches to capture potential changes due to the ZLB con-straint. The model estimates suggest that the behavior of the market interest rate was not much affected by the ZLB constraint, and thus the government spending multiplier remained largely unaltered. In chapter 2, we provide an empirical esti-mate of the central bank’s targeting rule that reflects the relative weight a central bank attaches to the allocation of the output gap and inflation, and of the deep parameter that characterizes a central bank’s loss function, overcoming the simul-taneity problem. In chapter 3, we explore the welfare implications of a reduction in the price rigidity in a New Keynesian model featuring both price rigidity and dispersed information. We find the introduction of digital price tags that may fa-cilitate price adjustment may deteriorate the welfare. The dominant underlying mechanism is that a reduction in the price rigidity will amplify the welfare losses associated with the price dispersion within price resetting firms when agents have heterogeneous beliefs about the economy.
Aquesta tesi consta de tres capítols sobre política macroeconòmica i cicles empresarials. Al capítol 1, estimo un VAR estructural que varia amb el temps per estudiar els efectes de les xocs de la despesa pública en diverses variables macroeconòmiques dels Estats Units. A diferència de les prediccions dels nous models keynesians estàndard, no trobo canvis significatius en la grandària del multiplicador de despesa pública quan la taxa de fons federals arriba al límit zero inferior (ZLB). Proposo un model teòric on el banc central, mitjanant polítiques convencionals o no convencionals, controli directament el tipus d’interès del mercat i on els paràmetres de la regla de política estan subjectes a canvis de règim per capturar possibles canvis a causa de la restricció ZLB. Les estimacions del model suggereixen que el comportament de la taxa d’interès del mercat no es va veure molt afectat per la restricció ZLB i, per tant, el multiplicador de la despesa pública va romandre en gran part inalterat. Al capítol 2, proporcionem una estimació empírica de la regla d’orientació del banc central que reflecteix el pes relatiu que un banc central concedeix a l’assignació de la bretxa de producció i la inflació, i del paràmetre profund que caracteritza la funció de pèrdua d’un banc central, superant la simultaneïtat problema. En el capítol 3, explorem les implicacions del benestar d’una reducció de la rigidesa dels preus en un nou model keynesià amb rigidesa en preus i informació dispersa. Trobem que la introducció d’etiquetes de preus digitals que puguin facilitar l’ajust de preus podrien deteriorar el benestar. El mecanisme subjacent dominant és que una reducció de la rigidesa dels preus amplificarà les pèrdues de benestar associades a la dispersió de preus en les empreses de restabliment de preus quan els agents tenen creences heterogènies sobre l’economia.

Thesis (Ph. D.) -- University of Maryland, College Park, 2005.
Thesis research directed by: Economics. Title from t.p. of PDF. Includes bibliographical references. Published by UMI Dissertation Services, Ann Arbor, Mich. Also available in paper.

This dissertation consists of three chapters about business cycles in open economies. The first chapter addresses the question of why housing investment is so volatile, especially in economies with developed mortgage markets. To this end, the chapter develops an augmented Real Business Cycle model with a housing collateral constraint. The collateral constraint creates a link between the housing market and borrowing capacity, a link that amplifies the response of housing demand to shocks and becomes stronger in economies with deeper mortgage markets. The second chapter examines an anomaly between international business cycle models and empirical evidence in cross-country employment correlation. It shows that the wealth effect on leisure plays a determining role in generating a negative employment comovement in the models, hence proposing a solution to the anomaly. The last chapter compares macroeconomic consequences of dollarized emerging countries under two alternative monetary policies: the inflation targeting rule and the fixed exchange rate regime. It shows that the floating exchange rate regime can be dominated by the fixed exchange rate regime in the role of cushioning shocks and in welfare terms.

CONSELHO NACIONAL DE DESENVOLVIMENTO CIENTÍFICO E TECNOLÓGICO
Este estudo tem como objetivo principal verificar a contribuição dos dispêndios em publicidade no valor da empresa a partir de um modelo dinâmico e estocástico. O efeito dinâmico capta os impactos dos dispêndios de publicidade na geração de caixa em períodos subseqüentes. O efeito estocástico reflete a incerteza dos ciclos econômicos que influenciam a decisão de quanto gastar. Finalmente, com a otimização é possível comparar se a geração de caixa, sob esses efeitos, é de fato maior. Os resultados indicam evidências de que os dispêndios de publicidade, quando realizado de forma efetiva, contribuem para o valor da empresa. Dados de empresas norte-americanas do setor de consumo discricionário, de 1998 a 2007, foram utilizados para testar empiricamente o modelo proposto. É importante destacar a congruência entre as disciplinas de marketing e finanças, pelo caráter multidisciplinar desta pesquisa.
This study has as it principal objective to verify the contribution of advertising expenditures to firm value. To reach this goal, a dynamic and stochastic model was developed. The dynamic effect captures the advertising expenditure impact on the cash flows in subsequent periods. The stochastic effect reflects the uncertainty caused by business cycles that influence the decision as to the amount to be spent. Finally, with optimization it is possible to compare whether the cash flow generated, under these specific effects, is, in fact, higher. The results indicate evidence that advertising expenditures, when effectively spent, can contribute to firm value. Data of American companies of the consumer discretionary sector from 1998 to 2007 were employed to test empirically the proposed model. It is also important to point out the interface between marketing and finance through the multidisciplinary character of this research.

Thesis advisor: Fabio Ghironi
Thesis advisor: Matteo Iacoviello
This dissertation studies the implications of housing market heterogeneity for the trans- mission of shocks, welfare and the conduct of monetary policy. In the first chapter I focus on mortgage contract heterogeneity (fixed vs. variable-rate mortgages). I develop and solve a New Keynesian dynamic stochastic general equilibrium model that features a housing market and a group of constrained individuals who need housing collateral to obtain loans. A given proportion of constrained households borrows at a variable rate, while the rest borrows at a fixed rate. The model predicts that in an economy with mostly variable-rate mortgages, an exogenous interest rate shock has larger effects on borrowers than in a fixed-rate economy. For plausible parametrizations, aggregate differences are muted by wealth effects on labor supply and by the presence of savers. More persistent shocks cause larger aggregate differences. From a normative perspective I find that, in the presence of collateral constraints, the optimal Taylor rule is less aggressive against inflation than in the standard sticky-price model. Furthermore, for given monetary policy, a high proportion of fixed-rate mortgages is welfare enhancing. Then, I develop a two-country version of the model to study the implications of housing market heterogeneity for a monetary union as well as costs and benefits of being in a monetary union when there are asymmetric shocks. Results show that consumption reacts more strongly to common shocks in countries with high loan-to-value ratios (LTVs), a high proportion of borrowers or variable-rate mortgages. I also find that country-specific housing price shocks increase consumption not only in the country where the shock takes place. Welfare analysis shows that housing-market homogeneization is not beneficial per se, only when it is towards low LTVs or predominantly fixed-rate mortgages. As for costs and benefits of monetary unions, when there is a technology shock in one of the countries and they are symmetric, the monetary union regime is welfare worsening. However, results are dependent on whether or not countries are symmetric and on the source of the asymmetry
Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2008
Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences
Discipline: Economics

Thesis advisor: Peter Ireland
My dissertation consists of three papers on business cycles in developing countries. All the papers are different from each other and emphasize different aspects of understanding economic fluctuations in developing countries. The first paper is titled `Medium Term Business Cycles in Developing Countries' (with Diego Comin, Norman Loayza and Luis Serven). This paper models the link between business cycle fluctuations in developed countries with fluctuations in developing countries. Business cycle fluctuations in developed economies tend to have large and persistent effects on developing countries. We study the transmission of business cycle fluctuations from developed to developing economies with a two-country asymmetric DSGE model with two important features: (i) endogenous and slow diffusion of technologies from the developed to the developing country, and (ii) adjustment costs to investment flows. Consistent with the model, we observe that the flow of technologies from developed to developing economies co-moves positively with output in both developed and developing countries. After calibrating the model to Mexico and the U.S., it can explain the following stylized facts: (i) U.S. and Mexican output co-move more than consumption; (ii) U.S. shocks have a larger effect on Mexico than in the U.S.; (iii) U.S. business cycles lead over medium term fluctuations in Mexico; (iv) Mexican consumption is more volatile than output. The second paper of my dissertation is based on a price setting survey conducted by the State Bank of Pakistan (Central Bank). The paper is titled `Price-Setting Discoveries: Results from a Developing Country' (with M. Ali Choudhary, Abdul Faheem, Nadeem Hanif, and Saima Naeem) present the results of 1189 structured face-to-face interviews about price-setting behavior of the formal firms in the manufacturing and services sector of Pakistan. The key findings of the survey are:the frequency of price change is high in Pakistan, lowering the real impact of monetary policy. Price rigidity is mainly explained by firms caring about relative prices and the persistence of shocks. The exchange-rate and cost shocks are more important than financial and demand shocks for both setting prices and also the readiness with which these shocks pass-through to the economy. Formal sector firms with connections to the informal sector, especially through demand, have a lower probability of price adjustment. The lack of taxes and compliance with tax regime, i.e. enforcement are held responsible for existence of the informal sector by formal sector firms. The results from this paper provided motivation for the last paper of my dissertation about understanding and modeling the business cycle fluctuations in a developing economy like Pakistan. The last paper of my dissertation is titled `Modeling Business Cycles in Pakistan: A First Step'. In this paper, I establish the nature of short-run fluctuations of the Pakistani economy over the period of 1960-2010. There have been significant changes in the nature of the Pakistani economy over the last few decades. Therefore, I focus my detailed analysis on the last few decades where it seems more appropriate to investigate the nature and causes of business cycles in Pakistan. Furthermore, I evaluate the performance of a typical RBC and an augmented RBC model with an exogenous FDI shock in explaining cyclical fluctuations experienced by the Pakistani economy. I find that a simple RBC model does badly in terms of matching relevant second order moments of short run fluctuations as depicted by the data. However, augmented RBC model performs better compared to the simple RBC model
Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2012
Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences
Discipline: Economics

CoordenaÃÃo de AperfeÃoamento de Pessoal de NÃvel Superior
Os paÃses desenvolvidos tÃm grande interesse em saber qual à âo estado atual de sua economiaâ, e tenta prever qual deve ser esse estado em um futuro prÃximo. O interesse do governo no assunto està ligado a questÃes orÃamentÃrias, previdenciÃrias, e atà mesmo intervencionistas. As empresas tambÃm se interessam pela questÃo, pois disso depende a rentabilidade de seus negÃcios e de seus investimentos. Infelizmente, nenhuma sociedade atual possui uma estimativa direta (e um previsor) do âestado da economiaâ, pois essa à uma variÃvel latente, isto Ã, nÃo observÃvel. Recentemente hà uma preocupaÃÃo maior em tentar mensurar o comportamento cÃclico das economias. Em particular, a anÃlise da sincronizaÃÃo do ciclo econÃmico entre diferentes paÃses torna-se um tema de crescente interesse em ambos os cÃrculos acadÃmicos e polÃtico. à fato observar que economias desenvolvidas tÃm se tornado bem mais integrada nos Ãltimos anos. Nesses paÃses, os fluxos comerciais tÃm aumentado substancialmente e os mercados financeiros se tornam mais homogÃneos. Assim, uma crescente atenÃÃo està sendo dedicada em examinar se os esforÃos para coordenarem suas polÃticas econÃmicas levam a uma maior sincronizaÃÃo de dos ciclos econÃmicos desses paÃses. à de se esperar que paÃses com fortes ligaÃÃes em termos de correlaÃÃes de ciclo econÃmico enfrentem custos menores de aderir a uma uniÃo do que paÃses com menor relatividade cÃclica sincronizada. OBJETIVOS: Nesse contexto, os objetivos do presente trabalho foram dar uma dataÃÃo dos perÃodos de recessÃo das economias de oito estados brasileiros (Bahia, Minas Gerais, Pernambuco, ParanÃ, Rio de Janeiro, Rio Grande do Sul, Santa Catarina e SÃo Paulo) e determinar se hà ocorrÃncia de ciclos econÃmicos sincronizados entre essas economias locais. METODOLOGIA: Desta forma foram utilizadas as sÃries nÃmero-Ãndice da produÃÃo industrial mensal (IPI) â IndÃstria Geral, entre 1981:01 a 2009:03, divulgadas pelo Instituto Brasileiro de Geografia e EstatÃstica (IBGE). Os dados foram convertidos em trimestrais pela mÃdia aritmÃtica, totalizando 113 trimestres. Aplicamos duas ferramentas distintas para obtermos uma dataÃÃo dos ciclos econÃmicos para a economia de cada estado brasileiro. Uma nÃo-paramÃtrica, dada pelo Algoritmo de Harding e Pagan (2002) e uma paramÃtrica, atravÃs das mudanÃas de Markov, seguindo Hamilton (1989). A verificaÃÃo da ocorrÃncia de sincronizaÃÃo dos ciclos econÃmicos se deu atravÃs da construÃÃo de uma matriz simÃtrica de dissimilaridade, assim como foi proposta no trabalho de Camacho (2005). RESULTADOS: verificamos que ambas as metodologias de dataÃÃo se aproximaram no sentido de tentarem apresentar uma dataÃÃo para a recessÃo no ciclo econÃmico descrito pela produÃÃo industrial de cada estado. Quanto à verificaÃÃo de sincronizaÃÃo desses ciclos, ambas as matrizes de dissimilaridade sugerem que os estados de Minas Gerais, SÃo Paulo, Santa Catarina e Rio Grande do Sul apresentam sincronizaÃÃo dos ciclos econÃmicos de suas economias. Os estados do Rio de Janeiro e Paranà nÃo estÃo sincronizados. O estado do Rio de Janeiro està mais prÃximo dos demais estados das regiÃes sul e sudeste que dos estados representativos da regiÃo nordeste. O estado do Paranà nÃo està sincronizado com os estados do nordeste, e hà uma divergÃncia de resultados das matrizes paramÃtrica e nÃo-paramÃtrica em relaÃÃo aos demais estados do sul e sudeste. O estado da Bahia apresenta mÃdia sincronizaÃÃo, exceto com os estados do Pernambuco e ParanÃ. Finalmente, Pernambuco parece apresentar um dinamismo diferente dos demais estados, assim com retrata Carvalho (2005). CONCLUSÃO: Nossos resultados evidenciam uma sincronizaÃÃo dos ciclos econÃmicos entre os estados da regiÃo Sul e Sudeste, com exceÃÃo do estado do ParanÃ. Pernambuco nÃo està sincronizado com nenhum dos estados brasileiros estudados. O estado da Bahia està mais prÃximo dos estados do Sul e Sudeste, exceto Paranà e Rio de Janeiro, e como ressaltado anteriormente, nÃo apresenta sincronizaÃÃo com o estado de Pernambuco.
Developed countries are keen to know what "the current state of its economy", and tries to predict what should be the state in the near future. The government's interest in the subject is on the budget, social security, and even interventionist. Companies also are interested in the question, because it depends on the profitability of their business and their investments. Unfortunately, no current society has a direct estimate (and a predictor) of the "state of the economy", as this is a latent variable that is unobservable. Recently there is a greater concern in trying to measure the cyclical behavior of economies. In particular, the analysis of the business cycle synchronization between different countries becomes a subject of increasing interest in both academic and political circles. It is well to note that developed economies have become much more integrated in recent years. In these countries, trade flows have increased substantially and financial markets become more homogeneous. Thus, increasing attention is being devoted to examine whether efforts to coordinate their economic policies lead to greater synchronization of business cycles of these countries. It is expected that countries with strong links in terms of business cycle correlation face lower costs of joining a union than countries with less synchronized cyclic relativity. OBJECTIVES: In this context, the objectives of this study were to take a dating of recessions of economies of eight Brazilian states (Bahia, Minas Gerais, Pernambuco, ParanÃ, Rio de Janeiro, Rio Grande do Sul, Santa Catarina and SÃo Paulo) determine if there is occurrence of synchronized business cycles between these local economies. METHODOLOGY: This way we used the monthly industrial production index number series (IPI) - General Industry from 1981: 01-2009: 03, released by the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE). Data were converted to quarterly by the arithmetic average total of 113 quarters. We use two different tools to obtain a dating business cycle for the economy of each Brazilian state. A non-parametric, given by Harding algorithm and Pagan (2002) and a parametric, through the Markov changes, following Hamilton (1989). Verification of the occurrence of synchronization of business cycles was made through the construction of a symmetric matrix of dissimilarity, as was proposed in Camacho's work (2005). RESULTS: we found that both methods of dating approached in order to try to present a dating to the recession in the economic cycle described by industry each state. As for synchronization verification of these cycles, both dissimilarity matrices suggest that the states of Minas Gerais, SÃo Paulo, Santa Catarina and Rio Grande do Sul present synchronization of business cycles of their economies. The state of Rio de Janeiro is closer to the other states of the South and Southeast regions of representative states of the Northeast. The state of Paranà is not synchronized with the northeastern states, and there is a divergence of results of parametric and non-parametric arrays compared to other states in the south and southeast. The state of Bahia has an average synchronization, except with the states of Pernambuco and ParanÃ. Finally, Pernambuco seems to have a different dynamic in other states, so with portrays Carvalho (2005). CONCLUSION: Our results show a synchronization of business cycles between the states of the South and Southeast, with the exception of the state of ParanÃ. Pernambuco is not synchronized with any of the Brazilian states studied. The state of Bahia is closer to the South and Southeast, except Paranà and Rio de Janeiro, and as noted above, has no synchronization with the state of Pernambuco.

The purpose of this thesis is to investigate the dynamics pertaining to emerging market business cycles, with special attention to the linkage between financial conditions and the behavior of the macroeconomic variables in such economies. Business cycles in emerging economies differ in many dimensions when compared with advanced economies: the former are characterized by much larger swings in real activity, financial markets, and policy driven variables. For example, when it comes to important macroeconomic variables, output tends to be twice as volatile in emerging economies compared to their developed counterparts. Another interesting discrepancy is related to the fiscal variables: while government consumption spending tends to be countercyclical in advanced economies, in many emerging economies, government spending is procyclical, which tends to reinforce the volatilities of the macro aggregates. The present work tries to shed some light on the role of financial instability in the emerging market business cycles and how the procyclicality of the fiscal policy can be attenuated by the introduction of fiscal debt-targeting rules. Chapter 1 starts by accessing the empirical implications of financial frictions for the business cycles and dynamics in emerging economies. Using a two-step procedure, the chapter first estimates unobservable financial stress indexes for 25 emerging markets to measure the evolution of the conditions of the financial markets in these countries over the period 1994Q1 to 2015Q4. With the financial indexes at hand, the chapter introduces a novel Hierarchical Bayesian Threshold VAR Model that uses Bayesian pooling to efficiently estimate the posteriors of the VAR parameters for each economy. The findings are summarized as follows: (a) stressful times occur with considerable frequency in the data (~ 30 % of the time); (b) second moments of the main macroeconomic variables are regime dependent, with consumption and investment being more correlated with GDP and with larger volatility for all variables considered under financial distress conditions; (c) consumption is more volatile that the GDP both in a regular financial condition and under a financial distress period; (d) the duration of the financial instability period is about 5.4 quarters; (e) nonlinear impulse responses show strong amplification effects related to the tightening of the credit conditions. In Chapter 2, a model in which financial instability emerges endogenously as an outcome of the presence of occasionally binding constraints is used to show that many of the nonlinearities documented in Chapter 1 can be understood as consequences of financial frictions. The chapter builds on a simplified version of the model introduced by Mendoza (2010) and features a Fisherian Debt-Deflation mechanism coupled with the presence of pecuniary externalities associated with the price of capital stock and wages. By using simulation techniques over fully nonlinear global solution methods, the channels through which financial friction affect the business cycles are disentangled. The Fisherian Debt-Deflation mechanism and the two pecuniary externalities magnify the volatility of the macro-variables whenever a crisis is expected in the future. In such a situation, uncertainty goes up and rational expectation agents increase precautionary savings to insure against the crisis. As extensions, two sources of financial frictions are added to the model: (i) a stochastic volatility in the process for the real interest rate - motivated by the results of the estimation of the time-varying parameters VAR (TVP-VAR) for 9 emerging economies; (ii) a financial shock affecting the collateral constraint. The results, conditioned on a specific regime, are consistent with those observed in Chapter 1. However, the additional sources of exogenous uncertainty pose a reduction in the likelihood of crises occurring because of the precautionary savings. This suggest that matching the observed frequency of regime switching is challenging for models with endogenous crises. Chapter 3 studies the implications of simple debt-dependent rules in emerging countries subject to endogenous financial crises with pecuniary externality. The analysis suggests that debt rules that account for the effects of debt accumulation on asset prices can be relatively more efficient in reducing the likelihood of financial crises, but can have substantial impacts on welfare whenever a crisis is likely to happen. Fiscal consolidations based on ad-hoc debt growth may be counterproductive during good times while having significant negative effects on welfare during crisis episodes. Simulated exercises suggest that, when carefully designed, fiscal rules based on debt target can result in welfare gains. Finally, it is worthwhile mentioning that, while solving the nonlinear models in Chapters 2 and 3, the thesis extends the algorithms developed in Maliar and Maliar (2013) and in Arellano et. al. (2016) of the so-called Envelop Condition Method to deal with occasionally binding constraints. This method, coupled with piece-wise linear interpolation/extrapolation techniques, is robust to the presence of the kinks in the policy function and capable of accounting for the distorted equilibrium and expectation effects.
O propósito desta tese é investigar a dinâmica dos ciclos reais em economias emergentes, com atenção especial à relação entre as condições financeiras e o comportamento das variáveis macroeconômicas em tais economias. Os ciclos de negócios nos mercados emergentes diferem-se sobremaneira relativamente aos das economias avançadas: nos primeiros, as oscilações são bastante mais pronunciadas em termos de variáveis reais, de mercados financeiros e de variáveis associadas às políticas macroeconômicas. Por exemplo, em se tratando de variáveis macroeconômicas, o produto tende a ser duas vezes mais volátil em países emergentes comparativamente aos países desenvolvidos. Outra diferença interessante relaciona-se às variáveis fiscais: enquanto o gasto do governo tende a ser anticíclico em economias avançadas, em muitos países emergentes tal variável é comumente pró-cíclica, o que tende a reforçar a volatilidade dos agregados macroeconômicos. O presente trabalho visa esclarecer o papel das instabilidades financeiras nos ciclos econômicos em países emergentes e como a pró-ciclicidade de variáveis fiscais pode ser atenuada pela introdução de regras fiscais dependentes de dívida. O Capítulo 1 busca acessar empiricamente as implicações de fricções financeiras para os ciclos e para a dinâmica dos países emergentes. Usando um procedimento de dois estágios, o capítulo inicialmente estima índices de estresse financeiro para uma amostra de 25 economias emergentes visando construir medidas de como as condições financeiras em tais países se comportaram no período de 1994T1 até 2015T4. Em um segundo estágio, o capítulo introduz um modelo vetorial auto-regressivo (VAR) hierárquico bayesiano com efeitos limiares que usa técnicas de pooling bayesiano para estimar eficientemente os parâmetros dos VARs em cada um dos países. Os resultados são resumidos da seguinte maneira: (a) períodos de estresse financeiro ocorrem com frequência considerável nos dados (aproximadamente 30% do tempo); (b) segundos momentos de importantes variáveis macroeconômicas são regime-dependentes, com consumo e investimento sendo mais correlacionado com o produto e com maior volatilidade sob condições financeiras mais restritas; (c) o consumo é mais volátil do que o produto tanto em regimes de liquidez normais quanto em regimes de estresse financeiro; (d) a duração de um período de estresse financeiro é, em média, de 5.4 trimestres; (e) funções de resposta impulso não lineares denotam grandes efeitos de amplificação associados ao aperto nas condições de crédito. No Capítulo 2, um modelo em que instabilidade financeira emerge endogenamente como resultado da presença de restrições ocasionalmente ativas é utilizado para mostrar que muitas das não linearidades documentadas no Capítulo 1 podem ser entendidas como consequências de fricções financeiras. O capítulo baseia-se numa versão simplificada do modelo introduzido por Mendoza (2010), que se caracteriza pela presença de um mecanismo de deflação de dívida à lá Fisher e pela presença de duas externalidades pecuniárias que amplificam a volatilidade macroeconômica caso os agentes formulem expectativas de crise no futuro. Em tal situação, a incerteza se eleva e agentes racionais elevam a poupança precaucionaria como um seguro contra crises. Como extensões, duas fontes adicionais de fricções financeiras são adicionadas ao modelo: (i) volatilidade estocástica no processo da taxa real de juros - motivada por resultados de estimações de VARs com parâmetros variantes no tempo para 9 países emergentes; (ii) um choque financeiro que afeta a restrição de colateral da economia. Os resultados, condicionando-se num regime específico, são consistentes com aqueles do Capítulo 1. Entretanto, fontes adicionais de incerteza induzem uma queda na probabilidade de crise devido ao aumento na poupança precaucionaria. Tal resultado sugere que replicar a frequência de mudança de regime observada nos dados é uma tarefa não trivial para modelos com crises financeiras endógenas. O Capítulo 3 estuda implicações de regras fiscais simples dependentes de dívida em pequenas economias abertas sujeitas a crises financeiras endógenas com externalidade pecuniária. A análise sugere que regras ficais que acomodam os efeitos da acumulação de dívida sobre os preços dos ativos tendem a ser relativamente eficientes em reduzir as consequências das crises, mas podem ter impactos substanciais sobre o bem-estar caso uma crise possa ocorrer. Consolidações fiscais baseadas em regras ad-hoc desenhadas sobre o crescimento da dívida podem ser contraprodutivas nos momentos normais dos ciclos, e podem ter efeitos negativos significantes nos momentos de crise. Exercícios de simulação sugerem que, caso desenhadas com certo cuidado, regras fiscais baseadas em metas para o montante de dívida podem resultar em ganhos de bem-estar. Ressalta-se que, ao resolver os modelos não lineares nos capítulos 2 e 3, a tese estende os algoritmos desenvolvidos em Maliar e Maliar (2013) e Arellano et. al. (2016) do chamado Método Das Condições de Envelope para lidar com restrições ocasionalmente ativas. Tal método, combinado a técnicas de interpolação lineares, é robusto à presença de kinks nas policy functions e capaz de acomodar equilíbrios com distorção e efeitos expectacionais.

This thesis contributes to understanding how inequality affects the transmission of aggregate fluctuations through aggregate demand. First, we document how labor earnings inequality (between skilled and unskilled workers) reacts to both government spending and monetary policy shocks. We show that a contractionary monetary policy shock and an expansionary government spending shock raise labor income inequality. Government spending raises inequality because it is concentrated towards sectors that are skilled intensive and contractionary monetary policy shocks generate inequality because unskilled workers face more rigid wages. Then, we analyze the effect of these phenomena on aggregate consumption. We show that unskilled workers in the U.S. are significantly more financially constrained than skilled workers. Therefore, they are less able to smooth out income fluctuations. This fact, in addition to having different labor income fluctuations between the two skill groups, may cause dampening or amplifying effects of shocks. We show analytically and quantitatively that through aggregate demand, different wage rigidities significantly amplify monetary policy shocks and that the current distribution of government spending across the different productive sectors dampens the impact of fiscal policy. Second, we study the gains from nominal flexibility (of both prices and wages) when there is limited access to financial markets. We show that limited access to financial markets and price and wage rigidities give rise to a distributional channel of nominal rigidities which works through aggregate demand. In particular, we show that aggregate demand depends on the relative price and wage rigidity. Through this distributional channel, aggregate demand amplifies demand shocks if wages are more flexible than prices. This happens because in response to the shock, workers who have high marginal propensity to consume (MPC) suffer more from the shock than firm owners who have low MPCs.
Esta tesis contribuye al entendimiento de cómo la desigualdad afecta la transmisión de las fluctuaciones agregadas a través de la demanda agregada. Primero, documentamos cómo la desigualdad de los ingresos laborales (entre trabajadores calificados y no calificados) aumenta en respuesta a shocks expansivos de gasto del gobierno y a contracciones de la política monetaria en EEUU. Aumentos del gasto del gobierno generan desigualdad porque el gasto se concentra en sectores que son más intensivos en trabajo calificado y contracciones monetarias generan desigualdad debido a que los trabajadores no calificados tienen salarios más rígidos. Luego, analizamos el efecto de estos fenómenos sobre el consumo agregado. Mostramos que los trabajadores no calificados en EEUU están más restringidos financieramente que los calificados. Entonces, los primeros son menos capaces de suavizar consumo en respuesta a fluctuaciones en su ingreso. Esto, en adición a las diferencia de respuestas del ingreso, generan amplificación o disminuciópn del efecto de los shocks. Mostramos que a través de la demanda agregada, estas diferencias en rigideces de salarios amplifican el efecto de la política monetaria; y la actual distribución sectorial del gasto del gobierno disminuye el multiplicador fiscal si los trabajadores no calificados están más restringidos financieramente. Segundo, estudiamos las ganancias de flexibilizar precios y salarios con hogares restringidos financieramente. Mostramos que con restricciones financieras y precios y salarios rígidos, aparece un canal distribucional de rigideces nominales, que opera a través de la demanda agregada. Mostramos que la demanda agregada depende de la rigidez relativa de salarios y precios. En particular, que hay amplificación de shocks de demanda si los salarios son más flexibles relativo a los precios. Esto ocurre debido a que en respuesta al shock, el trabajador, que típicamente tiene una mayor propensión marginal a consumir (PMC) sufre más del shock que el dueño de la firma, que tiene una baja PMC.

This dissertation consists of two essays. The first essay focuses on developing a quantitative theory for a small open economy dynamic stochastic general equilibrium (DSGE) model with a housing sector allowing for both contemporaneous and news shocks. The second essay is an empirical study on the macroeconomic forecasting using both structural and non-structural models. In the first essay, we develop a DSGE model with a housing sector, which incorporates both contemporaneous and news shocks to domestic and external fundamentals, to explore the kind of and the extent to which different shocks to economic fundamentals matter for driving housing market dynamics in a small open economy. The model is estimated by the Bayesian method, using data from Hong Kong. The quantitative results show that external shocks and news shocks play a significant role in this market. Contemporaneous shock to foreign housing preference, contemporaneous shock to terms of trade, and news shocks to technology in the consumption goods sector explain one-third each of the variance of housing price. Terms of trade contemporaneous shock and consumption technology news shocks also contribute 36% and 59%, respectively, to the variance in housing investment. The simulation results enable policy makers to identify the key driving forces behind the housing market dynamics and the interaction between housing market and the macroeconomy in Hong Kong. In the second essay, we compare the forecasting performance between structural and non-structural models for a small open economy. The structural model refers to the small open economy DSGE model with the housing sector in the first essay. In addition, we examine various non-structural models including both Bayesian and classical time-series methods in our forecasting exercises. We also include the information from a large-scale quarterly data series in some models using two approaches to capture the influence of fundamentals: extracting common factors by principal component analysis in a dynamic factor model (DFM), factor-augmented vector autoregression (FAVAR), and Bayesian FAVAR (BFAVAR) or Bayesian shrinkage in a large-scale vector autoregression (BVAR). In this study, we forecast five key macroeconomic variables, namely, output, consumption, employment, housing price inflation, and CPI-based inflation using quarterly data. The results, based on mean absolute error (MAE) and root mean squared error (RMSE) of one to eight quarters ahead out-of-sample forecasts, indicate that the non-structural models outperform the structural model for all variables of interest across all horizons. Among the non-structural models, small-scale BVAR performs better with short forecasting horizons, although DFM shows a similar predictive ability. As the forecasting horizon grows, DFM tends to improve over other models and is better suited in forecasting key macroeconomic variables at longer horizons.

The study of an economy's business cycle -defined as a deviation from the long-term output growth rate- is an important task: upward deviations may create inflationary pressures, while downward deviations may be associated with a high unemployment rate. There can be many reasons why an economy may grow at a different rate than the long-term trend. These include government policies, political factors and other internal or external shocks. While it is not possible to eradicate the business cycle -after all a shock is an unexpected development in a relevant variable- the understanding of its statistical properties is helpful in assessing the effects of the various shocks hitting the economy and designing policies to help reduce output variability. The purpose of this thesis is to model empirically business cycles of selected East and Southeast Asian economies. The region is of particular interest as it consists of both developed economies (e.g. Japan and Singapore) and emerging ones (e.g. South Korea and Thailand). In addition, the so-called Asian tigers experienced a fall from grace during the crisis of 1997-98 but they have recently resumed robust growth rates. Given the prominent role that these economies may play in a world emerging from the severe financial crisis of 2007 the investigation of their business cycles becomes an even more valuable endeavour. But how can we model the business cycle to answer pertinent questions? A regime-switching methodology is adopted to examine the following issues; first, the degree of persistence of positive and negative growth rate regimes; second, the extent of correlation of the region's economies conditional on the growth regime; third, the informational content of leading indicators; and fourth, the duration dependence of the business cycle. The selected methodology allows the extraction of the relevant information and pervades the conclusions of the thesis. Following a brief introduction, chapter 2 reviews the modern theory of business cycles, as well as the relevant empirical contributions. The next chapter examines in some depth the economic structure of the sample economies. Understanding the main characteristics of each economy is a prerequisite in appreciating the features of the respective business cycle. Chapter 4 presents the methodology of fixed and time-varying transition probability regime-switching models, which will be used in the Subsequent analysis. Chapters 5 and 6 provide the main answers to the research questions outlined above. A summary of the work is offered in the last chapter.

This thesis explores some different dimensions of business cycle analysis and monetary policy,in closed and open economies. In the first chapter, I develop a model to analyze the roleof research and development in the US business cycle, and its ability to produce macroeconomicfluctuations by generating expectations of future productivity gains. In the secondchapter, I empirically investigate how changes in central bank transparency affects financialmarkets response to central bank announcements in the United Kingdom. Finally, in thethird chapter, I analyze some heterogeneities in the international spillovers of central bankannouncements, focusing on the behavior of exchange rates and international capital flows.The first chapter studies the role of R&D-based innovation within the US business cycle. Thechapter builds on the idea that temporary business cycle frequency contractions can result inprolonged medium-run slowdowns, if an economy’s technological growth is generated by asector of profit-maximizing innovators. In order to analyse the business cycle spillovers oninnovation activity, this chapter analyzes the contribution of R&D-based innovation to USbusiness cycle dynamics combining techniques from the empirical and theoretical literature.First, using a Bayesian VAR identified with a Cholesky recursive formulation, the papershows that innovation shocks are generally inflationary and generate rises in hours worked.Second, the paper introduces a medium-scale New-Keynesian model of creative destructionthat can rationalize these facts. In the model, a sector of profit-maximizing innovators investsin R&D and endogenously generates productivity gains, ultimately determining theeconomy’s growth rate. The estimated responses to innovation shocks are characterized bypowerful wealth effects that offset the contractionary spillovers on the labour market conventionally associated with productivity increases. The estimation results suggest that thebulk of the productivity slowdown is due to a decrease in the innovation’s ability to generateproductivity gains. These findings support the view of the productivity slowdown as astand-alone phenomenon in the US business cycle as opposed to a byproduct of the GreatRecession.In the second chapter (jointly written with Andrzej Szczepaniak), we investigate the impactof monetary policy transparency measures on the relevance of the information effect channelof central bank communication. Our paper focuses on the switch in the Bank of England’scommunication strategy, occurred in August 2015, from a multi-day to a single-day releaseschedule. Before August 2015, the minutes of the monetary policy committee and the inflationreport (i.e. the Bank’s analysis of the economic outlook), were published only someweeks after the monetary policy decision. By contrast, after August 2015, the Bank of Englandstarted releasing all accompanying documents alongside the policy rate announcement,in the attempt to increase the transparency of its policy-making process.To this purpose, we construct a market surprise series for each one of the three communicationdocuments of the Bank of England (the monetary policy decision, the minutes of themonetary policy committee, and the economic outlook report) in order to evaluate the effectof central bank communication on agents’ expectations. The chapter builds on the idea thatmarket responses to central bank releases can be due either to unexpected deviations from thecentral bank’s policy rule (the policy component of the surprise), or to the revision of agents’expectations about future inflation (the informational component of the surprise). These twocomponents can be identified based on the associated reaction of equity prices. In the chapter,the policy component of the policy announcement is identified as an unexpected increasein the policy rate which results in a decline in equity prices, and the informational componentas an unexpected increase in the policy rate which results in a rise in equity prices, inaccordance with the methodology introduced by Jarocinski and Karadi (2020). We provideevidence that the informational component is a key driver of the financial market response tocentral bank communication. Before August 2015, according to our results, the informationeffect accounted for approximately two thirds of the interest rate surprise, the inflation expectations,and the equity price variation on the release days. However, we find that the switchfrom a multi-day release schedule to a single-day communication strategy markedly reducedthe importance of information effects. Our findings suggest that the degree of transparencyof a central bank’s policies significantly affects the quantitative relevance of the informationeffect and the associated asset price response.The third chapter (jointly written with Andrzej Szczepaniak), analyzes some of the internationalspillovers of central bank communication. The chapter highlights that the policy andthe informational component of central bank announcements entail different open economyspillovers. Namely, when unexpected increases in the US policy rate are associated withincreases in equity prices, the US dollar depreciates. We argue that this phenomenon occursbecause central bank information shocks affect investors’ risk perception. In response tofavorable central bank information shocks, we observe downward revisions of the level offinancial risk perceived by investors, which lead capital to flow towards emerging marketsand riskier asset classes. Conversely, in response to adverse central bank information shocks,we observe upward revisions of the level of financial risk perceived by investors, which leadcapital to flow towards the US and safer asset classes, causing an appreciation of the US dollar.In support to this hypothesis, we provide evidence of large spillover effects onto globalsafe-haven currencies, risk premia, cross-border credit, risky assets, and ultimately, on globaleconomic activity.
Doctorat en Sciences économiques et de gestion
info:eu-repo/semantics/nonPublished

This thesis contains three essays on the linkages between financial markets and business cycles. The first chapter introduces a method to embed learning about asset prices (relying on past observation to predict future prices) into business cycle models in a way that retains a maximum of rationality and parsimony. This method is applied to a real business cycle model and a search model of unemployment. In the RBC model, learning about stock prices leads to counterfactual correlations between consumption, employment and investment. By contrast, the search model augmented by learning can generate realistic business cycle fluctuations. The volatility of unemployment in the data can be replicated without the need to rely on a high degree of wage rigidity. The second chapter examines the implications of a learning-based asset pricing theory for a model of firm financial frictions. Learning greatly improves asset price properties such as return volatility and predictability. In combination with financial frictions, a powerful feedback loop emerges between beliefs, stock prices and real activity, leading to substantial amplification of shocks. The model-implied subjective expectations are found to be consistent with patterns of forecast error predictability in survey data. A reaction of monetary policy to asset prices stabilises expectations and substantially improves welfare, which is not the case under rational expectations. The third chapter is concerned with the inefficiencies caused by incomplete national and international financial markets. Specifically, it examines the optimal design of an unemployment insurance scheme that operates across multiple countries in the presence of such inefficiencies. Using a two-country business cycle model with labour market search frictions, it is found that a supranational unemployment insurance scheme can be used to achieve transfers across countries without changing unemployment levels; and that the optimal unemployment insurance policy prescribes a countercyclical replacement rate due in the presence of cross-country transfers.

This paper empirically investigates the relationship between long-run economic growth and output volatility for the time series experience of 25 OECD countries between the years 1960 and 2013. Given the low number of observations, we reject, based on Monte Carlo simulations, the obvious choice of Garch estimation, and instead propose a pooled OLS estimator between a filtered GDP series that eliminates the cyclicality and the fluctuations around this trend. We find strong empirical evidence for a positive relationship between output variability and economic growth. This relationship seems to confirm theoretical literature which proposes such a positive relation.

This dissertation studies the intersection between the sharing of individual specific risks and business cycle risks. Individual specific or idiosyncratic risk sharing is typically hampered by moral hazard, and in Chapter 2 we propose a new theory of debt finance as an effective mechanism for sharing idiosyncratic risks. But business cycle or systemic risk sharing is also affected by the means of idiosyncratic risk sharing. Departures from full systemic risk sharing can dampen the incentive compatibility constraint allowing a greater degree of idiosyncratic risk sharing (Chapter 1). Entrepreneurs’ productive risk can quickly transform into low employment, as wages fall below marginal revenue products of labour (Chapter 3). Market prices for systemic risk insurance do not necessarily internalise balance sheet externalities, resulting in excessive swings in leverage and factor market wedges of inefficiency (Chap- ter 4). Sometimes, agents have private information about the risks faced by their projects, and how they correlate with the broader economy. When this is the case, optimal systemic risk sharing arrangements must allocate business systemic risk in a way that deters entrepreneurs from herding among their peers (Chapter 5).

Diese Arbeit befasst sich mit der Rolle der Unternehmenskreditfinanzierung für die Realwirtschaft. Im ersten Teil untersuche ich die Entwicklung der externen Finanzierungsprämien in den USA in Folge von ökonomischen Schocks und finde, dass die Prämie antizyklisch auf Angebots- und monetäre Schocks reagiert. Im zweiten Teil analysiere ich mit Hilfe eines DSGE-Modells, wie die Zusammenfassung aus Bankkreditfinanzierung und Anleihefinanzierung die Transmission von ökonomischen Schocks beeinflusst. Angenommen, dass große Unternehmen größtenteils Anleihenmärkte verwenden und kleine Unternehmen auf Bankkredite angewiesen sind, zeigt das Modell, dass die Zusammensetzung des Unternehmenskreditfinanzierung relevant für die Verbreitung von Schocks ist. Negative monetäre Schocks und Finanzschocks beeinträchtigen die Kreditvergabe von fragilen Banken, die in Folge die Bankkredite an kleine Unternehmen kürzen. Unternehmen, die auf Anleihenfinanzierung zurückgreifen können, können sich in Zeiten steigender Prämien über Unternehmensanleihen refinanzieren. Daher reduzieren diese Unternehmen nicht in so starken Ausmaß ihre Investitionen wie kleine Firmen. Als Folge davon, ist eine Volkswirtschaft, die nur auf Bankkredite angewiesen ist, stärker von Schocks betroffen als eine Volkswirtschaft mit sowohl Bank- als auch Anleihenfinanzierung. Abschließend wird das Modell verwendet, um eine Kombination konventioneller und unkoventioneller Geldpolitik sowie makroprudentieller Politik in einer Ökonomie mit segmentierten Kreditmärkten zu evaluieren. Es wird gezeigt, dass der optimale Politikmix die höchsten Wohlfahrtsgewinne in Folge von Finanzschocks erreicht.
This thesis examines the role of corporate debt financing for the real economy. First, I study the conditional dynamics of the external finance premium using US data and find that the premium is countercyclical following supply and monetary policy shocks. Second, I analyze to which extent bank and bond financing affect the transmission of economic shocks in the context of a DSGE model. To the extent that large firms predominantly use capital market finance, whereas small firms rely on bank loans, the model predicts that the composition of corporate debt is relevant for the propagation of shocks. Contractionary monetary policy and financial shocks impair the ability of leveraged banks to provide loans, which adversely affects small firms. Bond financing dependent firms can nevertheless issue bonds in times of rising bond finance premia. These firms do not reduce their investments as strongly as bank financing dependent firms. As a consequence, the economy that relies only on bank credit is affected more by shocks than the economy with bank and bond finance. Finally, the model is used to evaluate the optimal mix of conventional, unconventional and macroprudential policies for segmented credit markets. I find that the optimal policy mix attains the highest welfare gains following financial shocks.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Oregon, 2000.
Typescript. Includes vita and abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 179-182). Also available for download via the World Wide Web; free to University of Oregon users.

Identifying business cycle stylised facts is essential as these often form the basis for the construction and validation of theoretical business cycle models. Furthermore, understanding the cyclical patterns in economic activity, and their causes, is important to the decisions of both policymakers and market participants. This is of particular concern in developing countries where, in the absence of full risk sharing mechanisms, the economic and social costs of swings in the business cycle are very high. Previous analyses of developing country stylised facts have tended to feature only small samples, for example the seminal paper by Agénor et al. (2000) considers just twelve middle-income economies. Consequently, the results are subjective and dependent on the chosen countries. Motivated by the importance of these business cycle statistics and the lack of consistency amongst existing research, this thesis makes an important contribution to the literature by extending and generalising the developing country stylised facts; examining both classical and growth cycles for a sample of thirty-two developing countries. One significant finding that emerges is the persistence of output fluctuations in developing countries and the strong positive relationship between the magnitude of this persistence and the level of economic development. The observation of procyclical real wages and significant price persistence indicates the suitability of a New Keynesian dynamic general equilibrium model with sticky prices, to explore this relationship; thus, the vertical production chain model of Huang and Liu (2001) was implemented. This model lends itself to such an analysis, as by altering the number of production stages (N) it is possible to represent economies at different levels of development. There was found to be a strong significant positive relationship between the magnitude of output persistence generated by the model and economic development. However, a very significant finding of this analysis is that the model overestimates output persistence in high inflation countries and underestimates output persistence in low inflation countries. This has important implications not only for this model, but also for any economist attempting to construct a business cycle model capable of replicating the observed patterns of output persistence.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Ohio State University, 2005.
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This thesis is a theoretical study of the role of credit market imperfections in business cycle dynamics. In particular, Chapters 2 to 4 focus on the credit channel of the monetary transmission mechanism, while Chapter 5 studies the role of shocks to credit markets in generating business cycle dynamics. The common framework used throughout the thesis is a New Keynesian (NK) framework characterised by imperfect competition and staggered pricesetting. The essence of the credit channel of monetary transmission is endogenous movements in the external finance premium, which, in turn, are caused by endogenous movements of agency costs generated in the presence of credit frictions. The credit channel works to complement the interest rate channel inherent to the standard NK model. Chapter 2 aims to shed light on the workings of the credit channel by presenting an analytical solution for the simpli…ed case where agency costs are modelled acyclical. I show that when acyclical agency costs are incorporated into an otherwise standard NK model, they amplify the real impact of money shocks but reduce the persistence of the real effects. This happens because credit frictions flatten both aggregate supply (AS) and aggregate demand (AD) relations of the model, where the former is essentially the New Keynesian Phillips curve while the latter is derived from the consumption Euler equation and money market equilibrium condition. Chapter 3 replaces the assumption of economy-wide input markets made in Chapter 2 with the one of segmented input markets. The reason for doing this is twofold. First, the latter assumption seems to capture the reality better. Second, the previous literature shows that the segmented market assumption is a crucial determinant for the degree of the persistence of the real effects of money shocks. I show that for given agency costs, both the real impact of money shocks and the persistence of the real effects are much greater in a model with the segmented input market assumption. This happens because the new assumption greatly flattens the AS curve. Chapter 4 directly studies the workings of the endogenous agency costs. Focusing on credit frictions in borrowing by firms (entrepreneurs), it compares the different business cycle dynamics generated by two alternative modelling strategies. The first assumes that entrepreneurs make a consumption/saving decision to maximise their intertemporal utility, but have a higher discount rate than households (original lenders). The second assumes that a constant fraction of entrepreneurs die each period and they consume all the accumulated wealth just before their death. These assumptions are widely used in the literature to keep agency costs operative. I show that the choice of the modelling strategies is key to the way the credit channel operates within the NK framework. Chapter 5 investigates the effect of shocks to credit markets on business cycle dynamics. Using the framework developed in Chapter 2, I show that shocks to credit markets affect agency costs and thus the external finance premium faced by entrepreneurs (borrowers). In turn, this causes a change in output. Then, turning to the framework developed in Chapter 4 with endogenous agency costs, I highlight that there is a feedback effect from macroeconomic conditions to the premium through endogenous developments in entrepreneurs' net worth. The change in the premium caused by the feedback effect leads to the further change in output.