Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'Commercial policy Econometric models'

Includes bibliographical references. Addresses the question of what an economic model of the world wine market suggests will happen to wine production, consumption, trade and prices in various regions in the early 21st century. A subsidiary issue is what difference would global or European regional wine liberalisation make to that outlook, according to such a model. Accompanying CD-ROM comprises spreadsheet written by Nick Berger, November 2000, for the Windows and Office97 versions of Excel; a seven region world wine model (WWM7) - base version projecting the world wine market 1996-2005 as a non-linear Armington model. System requirements for accompanying CD-ROM: IBM compatible computer ; Microsoft Excel 97 or later.

This thesis aims to provide new and useful insights into the effects that various tax, labour and product market reforms have on the overall economic performance. Additionally, it aims also to provide insights about the optimal monetary and fiscal policy behaviour within the economy characterized with various real labour market frictions. We analyze the benefits of tax reforms and their effectiveness relative to product or other labour market reforms. A general equilibrium model with imperfect competition, wage bargaining and different forms of tax distortions is applied in order to analyze these issues. We find that structural reforms imply short run costs but long run gains; that the long run gains outweigh the short run costs; and that the financing of such reforms will be the main stumbling block. We also find that the effectiveness of various reform instruments depends on the policy maker's ultimate objective. More precisely, tax reforms are more effective for welfare gains, but market liberalization is more valuable for generating employment. In order to advance our understanding of the tax and product market reform processes, we then develop a dynamic stochastic general equilibrium model which incorporates search-matching frictions, costly ring and endogenous job destruction decisions, as well as a distortionary progressive wage and a at payroll tax. We confirm the negative effects of marginal tax distortions on the overall economic performance. We also find a positive effect of an increase in the wage tax progressivity and product market liberalization on employment, output and consumption. Following a positive technology shock, the volatility of employment, output and consumption turns out to be lower in the reformed economy, whereas the impact effect on inflation is more pronounced. Following a positive government spending shock the volatility of employment, output and consumption is again lower in the reformed economy, but the inflation response is stronger over the whole adjustment path. We also find detrimental effects on employment and output of a tax reform which keeps the marginal tax wedge unchanged by partially offsetting a decrease in the payroll tax by an increase in the wage tax rate. If this reform is anticipated one period in advance the negative effects remain all over the transition path. We investigate the optimal monetary and fiscal policy implication of the New-Keynesian setup enriched with search-matching frictions. We show that the optimal policy features deviation from strict price stability, and that the Ramsey planner uses both inflation and taxes in order to fully exploit the benefits of the productivity increase following a positive productivity shock. We also find that the optimal tax rate and government liabilities inherit the time series properties of the underlying shocks. Moreover, we identify a certain degree of overshooting in inflation and tax rates following a positive productivity shock, and a certain degree of undershooting following a positive government spending shock as a consequence of the assumed commitment of policy maker.

The objective of this dissertation is to examine the effect of recent trade policy changes on trade and economic growth for southern Africa. This is accomplished by using a dynamic panel data modeling approach to examine the effect of openness on economic growth during the 1990s. The gravity model and Tobit maximum likelihood estimation are used to examine the effect of trade policy changes and two types of spatial separation on the likelihood of trade. The two types of spatial separation are distance and preferential trading arrangements. This study uses sophisticated econometric techniques and a more complete sample of countries than previous studies on southern Africa.
The results show that distance impedes the likelihood of trade. Trade policy changes and the preferential trading arrangements, SADC and COMESA, enhanced trade in southern Africa during the 1990s. The trade stimulating effect was larger for SADC membership. However, some members benefited much more from the existence of preferential relations than other members. The study results indicate that openness affects economic growth.

The aim of this thesis is the development and the application of econometric models with time-varying parameters in a policy environment. The popularity of these methods has run in parallel with advances in computing power, which has made feasible estimation methods that until the late '90s would have been unfeasible. Bayesian methods, in particular, benefitted from these technological advances, as sampling from complicated posterior distributions of the model parameters became less and less time-consuming. Building on the seminal work by Carter and Kohn (1994) and Jacquier, Polson, and Rossi (1994), bayesian algorithms for estimating Vector Autoregressions (VARs) with drifting coefficients and volatility were independently derived by Cogley and Sargent (2005) and Primiceri (2005). Despite their increased popularity, bayesian methods still suffer from some limitations, from both a theoretical and a practical viewpoint. First, they typically assume that parameters evolve as independent driftless random walks. It is therefore unclear whether the output that one obtains from these estimators is accurate when the model parameters are generated by a different stochastic process. Second, some computational limitations remain as only a limited number of time series can be jointly modeled in this environment. These shortcomings have prompted a new line of research that uses non-parametric methods to estimate random time-varying coefficients models. Giraitis, Kapetanios, and Yates (2014) develop kernel estimators for autoregressive models with random time-varying coefficients and derive the conditions under which such estimators consistently recover the true path of the model coefficients. The method has been suitably adapted by Giraitis, Kapetanios, and Yates (2012) to a multivariate context. In this thesis I make use of both bayesian and non-parametric methods, adapting them (and in some cases extending them) to answer some of the research questions that, as a Central Bank economist, I have been tackling in the past five years. The variety of empirical exercises proposed throughout the work testifies the wide range of applicability of these models, be it in the area of macroeconomic forecasting (both at short and long horizons) or in the investigation of structural change in the relationship among macroeconomic variables. The first chapter develops a mixed frequency dynamic factor model in which the disturbances of both the latent common factor and of the idiosyncratic components have time varying stochastic volatility. The model is used to investigate business cycle dynamics in the euro area, and to perform point and density forecast. The main result is that introducing stochastic volatility in the model contributes to an improvement in both point and density forecast accuracy. Chapter 2 introduces a nonparametric estimation method for a large Vector Autoregression (VAR) with time-varying parameters. The estimators and their asymptotic distributions are available in closed form. This makes the method computationally efficient and capable of handling information sets as large as those typically handled by factor models and Factor Augmented VARs (FAVAR). When applied to the problem of forecasting key macroeconomic variables, the method outperforms constant parameter benchmarks and large Bayesian VARs with time-varying parameters. The tool is also used for structural analysis to study the time-varying effects of oil price innovations on sectorial U.S. industrial output. Chapter 3 uses a bayesian VAR to provide novel evidence on changes in the relationship between the real price of oil and real exports in the euro area. By combining robust predictions on the sign of the impulse responses obtained from a theoretical model with restrictions on the slope of the oil demand and oil supply curves, oil supply and foreign productivity shocks are identified. The main finding is that from the 1980s onwards the relationship between oil prices and euro area exports has become less negative conditional on oil supply shortfalls and more positive conditional on foreign productivity shocks. A general equilibrium model is used to shed some light on the plausible reasons for these changes. Chapter 4 investigates the failure of conventional constant parameter models in anticipating the sharp fall in inflation in the euro area in 2013- 2014. This forecasting failure can be partly attributed to a break in the elasticity of inflation to the output gap. Using structural break tests and non-parametric time varying parameter models this study shows that this elasticity has indeed increased substantially after 2013. Two structural interpretations of this finding are offered. The first is that the increase in the cyclicality of inflation has stemmed from lower nominal rigidities or weaker strategic complementarity in price setting. A second possibility is that real time output gap estimates are understating the amount of spare capacity in the economy. I estimate that, in order to reconcile the observed fall in inflation with the historical correlation between consumer prices and the business cycle, the output gap should be wider by around one third.

This thesis focuses on the effects of development assistance (ODA), private foreign commercial capital (PFX), domestic savings (SAV), the openness of the economy and producer prices on agricultural output, and on export and domestic shares of agricultural output in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). This study uses panel data spanning 27 countries and the period 1970 to 1993.
The production function is a Cobb-Douglas type. Static export and domestic share equations are derived from a specification of the agricultural gross domestic product function. Transformed auto-regressive distributed-lag versions of the static share models are used to investigate long-run dynamics, persistence and implementation lags in the share response model.
Agricultural output is affected as follows. ODA, PFX and SAV have small positive or negative impact depending on agricultural region or economic policy environment. The impact of openness of the economy is negative in all agricultural regions, however, there is evidence of positive effect of openness within improved policy environment. None of these effects are statistically significant.
Export share is affected as follows. ODA, PFX and SAV have small positive impact in some agricultural regions and policy environments, both in the short-run and in the long-run. PFX is not significant anywhere. ODA is significant only when countries are grouped by policy environment in the short-run. SAV is significant in the short-run only in some regions, and significant in the long-run only in others. Openness has positive impact in the short-run. This is significant in many regions. Its long-run impact is mostly positive but not significant anywhere. The impact of producer price is mostly positive but not significant.
Efforts to encourage economic activities in rural communities such as improvements in domestic terms of trade in favor of agriculture, together with the provision of infrastructure are likely to stimulate output. Strategies to diversify and process agricultural exports in the face of falling agricultural commodity prices should be pursued.

This thesis examines determinacy and E-stability of economic policy in monetary union models. Monetary policy takes the form of either a contemporaneous or a forecast based interest rate rule, while fiscal policy follows a contemporaneous government spending rule. In the absence of asymmetries, the results from the closed economy literature on learning are retained. However, when introducing asymmetries into monetary union frameworks, the determinacy and E-stability conditions for economic policy differ from both the closed and open economy cases. We find that a monetary union with heterogeneous price rigidities is more likely to be determinate and E-stable. Specifically, the Taylor principle, a key stability condition for the closed economy, is now relaxed. Furthermore, an interest rate rule that stabilizes the terms of trade in addition to output and inflation, is more likely to induce determinacy and local stability under RLS learning. If monetary policy is sufficiently aggressive in stabilizing the terms of trade, then determinacy and E-stability of the union economy can be achieved without direct stabilization of output and inflation. A fiscal policy rule that supports demand for domestic goods following a shock to competitiveness, can destabilize the union economy regardless of the interest rate rule employed by the union central bank. In this case, determinacy and E-stability conditions have to be simultaneously and independently met by both fiscal and monetary policy for the union economy to be stable. When fiscal policy instead stabilizes domestic output gaps while monetary policy stabilizes union output and inflation, fiscal policy directly affects the stability of monetary policy. A contemporaneous monetary policy rule has to be more aggressive to satisfy the Taylor principle, the more aggressive fiscal policy is. On the other hand, when monetary policy is forward looking, an aggressive fiscal policy rule can help induce determinacy.

This thesis consists of three self-contained chapters. Chapter I. The first chapter develops a dynamic general equilibrium model which includes financial intermediation and endogenous financial crises. Consistent with the data, financial crises occur out of prolonged (credit) boom periods and are initiated by a moderate adverse shock. The mechanism which gives rise to boom-bust episodes around financial crises is based on an interaction between the maturity mismatch of the financial sector and an agency problem which results in procyclical lending. I show how to model these features in a tractable way, giving a realistic representation of the financial sector's balance sheet and its lending behavior. The chapter provides empirical evidence on the behavior of the U.S. financial sector's market leverage which is (i) acyclical, (ii) rose mildly prior to the Great Recession, and (iii) increased sharply during the crisis; the model is consistent with these empirical facts. It also predicts and replicates the Great Recession, when confronted with a historical series of structural shocks. Finally, the framework is extended to include price rigidities, nominal debt contracts, and monetary policy. Within this version, I analyze the impact of monetary policy on financial stability and show that a U-shaped pattern of the policy target rate is most likely to increase financial instability. Chapter II. The second chapter models the economy as a time varying vector autoregression, consisting of economic and financial variables. The interest lies in the time varying response of these variables to a monetary policy shock. Monetary policy shocks are identified as the surprise component in policy announcements extracted from price changes in Federal Funds futures around such announcements. These monetary policy surprises enter the model as an exogenous variable. The framework is used to obtain evidence on the time varying response of stock prices to the monetary policy surprises. Stock prices always persistently decrease following a monetary tightening and more strongly than fundamentals imply - with an increase in risk-premia accounting for the difference. However, the response of stock prices varies over time. They decrease less during a boom and a perceived bubble period than during a recession. The findings suggest that so-called "leaning against the wind policies" may be ineffective since stock prices are less responsive during periods when such policies would disinflate asset bubbles using contractionary monetary policy. Chapter III. The third chapter augments a monetary dynamic general equilibrium model with a bubble as considered in [Miao_Wang_2015]. A bubble may exist in firms' stock market values and firms borrow against their inflated stock market values. Within this framework, I analyze the relation between monetary policy and the bubble. I find that contractionary monetary policy decreases the bubble which tightens borrowing constraints and amplifies the reaction of investment and output. These results are in contrast to the ones in Gali (2014) who considers a bubble of the classic rational type and finds that contractionary monetary policy can increase bubbles.

This thesis develops empirical econometric models of the private sector aggregate demand for real and financial assets in Kenya over the period 1973 to 1990. Single-equation error-correction models of the demand for money are estimated using systems cointegration methods developed by Johansen (1988). The models are found to be statistically stable functions throughout the period, and are capable of encompassing existing studies. Across a range of monetary aggregates, including a Divisia index aggregate for broad money, the models describe demand for money functions in which inflation and illegal foreign currency substitution are significant determinants of money holdings, and where the private sector adjusts rapidly to deviations from its stable longrun equilibrium real money demand. The demand for money is then integrated within a neo-classical model of asset demands, which examines the behaviour of the aggregate private sector asset portfolio in response to changes in relative prices between assets and to external shocks to the economy, principally the 1976-77 coffee boom. A variant of the Almost Ideal Demand System model developed by Deaton and Muellbauer (1980) is estimated for a class of six assets: base money, banking system deposits, government securities, tradable capital, nontradable capital and inventories. The asset substitution model, which also takes an errorcorrection form, and which allows for credit rationing, generates results which are consistent with the earlier demand for money models, where private agents are also denied access to foreign-denominated assets. Using this model, the maintenance of policies of financial repression are shown to cause the private sector to offset inflationary shocks through the accumulation of real assets, principally in the form of non-tradable capital in the construction and property sectors. The evidence from the two models is used to analyze the fiscal effects of the inflation tax and financial repression measures. Policies of financial liberalization are shown to reduce the revenue maximizing rate of inflation (estimated to be 14% per annum) and the implicit tax on domestic holders of government liabilities. This dampens asset substitution in response to inflationary shocks and offsets the adverse effects of "construction-boom" investment on non-tradable capital prices.

This study develops a theoretical framework for the analysis of regular patterns in public financial behaviour, and applies that framework in an empirical assessment of budgetary policies in the United States and in the Netherlands. Its purpose and scope are threefold. First, it sheds theoretical light on economic considerations guiding public financial behaviour in a dynamic model of optimal taxation. The resulting idea, that it may be sensible to smooth taxation over time,is subsequently extended to a more general model of the public finances, which involves spending, taxation, debt and money creation in an effort to control the government budget. Second, using modern econometric methods the practical relevance of this model is illustrated with estimations for the United States and the Netherlands. Third, the model is sufficiently flexible to allow for a number of more institutional insights. In this respect the emphasis is placed on the Dutch economy and public finances. The thesis thus engages economic theory, econometric technique and institutional and macroeconomic background in a combined effort to understand and evaluate regular patterns in public financial behaviour. Its findings have implications for each of these three areas of economic interest.

The thesis contains three papers on different areas of housing study in Hong Kong. The first paper focuses on government policy in public housing privatization on housing market and its effect on the overall economy. By comparing the negative impacts of two financial crises in 1997 and 2008 on housing market, the paper tries to offer explanation for the property downturn during 1997-2003. It aims to study how a public housing privatization program would produce adverse effects on housing transactions and the economy. The second one links up the housing market and macro economy. It is found that housing sector appears to serve as a link between exports and domestic expenditures. Housing prices are found to be driven by exports and interest rates over a long period, while housing prices in turn drive domestic expenditures. The last one attempts to investigate the dynamics of private housing market in Hong Kong. Using the cointegarting approach, the paper identifies two cointegrating relations, ie. a long run demand side relation between property price, prime rate, housing price expectation and GDP per capita, and supply side relation between private housing completion, property price, prime rate and land cost, which show a short run disequilibrium dynamics in demand and supply of private housing during 1985 – 2008.

Accurate estimation of alcohol price elasticity is important for policy analysis – e.g.., determining optimal taxes and projecting revenues generated from proposed tax changes. Several approaches to specifying and estimating the price elasticity of demand for alcohol can be found in the literature. There are two keys to policy-relevant specification and estimation of alcohol price elasticity. First, the underlying demand model should take account of alcohol consumption decisions at the extensive margin – i.e., individuals’ decisions to drink or not – because the price of alcohol may impact the drinking initiation decision and one’s decision to drink is likely to be structurally different from how much they drink if they decide to do so (the intensive margin). Secondly, the modeling of alcohol demand elasticity should yield both theoretical and empirical results that are causally interpretable. The elasticity estimates obtained from the existing two-part model takes into account the extensive margin, but are not causally interpretable.

The elasticity estimates obtained using aggregate-level models, however, are causally interpretable, but do not explicitly take into account the extensive margin. There currently exists no specification and estimation method for alcohol price elasticity that both accommodates the extensive margin and is causally interpretable. I explore additional sources of bias in the extant approaches to elasticity specification and estimation: 1) the use of logged (vs. nominal) alcohol prices; and 2) implementation of unnecessarily restrictive assumptions underlying the conventional two-part model. I propose a new approach to elasticity specification and estimation that covers the two key requirements for policy relevance and remedies all such biases. I find evidence of substantial divergence between the new and extant methods using both simulated and the real data. Such differences are profound when placed in the context of alcohol tax revenue generation.

This thesis addresses three relevant macroeconomic issues: (i) why

Central Banks behave so cautiously compared to optimal theoretical

benchmarks, (ii) do monetary variables add information about

future Euro Area inflation to a large amount of non monetary

variables and (iii) why national saving and investment are so

correlated in OECD countries in spite of the high degree of

integration of international financial markets.

The process of innovation in the elaboration of economic theory

and statistical analysis of the data witnessed in the last thirty

years has greatly enriched the toolbox available to

macroeconomists. Two aspects of such a process are particularly

noteworthy for addressing the issues in this thesis: the

development of macroeconomic dynamic stochastic general

equilibrium models (see Woodford, 1999b for an historical

perspective) and of techniques that enable to handle large data

sets in a parsimonious and flexible manner (see Reichlin, 2002 for

an historical perspective).

Dynamic stochastic general equilibrium models (DSGE) provide the

appropriate tools to evaluate the macroeconomic consequences of

policy changes. These models, by exploiting modern intertemporal

general equilibrium theory, aggregate the optimal responses of

individual as consumers and firms in order to identify the

aggregate shocks and their propagation mechanisms by the

restrictions imposed by optimizing individual behavior. Such a

modelling strategy, uncovering economic relationships invariant to

a change in policy regimes, provides a framework to analyze the

effects of economic policy that is robust to the Lucas'critique

(see Lucas, 1976). The early attempts of explaining business

cycles by starting from microeconomic behavior suggested that

economic policy should play no role since business cycles

reflected the efficient response of economic agents to exogenous

sources of fluctuations (see the seminal paper by Kydland and Prescott, 1982}

and, more recently, King and Rebelo, 1999). This view was challenged by

several empirical studies showing that the adjustment mechanisms

of variables at the heart of macroeconomic propagation mechanisms

like prices and wages are not well represented by efficient

responses of individual agents in frictionless economies (see, for

example, Kashyap, 1999; Cecchetti, 1986; Bils and Klenow, 2004 and Dhyne et al. 2004). Hence, macroeconomic models currently incorporate

some sources of nominal and real rigidities in the DSGE framework

and allow the study of the optimal policy reactions to inefficient

fluctuations stemming from frictions in macroeconomic propagation

mechanisms.

Against this background, the first chapter of this thesis sets up

a DSGE model in order to analyze optimal monetary policy in an

economy with sectorial heterogeneity in the frequency of price

adjustments. Price setters are divided in two groups: those

subject to Calvo type nominal rigidities and those able to change

their prices at each period. Sectorial heterogeneity in price

setting behavior is a relevant feature in real economies (see, for

example, Bils and Klenow, 2004 for the US and Dhyne, 2004 for the Euro

Area). Hence, neglecting it would lead to an understatement of the

heterogeneity in the transmission mechanisms of economy wide

shocks. In this framework, Aoki (2001) shows that a Central

Bank maximizing social welfare should stabilize only inflation in

the sector where prices are sticky (hereafter, core inflation).

Since complete stabilization is the only true objective of the

policymaker in Aoki (2001) and, hence, is not only desirable

but also implementable, the equilibrium real interest rate in the

economy is equal to the natural interest rate irrespective of the

degree of heterogeneity that is assumed. This would lead to

conclude that stabilizing core inflation rather than overall

inflation does not imply any observable difference in the

aggressiveness of the policy behavior. While maintaining the

assumption of sectorial heterogeneity in the frequency of price

adjustments, this chapter adds non negligible transaction

frictions to the model economy in Aoki (2001). As a

consequence, the social welfare maximizing monetary policymaker

faces a trade-off among the stabilization of core inflation,

economy wide output gap and the nominal interest rate. This

feature reflects the trade-offs between conflicting objectives

faced by actual policymakers. The chapter shows that the existence

of this trade-off makes the aggressiveness of the monetary policy

reaction dependent on the degree of sectorial heterogeneity in the

economy. In particular, in presence of sectorial heterogeneity in

price adjustments, Central Banks are much more likely to behave

less aggressively than in an economy where all firms face nominal

rigidities. Hence, the chapter concludes that the excessive

caution in the conduct of monetary policy shown by actual Central

Banks (see, for example, Rudebusch and Svennsson, 1999 and Sack, 2000) might not

represent a sub-optimal behavior but, on the contrary, might be

the optimal monetary policy response in presence of a relevant

sectorial dispersion in the frequency of price adjustments.

DSGE models are proving useful also in empirical applications and

recently efforts have been made to incorporate large amounts of

information in their framework (see Boivin and Giannoni, 2006). However, the

typical DSGE model still relies on a handful of variables. Partly,

this reflects the fact that, increasing the number of variables,

the specification of a plausible set of theoretical restrictions

identifying aggregate shocks and their propagation mechanisms

becomes cumbersome. On the other hand, several questions in

macroeconomics require the study of a large amount of variables.

Among others, two examples related to the second and third chapter

of this thesis can help to understand why. First, policymakers

analyze a large quantity of information to assess the current and

future stance of their economies and, because of model

uncertainty, do not rely on a single modelling framework.

Consequently, macroeconomic policy can be better understood if the

econometrician relies on large set of variables without imposing

too much a priori structure on the relationships governing their

evolution (see, for example, Giannone et al. 2004 and Bernanke et al. 2005).

Moreover, the process of integration of good and financial markets

implies that the source of aggregate shocks is increasingly global

requiring, in turn, the study of their propagation through cross

country links (see, among others, Forni and Reichlin, 2001 and Kose et al. 2003). A

priori, country specific behavior cannot be ruled out and many of

the homogeneity assumptions that are typically embodied in open

macroeconomic models for keeping them tractable are rejected by

the data. Summing up, in order to deal with such issues, we need

modelling frameworks able to treat a large amount of variables in

a flexible manner, i.e. without pre-committing on too many

a-priori restrictions more likely to be rejected by the data. The

large extent of comovement among wide cross sections of economic

variables suggests the existence of few common sources of

fluctuations (Forni et al. 2000 and Stock and Watson, 2002) around which

individual variables may display specific features: a shock to the

world price of oil, for example, hits oil exporters and importers

with different sign and intensity or global technological advances

can affect some countries before others (Giannone and Reichlin, 2004). Factor

models mainly rely on the identification assumption that the

dynamics of each variable can be decomposed into two orthogonal

components - common and idiosyncratic - and provide a parsimonious

tool allowing the analysis of the aggregate shocks and their

propagation mechanisms in a large cross section of variables. In

fact, while the idiosyncratic components are poorly

cross-sectionally correlated, driven by shocks specific of a

variable or a group of variables or measurement error, the common

components capture the bulk of cross-sectional correlation, and

are driven by few shocks that affect, through variable specific

factor loadings, all items in a panel of economic time series.

Focusing on the latter components allows useful insights on the

identity and propagation mechanisms of aggregate shocks underlying

a large amount of variables. The second and third chapter of this

thesis exploit this idea.

The second chapter deals with the issue whether monetary variables

help to forecast inflation in the Euro Area harmonized index of

consumer prices (HICP). Policymakers form their views on the

economic outlook by drawing on large amounts of potentially

relevant information. Indeed, the monetary policy strategy of the

European Central Bank acknowledges that many variables and models

can be informative about future Euro Area inflation. A peculiarity

of such strategy is that it assigns to monetary information the

role of providing insights for the medium - long term evolution of

prices while a wide range of alternative non monetary variables

and models are employed in order to form a view on the short term

and to cross-check the inference based on monetary information.

However, both the academic literature and the practice of the

leading Central Banks other than the ECB do not assign such a

special role to monetary variables (see Gali et al. 2004 and

references therein). Hence, the debate whether money really

provides relevant information for the inflation outlook in the

Euro Area is still open. Specifically, this chapter addresses the

issue whether money provides useful information about future

inflation beyond what contained in a large amount of non monetary

variables. It shows that a few aggregates of the data explain a

large amount of the fluctuations in a large cross section of Euro

Area variables. This allows to postulate a factor structure for

the large panel of variables at hand and to aggregate it in few

synthetic indexes that still retain the salient features of the

large cross section. The database is split in two big blocks of

variables: non monetary (baseline) and monetary variables. Results

show that baseline variables provide a satisfactory predictive

performance improving on the best univariate benchmarks in the

period 1997 - 2005 at all horizons between 6 and 36 months.

Remarkably, monetary variables provide a sensible improvement on

the performance of baseline variables at horizons above two years.

However, the analysis of the evolution of the forecast errors

reveals that most of the gains obtained relative to univariate

benchmarks of non forecastability with baseline and monetary

variables are realized in the first part of the prediction sample

up to the end of 2002, which casts doubts on the current

forecastability of inflation in the Euro Area.

The third chapter is based on a joint work with Domenico Giannone

and gives empirical foundation to the general equilibrium

explanation of the Feldstein - Horioka puzzle. Feldstein and Horioka (1980) found

that domestic saving and investment in OECD countries strongly

comove, contrary to the idea that high capital mobility should

allow countries to seek the highest returns in global financial

markets and, hence, imply a correlation among national saving and

investment closer to zero than one. Moreover, capital mobility has

strongly increased since the publication of Feldstein - Horioka's

seminal paper while the association between saving and investment

does not seem to comparably decrease. Through general equilibrium

mechanisms, the presence of global shocks might rationalize the

correlation between saving and investment. In fact, global shocks,

affecting all countries, tend to create imbalance on global

capital markets causing offsetting movements in the global

interest rate and can generate the observed correlation across

national saving and investment rates. However, previous empirical

studies (see Ventura, 2003) that have controlled for the effects

of global shocks in the context of saving-investment regressions

failed to give empirical foundation to this explanation. We show

that previous studies have neglected the fact that global shocks

may propagate heterogeneously across countries, failing to

properly isolate components of saving and investment that are

affected by non pervasive shocks. We propose a novel factor

augmented panel regression methodology that allows to isolate

idiosyncratic sources of fluctuations under the assumption of

heterogenous transmission mechanisms of global shocks. Remarkably,

by applying our methodology, the association between domestic

saving and investment decreases considerably over time,

consistently with the observed increase in international capital

mobility. In particular, in the last 25 years the correlation

between saving and investment disappears.

Doctorat en sciences économiques, Orientation économie
info:eu-repo/semantics/nonPublished

This thesis studies the emergence of financial exposures between banks and introduces a novel game of financial network formation. It shows empirically that governance structures influence how banks use the interbank market to manage liquidity and that strategic factors are additional drivers of interbank lending for private banks (Ch. 2). It further develops a model of optimal bank behaviour in the absence of liquidity shocks considering the effect of an exogenous bailout probability (Ch. 3), and introduces a model of endogenous liquidity co-insurance formation (Ch. 4). The first chapter, The Purpose of Interbank Markets, tests competing theories of interbank lending using 43 quarters (2002-2012) of confidential data on the German banking sector and interbank market. It shows that banks use the interbank market for liquidity co-insurance as traditionally assumed. However, the importance of the liquidity management function is higher for regionally-focused credit cooperatives and savings banks than for private commercial banks. A distinct effect for private banks is identified; for private banks, increases in interbank liabilities are shown to correlate with a proxy for the bailout probability of banks. The chapter thus offers empirical support for an emerging literature on strategic behaviour in interbank markets and highlights the need to extend the traditional model of liquidity co-insurance. The second chapter, The Emergence of Interbank Exposures, develops a model showing that, even in the hypothetical absence of liquidity shocks, under some conditions the presence of conditional liability guarantees can lead to interbank exposures as an equilibrium outcome. It shows that such an equilibrium is characterised by banks of different sizes and asymmetric bank behaviour. Some banks are active only as lenders with others investing in a productive technology while borrowing in the interbank market. An equilibrium interbank rate is derived which depends on parameters characterising the bailout probability, including different parameters of government behaviour. The third chapter, Coordination and Competition in the Formation of Financial Networks, introduces a generalisation and extension of the seminal work of Allen and Gale (2000). It studies liquidity co-insurance between deposit-taking banks in an n-region economy. Both a static and a dynamic model of the endogenous formation of interbank liquidity co-insurance links are examined. Using a novel approach to model liquidity co-insurance, it is shown that contrary to previous findings it is not possible for banks with limited information to insure optimally against liquidity shocks. However, in a dynamic formulation of the model with best-response dynamics and learning, socially optimal insurance is an evolutionary stable equilibrium. The chapter also studies an extension to the model that introduces non-zero bailout probabilities, which endogenously leads to interbank networks consistent with the structure of interbank exposure networks documented empirically.

The active use of macroeconomic policies to smooth economic fluctuations and, as a

consequence, the stance that policymakers should adopt over the business cycle, remain

controversial issues in the economic literature.

In the light of the dramatic experience of the early 1930s’ Great Depression, Keynes (1936)

argued that the market mechanism could not be relied upon to spontaneously recover from

a slump, and advocated counter-cyclical public spending and monetary policy to stimulate

demand. Albeit the Keynesian doctrine had largely influenced policymaking during

the two decades following World War II, it began to be seriously challenged in several

directions since the start of the 1970s. The introduction of rational expectations within

macroeconomic models implied that aggregate demand management could not stabilize

the economy’s responses to shocks (see in particular Sargent and Wallace (1975)). According

to this view, in fact, rational agents foresee the effects of the implemented policies, and

wage and price expectations are revised upwards accordingly. Therefore, real wages and

money balances remain constant and so does output. Within such a conceptual framework,

only unexpected policy interventions would have some short-run effects upon the economy.

The "real business cycle (RBC) theory", pioneered by Kydland and Prescott (1982), offered

an alternative explanation on the nature of fluctuations in economic activity, viewed

as reflecting the efficient responses of optimizing agents to exogenous sources of fluctuations, outside the direct control of policymakers. The normative implication was that

there should be no role for economic policy activism: fiscal and monetary policy should be

acyclical. The latest generation of New Keynesian dynamic stochastic general equilibrium

(DSGE) models builds on rigorous foundations in intertemporal optimizing behavior by

consumers and firms inherited from the RBC literature, but incorporates some frictions

in the adjustment of nominal and real quantities in response to macroeconomic shocks

(see Woodford (2003)). In such a framework, not only policy "surprises" may have an

impact on the economic activity, but also the way policymakers "systematically" respond

to exogenous sources of fluctuation plays a fundamental role in affecting the economic

activity, thereby rekindling interest in the use of counter-cyclical stabilization policies to

fine tune the business cycle.

Yet, despite impressive advances in the economic theory and econometric techniques, there are no definitive answers on the systematic stance policymakers should follow, and on the

effects of macroeconomic policies upon the economy. Against this background, the present thesis attempts to inspect the interrelations between macroeconomic policies and the economic activity from novel angles. Three contributions

are proposed.

In the first Chapter, I show that relying on the information actually available to policymakers when budgetary decisions are taken is of fundamental importance for the assessment of the cyclical stance of governments. In the second, I explore whether the effectiveness of fiscal shocks in spurring the economic activity has declined since the beginning of the 1970s. In the third, the impact of systematic monetary policies over U.S. industrial sectors is investigated. In the existing literature, empirical assessments of the historical stance of policymakers over the economic cycle have been mainly drawn from the estimation of "reduced-form" policy reaction functions (see in particular Taylor (1993) and Galì and Perotti (2003)). Such rules typically relate a policy instrument (a reference short-term interest rate or an indicator of discretionary fiscal policy) to a set of explanatory variables (notably inflation, the output gap and the debt-GDP ratio, as long as fiscal policy is concerned). Although these policy rules can be seen as simple approximations of what derived from an explicit optimization problem solved by social planners (see Kollmann (2007)), they received considerable attention since they proved to track the behavior of central banks and fiscal

policymakers relatively well. Typically, revised data, i.e. observations available to the

econometrician when the study is carried out, are used in the estimation of such policy

reaction functions. However, data available in "real-time" to policymakers may end up

to be remarkably different from what it is observed ex-post. Orphanides (2001), in an

innovative and thought-provoking paper on the U.S. monetary policy, challenged the way

policy evaluation was conducted that far by showing that unrealistic assumptions about

the timeliness of data availability may yield misleading descriptions of historical policy.

In the spirit of Orphanides (2001), in the first Chapter of this thesis I reconsider how

the intentional cyclical stance of fiscal authorities should be assessed. Importantly, in

the framework of fiscal policy rules, not only variables such as potential output and the

output gap are subject to measurement errors, but also the main discretionary "operating

instrument" in the hands of governments: the structural budget balance, i.e. the headline

government balance net of the effects due to automatic stabilizers. In fact, the actual

realization of planned fiscal measures may depend on several factors (such as the growth

rate of GDP, the implementation lags that often follow the adoption of many policy

measures, and others more) outside the direct and full control of fiscal authorities. Hence,

there might be sizeable differences between discretionary fiscal measures as planned in the

past and what it is observed ex-post. To be noted, this does not apply to monetary policy

since central bankers can control their operating interest rates with great accuracy.

When the historical behavior of fiscal authorities is analyzed from a real-time perspective, it emerges that the intentional stance has been counter-cyclical, especially during expansions, in the main OECD countries throughout the last thirteen years. This is at

odds with findings based on revised data, generally pointing to pro-cyclicality (see for example Gavin and Perotti (1997)). It is shown that empirical correlations among revision

errors and other second-order moments allow to predict the size and the sign of the bias

incurred in estimating the intentional stance of the policy when revised data are (mistakenly)

used. It addition, formal tests, based on a refinement of Hansen (1999), do not reject

the hypothesis that the intentional reaction of fiscal policy to the cycle is characterized by

two regimes: one counter-cyclical, when output is above its potential level, and the other

acyclical, in the opposite case. On the contrary, the use of revised data does not allow to identify any threshold effect.

The second and third Chapters of this thesis are devoted to the exploration of the impact

of fiscal and monetary policies upon the economy.

Over the last years, two approaches have been mainly followed by practitioners for the

estimation of the effects of macroeconomic policies on the real activity. On the one hand,

calibrated and estimated DSGE models allow to trace out the economy’s responses to

policy disturbances within an analytical framework derived from solid microeconomic

foundations. On the other, vector autoregressive (VAR) models continue to be largely

used since they have proved to fit macro data particularly well, albeit they cannot fully

serve to inspect structural interrelations among economic variables.

Yet, the typical DSGE and VAR models are designed to handle a limited number of variables

and are not suitable to address economic questions potentially involving a large

amount of information. In a DSGE framework, in fact, identifying aggregate shocks and

their propagation mechanism under a plausible set of theoretical restrictions becomes a

thorny issue when many variables are considered. As for VARs, estimation problems may

arise when models are specified in a large number of indicators (although latest contributions suggest that large-scale Bayesian VARs perform surprisingly well in forecasting.

See in particular Banbura, Giannone and Reichlin (2007)). As a consequence, the growing

popularity of factor models as effective econometric tools allowing to summarize in

a parsimonious and flexible manner large amounts of information may be explained not

only by their usefulness in deriving business cycle indicators and forecasting (see for example

Reichlin (2002) and D’Agostino and Giannone (2006)), but also, due to recent

developments, by their ability in evaluating the response of economic systems to identified

structural shocks (see Giannone, Reichlin and Sala (2002) and Forni, Giannone, Lippi

and Reichlin (2007)). Parallelly, some attempts have been made to combine the rigor of

DSGE models and the tractability of VAR ones, with the advantages of factor analysis

(see Boivin and Giannoni (2006) and Bernanke, Boivin and Eliasz (2005)).

The second Chapter of this thesis, based on a joint work with Agnès Bénassy-Quéré, presents an original study combining factor and VAR analysis in an encompassing framework,

to investigate how "unexpected" and "unsystematic" variations in taxes and government

spending feed through the economy in the home country and abroad. The domestic

impact of fiscal shocks in Germany, the U.K. and the U.S. and cross-border fiscal spillovers

from Germany to seven European economies is analyzed. In addition, the time evolution of domestic and cross-border tax and spending multipliers is explored. In fact, the way fiscal policy impacts on domestic and foreign economies

depends on several factors, possibly changing over time. In particular, the presence of excess

capacity, accommodating monetary policy, distortionary taxation and liquidity constrained

consumers, plays a prominent role in affecting how fiscal policies stimulate the

economic activity in the home country. The impact on foreign output crucially depends

on the importance of trade links, on real exchange rates and, in a monetary union, on

the sensitiveness of foreign economies to the common interest rate. It is well documented

that the last thirty years have witnessed frequent changes in the economic environment.

For instance, in most OECD countries, the monetary policy stance became less accommodating

in the 1980s compared to the 1970s, and more accommodating again in the

late 1990s and early 2000s. Moreover, financial markets have been heavily deregulated.

Hence, fiscal policy might have lost (or gained) power as a stimulating tool in the hands

of policymakers. Importantly, the issue of cross-border transmission of fiscal policy decisions is of the utmost relevance in the framework of the European Monetary Union and this explains why the debate on fiscal policy coordination has received so much attention since the adoption

of the single currency (see Ahearne, Sapir and Véron (2006) and European Commission

(2006)). It is found that over the period 1971 to 2004 tax shocks have generally been more effective in spurring domestic output than government spending shocks. Interestingly, the inclusion of common factors representing global economic phenomena yields to smaller multipliers

reconciling, at least for the U.K. the evidence from large-scale macroeconomic models,

generally finding feeble multipliers (see e.g. European Commission’s QUEST model), with

the one from a prototypical structural VAR pointing to stronger effects of fiscal policy.

When the estimation is performed recursively over samples of seventeen years of data, it

emerges that GDP multipliers have dropped drastically from early 1990s on, especially

in Germany (tax shocks) and in the U.S. (both tax and government spending shocks).

Moreover, the conduct of fiscal policy seems to have become less erratic, as documented

by a lower variance of fiscal shocks over time, and this might contribute to explain why

business cycles have shown less volatility in the countries under examination.

Expansionary fiscal policies in Germany do not generally have beggar-thy-neighbor effects

on other European countries. In particular, our results suggest that tax multipliers have

been positive but vanishing for neighboring countries (France, Italy, the Netherlands, Belgium and Austria), weak and mostly not significant for more remote ones (the U.K.

and Spain). Cross-border government spending multipliers are found to be monotonically

weak for all the subsamples considered.

Overall these findings suggest that fiscal "surprises", in the form of unexpected reductions in taxation and expansions in government consumption and investment, have become progressively less successful in stimulating the economic activity at the domestic level, indicating that, in the framework of the European Monetary Union, policymakers can only marginally rely on this discretionary instrument as a substitute for national monetary policies.

The objective of the third chapter is to inspect the role of monetary policy in the U.S. business cycle. In particular, the effects of "systematic" monetary policies upon several industrial sectors is investigated. The focus is on the systematic, or endogenous, component of monetary policy (i.e. the one which is related to the economic activity in a stable and predictable way), for three main reasons. First, endogenous monetary policies are likely to have sizeable real effects, if agents’ expectations are not perfectly rational and if there are some nominal and real frictions in a market. Second, as widely documented, the variability of the monetary instrument and of the main macro variables is only marginally explained by monetary "shocks", defined as unexpected and exogenous variations in monetary conditions. Third, monetary shocks can be simply interpreted as measurement errors (see Christiano, Eichenbaum

and Evans (1998)). Hence, the systematic component of monetary policy is likely to have played a fundamental role in affecting business cycle fluctuations. The strategy to isolate the impact of systematic policies relies on a counterfactual experiment, within a (calibrated or estimated) macroeconomic model. As a first step, a macroeconomic shock to which monetary policy is likely to respond should be selected,

and its effects upon the economy simulated. Then, the impact of such shock should be

evaluated under a “policy-inactive” scenario, assuming that the central bank does not respond

to it. Finally, by comparing the responses of the variables of interest under these

two scenarios, some evidence on the sensitivity of the economic system to the endogenous

component of the policy can be drawn (see Bernanke, Gertler and Watson (1997)).

Such kind of exercise is first proposed within a stylized DSGE model, where the analytical

solution of the model can be derived. However, as argued, large-scale multi-sector DSGE

models can be solved only numerically, thus implying that the proposed experiment cannot

be carried out. Moreover, the estimation of DSGE models becomes a thorny issue when many variables are incorporated (see Canova and Sala (2007)). For these arguments, a less “structural”, but more tractable, approach is followed, where a minimal amount of

identifying restrictions is imposed. In particular, a factor model econometric approach

is adopted (see in particular Giannone, Reichlin and Sala (2002) and Forni, Giannone,

Lippi and Reichlin (2007)). In this framework, I develop a technique to perform the counterfactual experiment needed to assess the impact of systematic monetary policies.

It is found that 2 and 3-digit SIC U.S. industries are characterized by very heterogeneous degrees of sensitivity to the endogenous component of the policy. Notably, the industries showing the strongest sensitivities are the ones producing durable goods and metallic

materials. Non-durable good producers, food, textile and lumber producing industries are

the least affected. In addition, it is highlighted that industrial sectors adjusting prices relatively infrequently are the most "vulnerable" ones. In fact, firms in this group are likely to increase quantities, rather than prices, following a shock positively hitting the economy. Finally, it emerges that sectors characterized by a higher recourse to external sources to finance investments, and sectors investing relatively more in new plants and machineries, are the most affected by endogenous monetary actions.
Doctorat en sciences économiques, Orientation économie
info:eu-repo/semantics/nonPublished

This research attempts to empirically examine the bank-lending channel in monetary policy transmission in Rwanda, using quarterly data for the period 1996Q1 to 2011Q4. The responses of the loans supply, real output, prices, and deposits to monetary policy innovations were investigated in this research, using impulse response functions and variance decompositions obtained from a Vector Autoregressive model (VAR). Estimation results revealed that the bank lending channel in Rwanda is less effective. The findings suggest that although monetary policies working through interest rates have a significant effect on bank loans, loans appear to not influence the real output level. As in other developing economies, the financial sector in Rwanda is still weak. As a result of the absence of long- term investment, bank customers bear the risk associated with the poor quality of loans in addition to the risk associated with high and variable inflation. These are likely to hamper the monetary policy transmission mechanism.

The thesis includes two essays on asset pricing. In the first essay, "Asset Pricing in a Monetary Economy with Heterogeneous Beliefs", we shed new light on the role of monetary policy in asset pricing by focusing on the case where investors have heterogeneous expectations about future monetary policy. Under heterogeneity in beliefs, investors place bets against each other on the evolution of money supply, and as a result, the sharing of wealth in the economy evolves stochastically over time, making money non-neutral. Employing a continuous-time, general equilibrium model, we establish these fluctuations to be rich in implications, in that they majorly affect the equilibrium prices of all assets, as well as inflation. In particular, we find that the stock market volatility may be significantly increased by the heterogeneity in beliefs, a conclusion supported by our empirical analysis. The second essay is titled with " Asset Pricing and Welfare Analysis with Bounded Rational Investors". Motivated by the fact that investors have limited ability and insufficient knowledge to process information, I model investors' bounded-rational behavior in processing information and study its implications on asset pricing. Bounded rational investors perceive "correlated" information (which consists of news that is correlated with fundamentals, but provides no information on them) as "fundamental" information. This generates "bounded rational risk". Asset prices and volatilities of asset returns are derived. Specially, the equity premium and the stock volatility are raised under some conditions. I also analyze the welfare impact of bounded rationality.

Dissertation (PhD) -- University of Stellenbosch, 2000.
ENGLISH ABSTRACT: The Lucas critique states that if expectations are not explicitly dealt with, conventional econometric models are inappropriate for policy analyses, as their coefficients are not policy invariant. The inclusion of rational expectations in ·conventional model building has been the most common response to this critique. The concept of rational expectations has received several interpretations. In numerous studies, these expectations are associated with model consistent expectations in the sense that expectations and model solutions are identical. To derive a solution, these models require unique algorithms and assumptions regarding their terminal state, in particular when forward-looking expectations are present. An alternative that avoids these issues is the concept of weak rational expectations, which emphasises that expectation errors should not be systematic. Expectations are therefore formed on the basis of an underlying structure, but full knowledge of the model is not essential. The accommodation of this type of rational expectations is accomplished by means of an explicit specification of an expectations equation consistent with the macro econometric model's broad structure. The estimation of coefficients relating to expectations is achieved through an Instrumental Variable approach. In South Africa, monetary policy has been consistent and transparent in line with the recommendations of the De Kock Commission. This allows the modelling of the policy instrument of the South African Reserve Bank, i.e. the Bank rate, by means of a policy reaction function. Given this transparency in monetary policy, the accommodation of expectations of the Bank rate is essential in modelling the full impact of monetary policy and in avoiding the Lucas critique. This is accomplished through weak rational expectations, based on the reaction function of the Reserve Bank. The accommodation of expectations of a policy instrument also allows the modelling of anticipated and unanticipated policies as alternative assumptions regarding the expectations process can be made during simulations. Conventional econometric models emphasise the demand side of the economy, with equations focusing on private consumption, investment, exports and imports and possibly changes in inventories. In this study, particular emphasis in the model specification is also placed on the impact of monetary policy on government debt and debt servicing costs. Other dimensions of the model include the modelling of the money supply and balance of payments, short- and long-term interest rates, domestic prices, the exchange rate, the wage rate and employment as well as weakly rational expectations of inflation and the Bank rate. The model has been specified and estimated by usmg concepts such as cointegration and Error Correction modelling. Numerous tests, including the assessment of the Root Mean Square Percentage Error, have been employed to test the adequacy of the model. Similarly, tests are carried out to ensure weak rational expectations. Numerous simulations are carried out with the model and the results are compared to relevant alternative studies. The simulation results show that the reduction of inflation by means of only monetary policy could impose severe costs on the economy in terms of real sector volatility.
AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: Die Lucas-kritiek beweer dat konvensionele ekonometriese modelle nie gebruik kan word vir beleidsontleding nie, aangesien dit nie voorsiening maak vir die verandering in verwagtings wanneer beleidsaanpassings gemaak word nie. Die insluiting van rasionele verwagtinge in konvensionele ekonometriese modelle is die mees algemene reaksie op die Lukas-kritiek. Ten einde die praktiese insluiting van rasionele verwagtings III ekonometriese modelbou te vergemaklik, word in hierdie studie gebruik gemaak van sogenaamde "swak rasionele verwagtings", wat slegs vereis dat verwagtingsfoute me sistematies moet wees nie. Die beraming van die koëffisiënte van die verwagtingsveranderlikes word gedoen met behulp van die Instrumentele Veranderlikes-benadering. Monetêre beleid in Suid-Afrika was histories konsekwent en deursigtig in ooreenstemming met die aanbevelings van die De Kock Kommissie. Die beleidsinstrument van die Suid-Afrikaanse Reserwebank, naamlik die Bankkoers, kan gevolglik gemodelleer word met behulp van 'n beleidsreaksie-funksie. Ten einde die Lukas-kritiek te akkommodeer, moet verwagtings oor die Bankkoers egter ingesluit word wanneer die volle impak van monetêre beleid gemodelleer word. Dit word vermag met die insluiting van swak rasionele verwagtings, gebaseer op die reaksie-funksie van die Reserwebank. Sodoende kan die impak van verwagte en onverwagte beleidsaanpassings gesimuleer word. Konvensionele ekonometriese modelle beklemtoon die vraagkant van die ekonomie, met vergelykings vir verbruik, investering, invoere, uitvoere en moontlik die verandering in voorrade. In hierdie studie word daar ook klem geplaas op die impak van monetêre beleid op staatskuld en die koste van staatsskuld. Ander aspekte wat gemodelleer word, is die geldvoorraad en betalingsbalans, korttermyn- en langtermynrentekoerse, binnelandse pryse, die wisselkoers, loonkoerse en indiensneming, asook swak rasionele verwagtings van inflasie en die Bankkkoers. Die model is gespesifiseer en beraam met behulp van ko-integrasie en die gebruik van lang-en korttermynvergelykings. Die gebruiklike toetse is uitgevoer om die toereikendheid van die model te toets. Verskeie simulasies is uitgevoer met die model en die resultate is vergelyk met ander relevante studies. Die gevolgtrekking word gemaak dat die verlaging van inflasie deur alleenlik gebruik te maak van monetêre beleid 'n swaar las op die ekonomie kan lê in terme van volatiliteit in die reële sektor.

This PhD thesis provides abundant empirical evidence on the effectiveness of environmental policy instruments alone and as a policy-mix, looking at its effect on green investment and employment. Finally, it also studies the social welfare outcomes of the implementation of the two environmental policy instruments – environmental taxes and public financing. The most direct and obvious conclusion that can be extracted from this thesis is that properly designed policy-instruments are necessary to incentivise firms to invest in green technologies, especially if we want to encourage investment in cleaner production technologies over pollution abating technologies, which is not an easy task to do. I refer to the industrial and energy firms because on one hand, they contribute significantly to air pollution, waste pollution and address resource scarcity, making it even more important for them to invest in technologies that would significantly address the negative externalities. In this regard, this thesis contributes to the literature on causal evidence of environmental policy instruments on firm behaviour, as well as social welfare outcomes arising from different policy scenarios. More specifically, the second chapter of this thesis contributes to the literature on social welfare outcomes arising from the different environmental policy scenarios. In the analysed model we are faced with the asymmetry of decision making. While the regulator favours green investment, which reduces the total pollution level, firms prefer to keep producing using their dirty technology in the symmetric scenarios. The question that arises, therefore, is how such an equilibrium can be induced? It might be the case that with more money being directed at R&D, technologies would become more efficient and cheaper, making it more desirable for firms. From the policy perspective, especially investment in private environment R&D is highly encouraged. In the third chapter of this thesis, I contribute to the literature on drivers of eco-innovations by identifying crucial regulatory factors and firms’ organizational capabilities for encouraging enterprises to invest in green technologies. We observe differences between the drivers of investment in cleaner production and end-of-pipe technologies. In addition, we distinguish between investments with the purpose to reduce air pollution and energy consumption. Firstly, environmental taxation in Spain seems to be rather ineffective at stimulating investment in greener technologies, both for end-of-pipe as well as for cleaner production technologies. We argue that in the Spanish context this might be caused by relatively low rates, environmental taxes might not be doing their task effectively. At the same time, firms react positively to investment subsidies and investment tax incentives. Tax credits seem to be especially successful at financing cleaner production technologies while subsidies are positively related to both EP and CP investments. The implication derived from these findings reveals that direct policies such as subsidies help firms to convert into greener companies, while tax credits lead to reductions in production costs for firms, that pursue a substantial transformation of their production process. Additionally, we can conclude that organization capabilities matter for investment in green technologies. Admittedly, hiring green employees is a strong factor pushing each firm towards green investments, while the relationship between green procedures and certifications is not clear. The fourth chapter of this thesis is aimed at evaluating the effectiveness of environmental taxes in Spain at different levels of taxation, in the absence and in combination with public finance - an equally important market-based instrument addressing the market failure of firms. The evaluation is performed with regards to whether the implementation of such environmental policy instrument in Spain is successful at encouraging adoption of green technologies among manufacturing firms. Our results suggest that environmental taxation is effective at encouraging adoption of both types of green technologies. That being said, once we split our treatment to different categories, we find that low levels of environmental taxation do not induce further investments in process eco-innovations. Therefore, we show that the average treatment effect masks substantial heterogeneity across the taxation level groups. Results also consistently show that increasing the amount of taxation increases also the subsequent adoption of green technologies. In the sample of fully supported environmental tax payers, it seems to emerge that firms that are required to pay around EUR 2,500 per year already exhibit significantly higher investment in green technology than under lower amounts of taxation. Additionally, our findings seem to suggest that even low levels of environmental taxation can be effective at inducing investment in green technology if combined with public financing. However, once again the effect is the largest when environmental taxation is at the medium level. That being said, if the regulator is reluctant to increase the taxation level in fear of hurting firms' competitiveness, even low levels of taxation can be effective in combination with public support. Large levels of environmental though very effective on its own, are not strongly encouraged with combination of public financing. The fifth chapter of this thesis analyses, in turn, a large-scale national tax incentive program in Spain, which started in 1996 and finished in 2015. Due to data availability, I focus on the 2008-2014 time window. The findings seem to suggest that encouragement to eliminate the EI tax incentives from the Spanish Corporate Income Tax and fears that they were not successful enough was unwarranted. While it is true that the EI tax credit favoured pollution abating over energy efficient technologies, it did increase substantially investment – and even in the times of financial crises, when the capital market failure was particularly severe. The EI tax credit was found to have positive indirect effects on both number of green employees and private environmental R\&D, which could have additional positive spill-over effects. With regards to the policy change, which was aimed at disincentivizing financing of pollution abating technologies and encouraging – it was assessed as semi-effective. While it is true that it did discourage investment in end-of-pipe technologies, especially those aimed at air-pollution reduction, we could not observe investment in cleaner production technologies increasing as a result. This could suggest that tax incentives should be more clearly defined, as to avoid (1) technological lock-down in old technologies, (2) encourage technologies that do change the production process and result in smaller usage of natural resources e.g energy consumption. One of the caveats of the studied EI tax credit was the confusion it created not only with respect to eligibility criteria but also the definition of technologies that it aimed to finance. Lastly, it is quite comforting to observe, however, that the tax incentive seemed to have addressed the capital market failure of small firms for the investment in cleaner production technologies. The results from the heterogeneous analysis also point out to the fact that this positive effect exists in stark contrast to the reduction in the investment suffered by the big firms.

This study analyzed the economic welfare implications of the 1990 intraregional trade liberalization scheme within the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) on member country producers and consumers. Four countries were chosen as a point of focus: Burkina Faso, Cote d'Ivoire, Ghana and Mali, and two commodities: millet and sorghum. The supply and demand functions were estimated using time series data from 1970 to 1990 obtained at the level of administrative regions within each of the four countries. Optimal production, consumption, trade quantities and trade flows were determined using the REACTT model, a spatial price equilibrium solution algorithm. Two trade scenarios were simulated. The first examined trade flows under the 1990 tariff structures and the second examined trade flows under the proposed zero tariff rates.
The REACTT model results showed that removal of the tariffs would increase the crossborder trade flows between the four countries by about 12% for millet and 38% for sorghum. The welfare calculations showed that in the case of millet, all four countries would have net positive gains to the tune of $4.6 million in total. For sorghum, Burkina Faso, Ghana and Mali would have net positive gains, C ote d'Ivoire would have a net welfare loss, and the net impact on all four countries would be a positive gain of about $9.3 million. The results of the REACTT model and the welfare calculations suggest that intra-ECOWAS trade liberalization would increase total trade flows and total economic well being of the member countries.

This thesis is a technical inquiry into remedies for high inflation. In its center there is the usual tradeoff between inflation aversion on the one hand and some benefit from inflation via Phillips curve effects on the other hand. Most remarkable and pioneering work for us is the famous Barro-Gordon model - see (Barro & Gordon 1983a) respectively (Barro & Gordon 1983b). Parts of this model form the basis of our work here. Though being well known the discretionary equilibrium is suboptimal the question arises how to overcome this. We will introduce four different models, each of them giving a different perspective and way of thinking. Each model shows a (sometimes slightly) different way a central banker might deliver lower inflation than the one shot Barro-Gordon game at a first glance would suggest. To cut a long story short we provide a number of reasons for believing that the purely discretionary equilibrium may be rarely observed in real life. Further the thesis provides new insights for derivative pricing theories. In particular, the potential role of financial markets and instruments will be a major focus. We investigate how such instruments can be used for monetary policy. On the contrary these financial securities have strong influence on the behavior of the central bank. Taking this into account in chapters 3 and 4 we come up with a new method of pricing inflation linked derivatives. The latter to the best of our knowledge has never been done before - (Persson, Persson & Svenson 2006), as one of very view economic works taking into account financial markets, is purely focused on the social planer's problem. A purely game theoretic approach is done in chapter 2 to change the original Barro-Gordon. Here we deviate from a purely rational and purely one period wise thinking. Finally in chapter 5 we model an asymmetric information situation where the central banker faces a trade off between his current objective on the one hand and benefit arising from not perfectly informed agents on the other hand. In that sense the central bank is also concerned about its reputation.

Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children (CSEC) is a serious violation of the Human Rights with global and local implications. The multidimensionality of CSEC requires us to understand its historical elements, legal definitions, and psychosocial characteristics. International agencies, states, and national agencies (statutory and voluntary sectors) have agreed on an agenda of responses including research on CSEC, partnership and collaboration, legal changes and adjustment, promoting criminal prosecution, social policies and interventions for children and young people that have been made subject to CSEC. These interventions are diverse in their approaches, purposes, types of services, models, and critical points. In accordance with international agreements, the Chilean State recognised CSEC as a social problem and developed social policies, legal changes and intervention programmes across the country. In this context, practitioners have built a 'know-how' of social intervention in CSEC based on technical guidelines (social policy on CSEC), institutional directions and pragmatic decisions from fieldwork reflexivity. However, there is no clear evidence about the rationale, models, practices, strategies and critical points in the interventions and weakness in the monitoring and evaluations. Applied Discourse Analysis was conducted to explore the relationship between different levels of social intervention on CSEC: policy, intervention models and practices. The research purpose was to describe, understand, and analyse the programmes of social intervention in CSEC, the social intervention models, and the interdisciplinary practices in Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children, implemented in the decade of 2004-2014 in Chile. Government and alternative documents were analysed (13 each), discussion groups with interdisciplinary professional teams in CSEC (3), and a focus group (1) composed of policymakers, academics, researchers, police and judicial representatives was undertaken. These materials were data-managed and analysed using the software dedoose. All University of Edinburgh Research Ethics procedures were followed. The findings indicate that Government documents highlight two discursive styles: Mandatory and Pragmatic, regarding the intervention and the approaches used. These discourses (1) defined the interventions as a part of a system or building a network of services, (2) established a condition of the intervention that recognised children as a subject of law or recognised the specialised character of the intervention, and (3) based interventions on guidelines and ethical principles or challenges, and evidence-based approaches. Alternative documents developed a discursive style of Monitoring and Evaluation that emphasised (1) the complexity of CSEC and the need to develop responses, (2) then recognised challenges such a making visible CSEC and problems with the interventions; and finally (3) recommended the basis for the intervention. Mixed Stakeholders group (1) emphasised CSEC characteristics, and the institutional responses (2) specified the structure of the intervention, and (3) identified tensions and challenges in the adjustments of social policies and intervention practices, methodological needs, and the judicial system rationale and practices. These findings are significant because they help us to understand the processes involved in building appropriate and situated responses for children and young people that have been made subject to CSE on a local, regional and global level.

Economic statistics are often taken as given facts, assumed to describe exactly, actual phenomena in society. Many economic series are published in various forms from preliminary, via revisions to definitive estimates. Preliminary series are issued for a number of central economic processes in order to allow for rapid, up-to-date signals. This dissertation focuses on qualitative aspects of available data, and effects of possible inaccuracy when data are used for economic modelling, analysis and planning. Four main questions are addressed: How to characterize quality of data for central economic time series? What effects may possible inaccuracies in data have when used in econometric modelling? What effects do inaccuracies and errors in data have when models are used for economic analysis and planning? Is it possible to specify a criterion for deciding the cost-effective quality of data to be produced as input for economic policy analysis? The various realizations of economic variables often show considerable systematic as well as stochastic discrepancies for the same quantity. Preliminary series are generally found to be of questionable quality, but still considerably better than simple trend forecasts. Compared with the situation in a few other industrialized countries, the variability of Swedish economic statistics is, though, not extraordinary. Illustrations of effects of using inaccurate data, especially of combining preliminary, revised and definitive observations in the same model, are presented. Such inconsistent combinations of various realizations are in actual fact found in many open sources. Inclusion of preliminary series tends to indicate stronger changes in the economy than when definite observations are used throughout. The study is concluded with a section on cost-benefit aspects of economic statistics, and a sketch model for appraising data of variable quality is proposed.
Diss. Stockholm : Handelshögsk.

This study attempts to address the performance of military and civilian regimes in promoting socioeconomic development and providing military policy resources in the Third World. Using pooled cross-sectional time series analysis, three models of socioeconomic and military policy performance are estimated for 66 countries in the Third World for the period 1965-1985. These models include the progressive, corporate self-interest, and conditional. The results indicate that socioeconomic and military resource policies are not significantly affected by military control. Specifically, neither progressive nor corporate self-interest models are supported by Third World data. In addition, the conditional model is not confirmed by the data. Thus, a simple distinction between military and civilian regimes is not useful in understanding the consequences of military rule.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the interest rate transmission mechanism for South Africa as an emerging economy in a pre-repo and repo system. It explains how the money market rate is transmitted to the retail interest rates both in the long-run and short-run and tests the symmetric and asymmetric interest rate pass-through using the Scholnick (1996) ECM and the Wang and Lee (2009) ECM-EGARCH (1, 1)-M methodology. This permitted the examination of the impact of interest rate volatility, along with the leverage effect. An incomplete pass-through is found in the short-run. From the entire sample period, a symmetric adjustment is found in the deposit rate, which had upward rigidity adjustment, while an asymmetric adjustment is found in the lending rate, with a downward rigidity adjustment. All the adjustments supported the collusive pricing arrangements. According to the conditional variance estimation of the ECM-EGARCH (1, 1), negative volatility impact and leverage effect are present and influential only in the deposit interest rate adjustment process in South Africa.

The general objective of the doctoral thesis is to evaluate the effects of macroeconomic policies on the economy and the environment. Chapter 2 examines the composition of fiscal policy and its transmission mechanisms on various macroeconomic aggregates in open economies. Chapter 3 examines the transmission mechanisms of conventional and unconventional monetary policies on the macroeconomic aggregates in open economies. Chapter 4 explores the interactions among macroeconomic policies, the energy market and environmental quality. The analysis of the effects of fiscal and monetary policies on the economy and the environment is conducted using the structural vector autoregressive (VAR) methodology. This procedure is suitable when the variables of interest are endogenous, which is typically the case with macroeconomic and environmental variables. Structural VAR models allow to examine the dynamic interactions among the variables and feedback effects, through the impulse response functions and the variance decomposition. Chapter 2 provides a detailed examination on the composition of fiscal policy and its transmission mechanisms on various macroeconomic aggregates for two Anglo-Saxon countries, the United States and the United Kingdom, over the period 1964-2017. While research on fiscal policy has been substantial, the study of the transmission mechanisms and effects of tax revenue and government spending components in an open economy framework has received less attention. This chapter contributes to the literature on the disaggregated analysis of fiscal policy in open economies. We examine the composition of fiscal policy by asking whether government spending disaggregation matters for the transmission of fiscal policy on the macroeconomic aggregates. In addition, the chapter explores the role of the exchange rate and the trade balance in the transmission of shocks to tax revenue and government spending components. We estimate the effects of disaggregated fiscal policy shocks on the macroeconomic aggregates. Using the recursive approach, we identify a tax revenue and a government spending component shock that rotates between (i) government non-wage consumption (ii) government wage consumption (iii) public investment. The conducted analysis reveals that the disaggregation of fiscal policy matters since each fiscal instrument implies different transmission channels and effects on the real economy. It therefore seems essential to disaggregate government spending into its main components to uncover significant and different patterns that an aggregated analysis cannot reveal. However, as expected, the effects of government spending components on certain economic variables are weak and insignificant. In addition, our findings suggest that fiscal policy can be operative, besides the interest rate channel, via an exchange rate and trade balance channels. Considering an open economy framework is therefore essential since a part of the fiscal stimulus propagates abroad through external channels. The results occurring from this chapter have several policy implications. First, government non-wage consumption increases could have contractionary effects on the real economy as observed in the countries and the period considered in our analysis. Our findings also indicate that, as expected, public wage policies have a greater impact on the labor market than changes in the other components of government spending, while they have a relatively small effect on the output. Moreover, government efforts to stimulate the real economy through the increase in public investment should be accompanied by other types of macroeconomic policy instruments in order to offset the crowding out effect on private activity. Besides, the examination of tax revenue reveals different implications. In the United States, tax revenue cuts can stimulate economic activity and increase prices in the short run. In contrast, tax revenue cuts do not seem to be effective in stimulating the United Kingdom economy. Chapter 3 examines the transmission mechanisms of conventional and unconventional monetary policies on the macroeconomic aggregates in open economies. While research on monetary policy has been substantial, less attention was given to the study of the role of stock prices and consumer expectations in the transmission of monetary policy. In addition, very few studies have analysed the effects of monetary policy in open economies outside the euro area. Taking this into account, the analysis is carried out for two non-EMU countries, Switzerland and the United Kingdom, over the period 1990-2017. First, we examine whether conventional monetary policy is operative, besides other well-known channels, via a stock price and consumer confidence channels. We then explore the role of long-term interest rates, exchange rates and stock prices in the transmission of unconventional monetary policy. The chapter proposes two distinct structural VAR models based on a novel specification. The baseline model for the case of conventional monetary policy covers the pre-2009 period and is estimated using quarterly data, while the baseline model for the case of unconventional monetary policy covers the post-2009 period and is estimated using monthly data. The official bank policy rate and central bank’s reserve assets are used as instruments for conventional and unconventional monetary policy. Considering stock prices is of key importance since monetary policy decisions have an impact on financing conditions and market expectations, thus leading to adjustments of asset prices. If central banks are forward looking, the monetary policy instrument cannot be properly identified unless expectations are taken into account. Our modelling approach consists in augmenting the structural VAR model with a forward-looking informational variable of near-term development in economic activity and several foreign exogenous variables to control for international spillovers. For the case of conventional monetary policy, the consumer confidence indicator is used since it contains important information used by central banks about consumer expectations as regards future economic conditions. For the case of unconventional monetary policy, the long-term government bond yields are used to capture consumer expectations about future short-term interest rates. The conducted analysis reveals that the inclusion of a forward-looking informational variable of near-term development in economic activity and a financial variable such as the stock prices are of key importance for the monetary policy assessment. We provide evidence for the existence of a consumer confidence channel in the transmission mechanism of conventional monetary policy. An expansionary policy enhances households’ perception with regards future economic conditions, which may result in a tendency to consumer more and save less. Thus, changes in consumer confidence can potentially amplify the effects of monetary policy on the real economy. Moreover, the results indicate that the long-term government bond yields have an important role in the transmission mechanism of unconventional monetary policy. Although these results have limited policy implications, they reveal the importance of considering these specific transmission channels and controlling for global supply and demand shocks in order to provide a comprehensive analysis of the effects of monetary policy. Overall, our findings indicate that conventional and unconventional monetary policies were effective in providing temporary stimulus to the economies of Switzerland and the United Kingdom during the considered periods. Chapter 4 examines the interactions among macroeconomic policies, the energy market and environmental quality. These interactions and channels among them are studied through structural VAR models based on a macroeconomic framework including the energy market. This chapter builds on the growing literature analysing the links between macroeconomic policies and environmental variables. It examines for the first time how the implementation of macroeconomic policies, that aim to stimulate the economy, may also affect the quality of the environment along the business cycle and the specific role of energy markets as transmission channels. On the one hand, the chapter evaluates the implications of macroeconomic policies on the price of non-renewable energy and the use of both renewable and non-renewable energy. On the other hand, it assesses the influence of fiscal policy components, conventional and unconventional monetary policies on greenhouse gas emissions generated by the energy sector. The empirical analysis is conducted for Switzerland and the United Kingdom over the period 1990-2016. The geographical and physical characteristics of these two countries make them particularly vulnerable to global warming. For the case of monetary policy, the analysis is explicitly made on sub-periods since the implementation of quantitative easing can be viewed as a new monetary policy regime. The results occurring from Chapter 4 reveals several policy implications. Fiscal policy, besides its primary role in stabilizing economic activity, can contribute to the achievement of environmental sustainability. Our findings indicate that public investment is more efficient than government consumption in reducing non-renewable energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions. The analysis of the composition of government spending seems crucial to establish how the different spending categories can complement the efforts to conserve natural resources, promote the use of clean energy and enhance environmental quality. On the other hand, the examination of monetary policy reveals that central banks should investigate the impact of their interventions on environmental quality through the renewable and non-renewable energy markets. In the United Kingdom, conventional monetary policy proves to be effective in promoting the deployment of renewable energies and reducing emissions. In Switzerland, central bank’s efforts to stimulate the real economy through the decrease in interest rates should be accompanied by more strict environmental regulations in order to offset the rise in emissions. Moreover, the conducted analysis reveals that unconventional monetary policy can lead to enhancements of environmental quality. However, as expected, quantitative easing is not by itself capable of substantially reducing emissions and other types of environmental policies need to be implemented jointly. Although monetary policy cannot yet be considered as a policy instrument for climate change and energy, central banks should incorporate environmental issues in their welfare maximization problem.

Financial systems (i.e. banking systems and stock markets) can influence economic growth by performing the five key financial functions, namely: mobilising savings, allocating capital, easing of exchange, monitoring and exerting corporate governance, as well as ameliorating risk. The level of development of the financial system is a key determinant of how effectively and efficiently these functions are performed. This study examines the short-run and long-run relationships between financial system development and economic growth for a panel of seven African countries (namely: Egypt, Ivory Coast, Kenya, Morocco, Nigeria, South Africa and Tunisia) covering the period 1988 to 2008. While numerous empirical studies have researched this topic, none of the previous African empirical literature have investigated thjs by using three groups of financial development measures (i.e. overall financial development, banking system development and stock market development measures) as well as employing panel cointegration analyses. The investigation of the long-run finance-growth relationship is conducted using two methods; the Pedroni panel cointegration approach and the Kao panel cointegration technique. The Pedroni panel cointegracion approach is more often applied in empirical research as it has less restrictive deterministic trend assumptions, while the Kao panel cointegration technique is employed in this study for comparison purposes. Furthermore, the short-run linkages bet\veen financial development and economic growth are analysed using the Holtz-Eakin d of (1989) panel Granger causality test. The results of the Pedroni cointegration tests show that there are long-run relationships between overall financial development (measured by LOFD and OFD2) and economic growth, banking system development (measured by LPSC) and economic growth, as well as stock marker development (measured by LMCP and LVLT) and economic growth. In contrast, the Kao test fails to find any cointegration between finance and growth. However, on the balance, findings largely support a conclusion of cointegration between financial development and economic growth since the Pedroni approach is more appropriate for examining cointegration in heterogeneous panels. Estimates of these long-run cointegrating relationships show that all five financial development measures have the expected positive linkages with growth. However, only four of the five financial development measures were found to have significant long-run linkages with growth, as the relationship between LOFD and growth was not found to be significant in the long-run. The panel Granger causality results show that economic growth Granger causes banking system development in the short-run (i.e. there is demand-following finance), irrespective of the measure of banking development used. While there is bi-directional, reciprocal causality between economic growth and both of the measures of overall financial development and one measure of srock market development (i.e. LVLT). Thus, pulicy makers should focus on formulating policy which promotes faster paced economic growth so as to stimulate financial development, while at the same time encourage policy that promotes the balanced expansion of the banking systems and srock markets in ordet to augment economic growth.

Thesis (D.Phil.(Agricultural Economics, Extension, and Rural Development))--University of Pretoria, 2006.
Includes summary. Includes bibliographical references. Available on the Internet via the World Wide Web.

This thesis is composed of three distinct but related essays. The first essay studies the role of the size of the economy in mitigating the impact of public sector corruption on economic development. The analysis is based on a dynamic general equilibrium model in which growth occurs endogenously through the invention and manufacture of new intermediate goods that are used in the production of output. Potential innovators decide to enter the market considering the fraction of future profits that may be lost to corruption. We find that depending on the number of times bribes are demanded, the size of the economy may be an important factor in determining the effects of corruption on innovation and economic growth. The second essay presents an occupational choice model in which a household can choose either formal or informal entrepreneurship or at the subsistence livelihood. Credit market constraints and initial wealth conditions (bequest) determine an agent's occupational choice. Corruption arises when bureaucrats exchange investment permits for bribes. Corruption worsens credit market constraints. Equilibrium with corruption is characterised by an increase (decrease) in informal (formal) entrepreneurship and a decrease in formal entrepreneurship wealth. Since corruption-induced credit constrained households choose informal entrepreneurship as opposed to subsistence livelihood income in the formal sector, the informal economy is shown to mitigate the extent of income inequality. The third essay explains the role of bureaucratic corruption in undermining public service delivery, public finance, and economic development through incentivising tax evasion. The analysis is based on a dynamic general equilibrium model in which a taxable household observes the quality of public services and decides whether or not to fulfil his tax obligation. Bureaucratic corruption compromises the quality of public services such that a taxable household develops incentives to evade tax payment. We show that corruption-induced tax evasion increases the likelihood of a budget deficit, renders tax payable increase counter-productive, and aggravates the negative effect of bureaucratic corruption on economic development.

Financial liberalization in South Africa was a process that took the form of various legal reforms very a long period of time. This study uses quarterly financial data from 1969 quarter one to 2009 quarter four to analyse this process. The data used was pertinent to the financial liberalization theorem by McKinnon (1973) and Shaw (1973). The examination of the relationships between the various macro economic variables has important implications for effective policy formulation. The empirical analysis is carried out in four phases: the preliminary analysis, the principal component analysis (PCA), the cointegration analysis and pair wise Granger causality tests. The preliminary analysis examines trends over the sample period and reports the on the correlation between the selected variables. The PCA analysis was used to create indexes for financial liberalization, taking into account the phase wise nature of legal reforms. The generated index was representative of the process of financial liberalization from 1969 to 2009. A financial development index was also created using the various traditional measures of financial development and through PCA which investigated interrelationships among the variables according to their common sources of movement. Cointegration analysis is carried out using the Johansen cointegration procedure which investigates whether there is long-run comovement between South African economic growth and the selected macroeconomic variables. Where cointegration is found, Vector Error-Correction Models (VECMs) are estimated in order to examine the short-run adjustments. For robustness, many control variables were added into the model. The results showed that there are positive long run relationships between economic growth and financial liberalization, financial development and a negative relationship with interest rates. The Granger results suggested that the MS hypothesis does not manifest accurately in the South African data. The implications of the results were that financial liberalization has had positive effects on economic growth and thus any impediments to full financial liberalization must be removed albeit with considerations towards employment and local productivity. Financial development also possessed positive long run relationships with economic growth, although results differed based on the financial development proxy used. Thus, financial development must be improved primarily through liberalizing the banking sector and spurring savings.

Chapter 1 discusses the econometric pitfalls associated with the use of patent production functions to study the invention process. It then goes on to argue that a sound understanding of the invention process necessarily requires an understanding of the propensity to patent. The empirical analysis carried out in Chapter 1 seeks to explain the proportion of inventions patented – a potential metric for the propensity to patent – from an international sample of manufacturing firms.

Chapter 2 proposes a methodology to filter out the noise induced by varying patent practices in the R&D-patent relationship. The methodology explicitly decomposes the patent-to-R&D ratio into its components of productivity and propensity. It is then applied to a novel data set of priority patent applications in four countries and six industries.

Chapter 3 takes stock of the literature on the role of fees in patent systems while Chapter 4 presents estimates of the price elasticity of demand for patents at the trilateral offices (that is, in the U.S. Japan and Europe). The estimation of dynamic panel data models of patent applications suggests that the long-term price elasticity is about -0.30.

Doctorat en Sciences économiques et de gestion
info:eu-repo/semantics/nonPublished

One of the most important aspects of monetary policy is an understanding of the transmission process: the mechanism through which the monetary policy actions of the Central Bank impact on aggregate demand and prices by influencing the investment and consumption decisions of households and firms. Thus, commercial banks are regarded as conveyers of monetary policy shocks and are expected to adjust retail interest rates in response to policy shocks one-to-one. In practice, commercial banks adjust their retail rates in response to changes in monetary policy with a lag of several months and this delay is often viewed as an impediment on the ability of the Central Bank to steer the economy. Several reasons, such as credit rationing and adverse selection, switching costs, risk sharing, consumer irrationality, structure of the financial system, menu costs and asymmetric information are some of the causes advanced for commercial banks retail rates being sticky. In spite of the important role of pass-through analysis in the monetary policy transmission process, it has received very little attention in Sub-Saharan Africa, especially in Cameroon and Nigeria, which have implemented a series of reforms. To this end, this study gives a comparative analysis of interest rate pass-through in Nigeria and Cameroon using retail rates (lending and deposit) and a discount rate (policy rate) from January 1990 to December 2010 for Nigeria and from January 1990 to June 2008 for Cameroon. The study examines the magnitude and speed of retail rate adjustments to changes in the Central Bank policy rate as well as examining the possibility of symmetric and asymmetric pass-through in both countries. In addition, the study also investigates whether there is pass-through of monetary policy from one country to the other. The empirical analysis employs four different types of co-integration techniques to test the presence of a long run co-integrating relationship between retail and the policy rates in order to ensure that the relationship detected is robust. Three sets of analyses are carried out in the study. Following Cottarelli and Kourelis (1994), the study employed a co-integration technique, firstly, to analyse pass-through for the entire sample, secondly, to analyse symmetric and asymmetric pass-through using a ten year rolling window analysis in an error correction framework. Finally, the policy rates were swapped around to investigate if there are transmissions of impulses from one country to the other. Overall, evidence from the entire sample and rolling window analysis suggests that monetary policy in Cameroon is less effective. This is perhaps one of the reasons why the Banque Des Etats De L’Afrique Centrale (BEAC) is unable to sterilise the excess liquidity of the banking sector in Cameroon. The long run pass-through of 0.72 and 0.71 for the entire sample, and the average long run pass-through for the rolling window of 0.78 and 0.76 for the lending and deposit rates, suggest that monetary policy is highly effective in Nigeria compared to Cameroon. The empirical evidence confirmed asymmetric adjustment in six rolling windows in the lending rate in Nigeria. Three rolling windows indicated that the direction of rigidity is downward, supporting Scholnick’s (1996) collusive pricing arrangement between banks, and the other three suggested that the lending rate is rigid in the upward direction, corroborating Scholnick’s (1996) customer reaction hypothesis. The deposit rate in Cameroon was also found to adjust asymmetrically and the direction of rigidity is downward, supporting Hannan and Berger’s (1991) customer reaction hypothesis. The investigation of impulse transmission between the two countries revealed that only the policy rate in Nigeria exerts some influence on the deposit rate in Cameroon. Policy recommendations are also discussed.

This study examines the nature of the relationship which exists between mining sector production and development of the financial systems in South Africa. This is particularly important in that the mining sector is considered to be one of the major contributors to the country’s overall economic growth. South Africa is also considered to have a very well developed financial system, to the point where the dominance of one over the other is difficult to identify. Therefore offering insight into the nature of this relationship will assist policy makers in identifying the most effective policies in order to ensure that the developments within the financial systems impact appropriately on the mining sector, and ultimately on the economy. In addition to using the conventional proxies of financial system development, this study utilises the principal component analysis (PCA) to construct an index for the entire financial system. The multivariate cointegration approach as proposed by Johansen (1988) and Johansen and Juselius (1990) was then used to estimate the relationship between the development of the financial systems and the mining sector production for the period 1988-2008. The study reveals mixed results for different measures of financial system development. Those involving the banking system show that a negative relationship exists between total mining production and total credit extended to the private sector, while liquid liabilities has a positive relationship. Similarly, with the stock market system, mixed results are also obtained which reveal a negative relationship between total mining production and stock market capitalisation, while a positive relationship is found with secondary market turnover. Of all the financial system variables, only that of stock market capitalisation was found to be significant. The result with the financial development index reveals that a significant negative relationship exists between financial system development and total mining sector production. Results on the other variables controlled in the estimation show that positive and significant relationships exist between total mining production and both nominal exchange rate and political stability respectively. Increased mining production therefore takes place in periods of appreciating exchange rates, and similarly in the post-apartheid era. On the other hand, negative relationships were found for both trade openness and inflation control variables. The impulse response and variance decomposition analyses showed that total mining production explains the largest amount of shocks within itself. Overall, the study reveals that the mining sector might not have benefited much from the development in the South African financial system.

This thesis examines the measurement, applications and properties of consumer inflation expectations in the context of eight European Union countries: France, Germany, the UK, Spain, Italy, Belgium, the Netherlands and Sweden. The data proceed mainly from the European Commission's Consumer Survey and are qualitative in nature, therefore requiring quantification prior to use. This study first seeks to determine the optimal quantification methodology among a set of approaches spanning three traditions, associated with Carlson-Parkin (1975), Pesaran (1984) and Seitz (1988). The success of a quantification methodology is assessed on the basis of its ability to match quantitative expectations data and on its behaviour in an important economic application, namely the modelling of wages for our sample countries. The wage equation developed here draws on the theoretical background of the staggered contracts and the wage bargaining literature, and controls carefully for inflation expectations and institutional variables. The Carlson-Parkin variation proposed in Curto Millet (2004) was found to be the most satisfactory. This being established, the wage equations are used to test the hypothesis that the advent of EMU generated an increase in labour market flexibility, which would be reflected in structural breaks. The hypothesis is essentially rejected. Finally, the properties of inflation expectations and perceptions themselves are examined, especially in the context of EMU. Both the rational expectations and rational perceptions hypotheses are rejected. Popular expectations mechanisms, such as the "rule-of-thumb" model or Akerlof et al.'s (2000) "near-rationality hypothesis" are similarly unsupported. On the other hand, evidence is found for the transmission of expert forecasts to consumer expectations in the case of the UK, as in Carroll's (2003) model. The distribution of consumer expectations and perceptions is also considered, showing a tendency for gradual (as in Mankiw and Reis, 2002) but non-rational adjustment. Expectations formation is further shown to have important qualitative features.

Chan Yeung.
Thesis (M.Phil.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2003.
Includes bibliographical references (leaves 56-57).
Abstracts in English and Chinese.
Chapter 1 --- Introduction --- p.1
Chapter 2 --- "Literature reviews, contributions of this thesis and the comparison"
Chapter 2.1 --- Literature reviews
Chapter 2.11 --- Endogenous labor supply models --- p.3
Chapter 2.12 --- The CIA models --- p.12
Chapter 2.2 --- Contributions of this thesis and the comparison --- p.17
Chapter 3 --- The Model --- p.20
Chapter 4 --- "Trade restrictions, welfare and employment"
Chapter 4.1 --- Tariff and welfare --- p.26
Chapter 4.2 --- Tariff and employment --- p.30
Chapter 4.3 --- Comparing welfare and employment effects --- p.31
Chapter 4.4 --- "Quotas, welfare, employment and price level" --- p.32
Chapter 5 --- Optimal tariffs --- p.33
Chapter 6 --- Indirect taxation and welfare --- p.40
Chapter 7 --- Conclusion --- p.43
Appendix
Appendix A: Determine the sign of Δ --- p.45
Appendix B: Derivation of equation (4.2) --- p.45
Appendix C: Derivation of equation (4.3) --- p.47
"Appendix D: Quotas, welfare,employment and price level" --- p.48
Appendix E: The derivation of optimal tariff --- p.50
Appendix F: Optimal consumption tax and wage subsidy --- p.53

In modern economies, national governments have a wide range of policies for restricting international trade and protecting domestic industries at their disposal. The most popular form of non-tariff trade policies is probably that of a direct quantitative restriction. This policy takes two principal forms: explicit import quotas and voluntary export restraints (VERs). A VER is a quota imposed by an exporting country upon exports to other countries in response to pressures exercised by the importing countries (i.e., in the form of threats of various types of import restrictions). When these two policies are partially liberalized, subject to a reasonable foreign share in the domestic market, product differentiation between imported goods and domestic goods within an imperfect market can serve to increase welfare levels within the domestic economy. In this situation, the foreign share will not be as high as it would be for the homogeneous assumption. Under a partial VER liberalization policy, if the degree of substitutability between domestic and imported goods is sufficiently small, then domestic welfare will improve as foreign imports are increased. That is, if domestic and imported goods are perfect substitutes, then the most favorable domestic policy will be to close domestic markets to the foreign country since no country can allow foreign market shares as high as 66 percent in the domestic market. In a simulation of U.S. automobile industrial production, when a partial quota liberalization is observed, welfare levels can be increased by reducing the Japanese import market share to a level below 10 percent, that is, to a level which is less than the actual current foreign market share. In real terms, this implies that U.S. auto industry must be further liberalized to acquire additional domestic benefits under a VER policy, whereas the U.S. should restrict foreign market share below 10 percent to maximize domestic welfare levels under a quota policy. This will occur if the net consumer surplus is in excess of producer net excess profits under an imperfect market structure.
Graduation date: 1993

Trade liberalization in Kenya started in the early 1980s with the structural adjustment programmes, and continued under the multilateral framework of the WTO. During the same period, the incidence of poverty and level of inequality also worsened. The government’s focus on trade negotiations has been to ensure that there is policy space for the daily running of the economy even though welfare impacts are also important. Non-state actors have argued that trade liberalization has negatively affected the poor; particularly the farmers, since they cannot compete with the developed countries whose farmers enjoy significant government support through subsidies, making their products much cheaper in the world market. Government officials, on the other hand, contend that trade liberalization is good as it brings in competition and transfer of technology which is good for an economy. It is important to examine how trade liberalization has affected household’s welfare in Kenya, given that this kind of analysis has not been conducted in Kenya. This study is unique because it does not assume the existence of a trade liberalization– poverty relationship, unlike most studies. It uses a multi-method approach to first test the hypothesis that there is no statistically significant relationship between trade liberalization and poverty, it further tests for multiplier effects of trade liberalization on poverty determinants. Trade Liberalization and poverty is found to have a stochastic relationship, furthermore investments and capital stock were found to significantly affect poverty determinants in the stochastic model. Due to unavailability of household welfare measure data in time series, a CGE model was used to establish the dynamics of trade liberalization on poverty at a point in time using the 2003 Social Accounting Matrix Data for Kenya. Overall, trade liberalization accompanied by FDI had the greatest impact on household welfare. Trade liberalization had a positive impact on household welfare since household incomes and consumption increased. Micro simulations results, based on changes in consumption, also showed that poverty incidence reduced for all households, even though the urban households experienced higher decreases. The study found that there was little difference in protecting sensitive products and not protecting them; secondly, trade liberalization accompanied by foreign direct investment had greater impact on improving the household welfare. Consumption and incomes increased, resulting in overall poverty reduction. The welfare of urban households was much higher than rural households in terms of income and consumption increases. However, income inequality was much higher in urban than rural areas.
Economics
D. Litt. et Phil. (Economics)

by Leung Ping Ngok.
Thesis (M.B.A.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 1996.
Includes bibliographical references (leaves 39).
ABSTRACT --- p.ii
TABLE OF CONTENTS --- p.iii
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS --- p.v
Chapter
Chapter I. --- INTRODUCTION --- p.1
Chapter II. --- THE MODEL --- p.11
Chapter III. --- THE ANALYSIS --- p.16
Case 1 - Tariff t --- p.16
Case 2 - Quota --- p.19
Chapter i. --- The license is distributed among the two countries by a ratio λ whereas 0< λ<1 --- p.19
Chapter ii. --- The license is distributed among the internal organizations --- p.28
Chapter IV. --- DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION --- p.34
BIBLIOGRAPHY --- p.39