Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'Unemployment insurance Econometric models'

Explicit parameterizations of labor supply are specified and estimated on a sample of single unattached individuals using data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics and a generalized Tobit maximum likelihood method which is consistent under the assumption that employed hours are exogenous. Results of these estimations are then used to compute triangle approximation and direct closed form solutions for labor market constraint compensation. Underemployment compensation estimates are generated and compared to actual and hypothetical payments which would accrue under the UI systems of representative states. Certain compensation results for overemployment are also offered. Where they are directly comparable, results from Tobit estimation of the basic labor supply relations are found to strictly dominate ordinary least squares (OLS) results in terms of efficiency. While the OLS and Tobit parameter estimates differ dramatically in most cases, the latter are consistent with the bulk of recent empirical labor supply research. A corollary purpose of estimating the several labor supply specifications is the search for an appropriate structure of preferences to be used in modeling the labor-leisure choice problem. Direct likelihood ratio tests yielded no best form, but suggested that more flexible parameterizations are to be desired. Results on compensation amounts tend to support accepted standards of UI benefit adequacy. For all levels of unemployment the direct compensation results suggested that "one-half gross wage replacement" would slightly overcompensate individuals from a utility based perspective.

The goal of this dissertation is to illustrate the importance and feasibility of conducting policy evaluations which pay attention to both efficiency and equity. Introducing an equity criterion necessarily involves introducing value judgements, but I suggest that objectivity can be maintained through the adoption of an 'ethically flexible' approach. That is, an analyst can avoid imposing his own particular values by explicitly conducting the evaluation from a number of different ethical positions. This dissertation illustrates the feasibility of an ethically flexible approach by carrying out an evaluation of the proposals for the reform of the Canadian Unemployment Insurance (UI) programme made by the Macdonald and Forget Commissions. The evaluation proceeds in four stages: 1. Behavioural models which take account of the existence of unemployment and UI are developed. 2. The models are estimated using an appropriate Canadian data set. 3. The estimated models are used to simulate behavioural responses to UI reform. 4. Estimation and simulation results are used to carry out the ethically flexible welfare evaluation. Two household labour-supply models are used. The first assumes that observed unemployment is the outcome of utility-maximizing choices. The second introduces the possibility that demand-side constraints may interfere with supply-side choices. A form of switching regression with sample separation unknown is developed to allow estimation of 'constrained' labour-supply functions. Additional problems for estimation include a budget constraint which is non-linear as a result of the UI programme and a dependent variable, weeks of leisure (unemployment), which is limited to values between zero and fifty-two. Both unconstrained and constrained models are estimated for single men, single women and couples, using linear expenditure systems and data from the 1982 Survey of Consumer Finance. Estimation results suggest that constrained labour-supply functions are less elastic than unconstrained functions, that there is no observable difference between the labour-supply behaviour of men and women in a constrained model, and that cross-effects are important in the determination of the labour-supply behaviour of couples. Estimated probabilities of constraint take an average value of (approximately) 80 percent. The simulation of behavioural responses to UI reform using the estimated unconstrained labour-supply functions suggests that large reductions in unemployment might be anticipated. Simulation using the constrained labour-supply functions suggests that responses may be negligible. Welfare evaluation measures are constructed for three ethical perspectives: The first is in the spirit of Utilitarianism; the second is in the spirit of John Rawls' theory of justice; the third is in the spirit of Robert Nozick's entitlement theory. The 'Utilitarian' measure is a mean of order r over the distribution of individual utilities. (Explicit interpersonal comparisons are required for these evaluations.) The 'Rawlsian' measure is a mean of order r over the distribution of individual incomes, censored at the poverty line to focus attention on the worst-off group. The 'Entitlement' measure is a measure of the distance between the distribution of individual costs (premiums) and benefits derived from UI. Three factors are important in the- determination of the welfare-evaluation results. First, the ethical position adopted matters. Both UI reform proposals appear welfare-reducing from a Utilitarian perspective and welfare-improving from an Entitlement perspective. Second, for the Rawlsian and Utilitarian evaluations, the assumed degree of inequality aversion is important. Finally, assumptions made about the nature of unemployment are critical. This is most clearly illustrated by the Rawlsian results. If unemployment is assumed to be the outcome of utility-maximizing choices, then both reform proposals appear welfare-improving: poor people choose to work more and their incomes increase. If unemployment may be the result of demand-side constraints so that increases in employment are not possible, then UI reform merely results in reductions in income for the worst-off group. These results illustrate the importance of both the equity and the efficiency dimensions of a policy evaluation. This thesis demonstrates the feasibility of conducting an objective policy evaluation which pays attention to both.
Arts, Faculty of
Vancouver School of Economics
Graduate

This dissertation first investigates the possible house price trend and the relationship with the mortgage market, from the perspective of risk management; then it chooses the angle from bond insurers and figures out possible methods to avoid capital procyclicality. In Chapter I, we apply vector auto regression models (VAR) and simultaneous equations models (SEM) to estimate the dynamic relations among house price returns, mortgage rates and mortgage default rates, using historical data during the time period of 1979 through second quarter 2008. We find that house prices would be better estimated and predicted with the consideration of the mortgage market. In Chapter II, following the methodology of co-integration, we first construct several succinct measures to display the possible intrinsic values of house prices. In the short run, house price return dynamics are investigated by dynamic adjustments following Capozza et al (2002) and error correction models. We examine the possible overshooting problem of house price returns. By analytical derivations and simulations, we demonstrate the effects of the coefficients on overshooting. In Chapter III, we adopt a structural model with time-varying correlations for bond insurers. We consider losses due to bond insurers’ downgrading and losses from both insurance contracts and investment portfolio. On that basis, we propose forward-looking smoothing rules of capital over a full business cycle, instead of only based on a short-term horizon, to avoid the procyclicality. With the smoothed capital, a bond insurer can actually establish some capital buffer in good times to support the potential losses in crisis.

This DPhil thesis is a collection of three theoretical and empirical papers studying labor markets in several advanced economies. Two chapters examine the relationship between the banking sector and the labor market in the US and the UK, while one evaluates a policy that has been proposed to help labor markets in the Euro Area adjust to economic shocks. In the first chapter, I develop a New Keynesian DSGE model that integrates a banking sector subject to moral hazard with a standard random search model of the labor market. I estimate the model using US data and study the role of the banking sector in determining labor market fluctuations. In the second chapter, I estimate a structural VAR model of the UK and US economies and identify bank lending shocks using a mix of sign and short-run exclusion restrictions. Consistent with the predictions of the DSGE model, an expansionary loan supply shock decreases job-destruction and increases job-creation, reducing the unemployment rate persistently. Bank lending shocks are also important drivers of labor market fluctuations, particularly during the Great Recession. Lastly, in the third chapter, I calibrate to the Euro Area a currency union DSGE model to evaluate the aggregate properties of European Unemployment Insurance (EUI). I find that EUI cannot contemporaneously stabilize the monetary union and achieve convergence in regional unemployment and inflation rates.

This thesis develops a new structure that explicitly combines two CGE models, a national and a regional, in an integrated structure that gives the thesis model the name IRES, in short for the Integrated Regional Equation System. The typical features of the integrated structure are the adding-up conditions and the two-way linkages between the national and the regional modules facilitated by the interface shifters. The adding-up conditions ensure the two modules produce consistent results and updated databases. The inclusion of the interface shifters on the one hand plays a role in ensuring compatibility of results of the two modules, i.e. no distortion occurs because technical or taste changes are transferred across modules. On the other hand, the interface shifters assist the operation of IRES in different modes: the model can be used as a top-down model, a bottom-up model or an integrated model where national and regional shocks can be introduced at the same time. Hence, IRES has more flexibility in its application than a regional model or a national model alone, as IRES can make use of availability of data at any levels in the economy. IRES has a new labour market in which regional migration is no longer the only factor that settles the labour market as in the original setting of the MMRF model. Regional unemployment and regional participation rates are modelled to response to changes in regional employment growth using elasticities estimated econometrically in this thesis. IRES implements historical patterns of regional migration so that results of regional migration are consistent with observed patterns. Altogether, regional migration, regional unemployment and participation rates determine the equilibrium of the labour market. IRES adopts new approaches to modelling margin demands and indirect taxes. These new approaches are very effective in reducing the size of IRES but they do not compromise the use of the model. These approaches are readily applicable to any other regional CGE models.

In the first chapter of this thesis, I use the smooth ambiguity model developed by Klibanoff, Marinacci, and Mukerji (2005) to define the concepts of ambiguity and uncertainty premia in a way analogous to what Pratt (1964) did in the risk theory literature. I show that these concepts may be useful to quantify the effect ambiguity has on the welfare of economic agents. I also define several other concepts such as the unambiguous probability equivalent or the ambiguous utility premium, provide local approximations of these different premia and show the link that exists between them when comparing different degrees of ambiguity aversion not only in the small, but also in the large.

In the second chapter, I analyze the effect of ambiguity on self-insurance and self-protection, that are tools used to deal with the uncertainty of facing a monetary loss when market insurance is not available (in the self-insurance model, the decision maker has the opportunity to furnish an effort to reduce the size of the loss occurring in the bad state of the world, while in the self-protection – or prevention – model, the effort reduces the probability of being in the bad state).

In a short note, in the context of a two-period model I first examine the links between risk-aversion, prudence and self-insurance/self-protection activities under risk. Contrary to the results obtained in the static one-period model, I show that the impacts of prudence and of risk-aversion go in the same direction and generate a higher level of prevention in the more usual situations. I also show that the results concerning self-insurance in a single period framework may be easily extended to a two-period context.

I then consider two-period self-insurance and self-protection models in the presence of ambiguity and analyze the effect of ambiguity aversion. I show that in most common situations, ambiguity prudence is a sufficient condition to observe an increase in the level of effort. I propose an interpretation of the model in the context of climate change, so that self-insurance and self-protection are respectively seen as adaptation and mitigation efforts a policy-maker should provide to deal with an uncertain catastrophic event, and interpret the results obtained as an expression of the Precautionary Principle.

In the third chapter, I introduce the economic theory developed to deal with ambiguity in the context of medical decision-making. I show that, under diagnostic uncertainty, an increase in ambiguity aversion always leads a physician whose goal is to act in the best interest of his patient, to choose a higher level of treatment. In the context of a dichotomic choice (treatment versus no treatment), this result implies that taking into account the attitude agents generally manifest towards ambiguity may induce a physician to change his decision by opting for treatment more often. I further show that under therapeutic uncertainty, the opposite happens, i.e. an ambiguity averse physician may eventually choose not to treat a patient who would have been treated under ambiguity neutrality.

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

This study analyses and investigates the impact of crude oil price vitality on unemployment in South Africa. This is done by firstly surveying theoretical and empirical literature on the crude oil price-unemployment relationship before relating it to South Africa. Secondly, crude oil and unemployment trends with their causes are overviewed. The study employs a Johansen co-integration technique based on VAR to model unemployment against crude oil prices, real effective exchange rate, real interest rates and real gross domestic product. Using quarterly data for the period 1990-2010, econometric results show that crude oil prices are positively related to unemployment in the long run while the opposite is true in the short run. Parameter estimates and variables are statistically significant; hence there are also policy recommendations which are related to both empirical and theoretical literature. Lastly, impulse response functions show that unemployment returns to equilibrium in the long run when crude oil price changes whereas real interest rates followed by crude oil prices explain most of unemployment changes compared to other variables in the long run.

Mestrado em Econometria Aplicada e Previsão
Geralmente, investidores, analistas e bancos centrais necessitam das informações mensais divulgadas pelos institutos governamentais de estatísticas para analisar as condições económicas vigentes e tomar decisões tempestivas. Entretanto, dada a relativa complexidade das pesquisas realizadas para elaborar os indicadores económicos, não é possível dispor imediatamente dos dados após o encerramento de cada mês, isto é, ocorre um delay na sua divulgação. Sendo assim, fontes alternativas de informações têm sido exploradas para auxiliar na previsão das variáveis económicas. Diante deste cenário, esta dissertação verificou se as informações contidas nas buscas realizadas no Google ajudam na previsão da taxa de desemprego mensal brasileira de forma contemporânea. Para tal, a partir da seleção de palavras-chave relacionadas com a procura por emprego, agregaram-se os dados da plataforma Google Trends aos modelos econométricos estimados e compararam-se os erros de previsão gerados fora da amostra, a um passo à frente, para avaliar o poder preditivo destes regressores.
In general, investors, analysts and central banks need the monthly information released by government statistical agencies to analyze current economic conditions and to implement timely decisions and well-designed policies. However, given the relative complexity of the surveys carried out to prepare standard economic indicators, it is not possible to have the data immediately after the end of each month, that is, there is a delay in its disclosure. Therefore, alternative sources of information have been explored to help forecast economic variables and help anticipate those values. In view of this scenario, this thesis verified if the information contained in Google searches helps to predict the Brazilian monthly unemployment rate contemporaneously. To this end, based on the selection of keywords related to job search, the data from the Google Trends were added to different econometric models and their forecasts were compared based on out-of-sample one step ahead prediction errors, to assess the predictive power of these regressors.
info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion

Unemployment modelling covers both view of the labour market such as is, economy and knowledge of mathematics, statistics and, thus, econometrics. The importance of unemployment seems to be even more significant after the period of crisis; high unemployment is not only economic burden bud serious social risk and psychological problem as well. In the dissertation thesis, selected models used for unemployment modelling and -- in some cases for its prediction -- are introduced. To be able to predict the future trend of labour market reliably means to be able to plan tools of active and passive employment policies effectively. Alternatively, it means to search programs and supports that help in reduction of unemployment. Specific applications of models for the Czech labour market involve model of multistate life tables, simultaneous econometric models and Phillips curve. Phillips curve of mutual "trade-off" of unemployment and inflation is confirmed in short periods, in longer and long period of time rather fails, it is not reliable. It is not possible to use it for prediction at all; it would be needed to predict inflation. Analogous characteristics has the Beveridge curve. Simultaneous econometric models for number of economically active persons and for unemployment and inflation de facto fail, even though they demonstrate the range of opportunities including point and interval forecasts. Period of economic crisis when changes in labour market principles occur means usually problem for such the models, which work well in periods of stable growth or decline. More, it is difficult to specify these models correctly with regard to threat of multikolinearity. Multistate models aiming at calculation of multistate life tables, or even multistate projection are extremely demanding for input data. But they enable to understand relations or transitions among states, respectively. It is very beneficial tool for comprehension and policy planning in the area of labour market and social affairs in the process of lowering unemployment. Forecasts in such a type of model are possible but difficult because it is necessary to predict probability of transition among states.

Mestrado em Ciências Actuariais
Em Portugal, o debate sobre o desemprego tem estado muito activo ao longo dos últimos meses. A problemática do desemprego assume cada vez mais importância no quotidiano. O endividamento dos consumidores tem vindo a aumentar, acompanhando uma mudança de hábitos de consumo que reflectem uma alteração de comportamentos culturais e sociais. O crédito ao consumo é um mercado em forte expansão, com grande variedade de oferta de produtos e de acesso cada vez mais amplo. Do ponto de vista deste trabalho, o seguro de protecção ao crédito ajuda os clientes a cumprir as obrigações de pagamentos relativas aos seus compromissos financeiros, tais como créditos pessoais, créditos hipotecários ou cartões de crédito, no caso de desemprego involuntário. Em consequência, abordaremos o crescimento do crédito ao consumo no século XXI, por um lado, e o alargamento do âmbito dos seguros e a necessária especialização da actividade seguradora, por outro. O comportamento do desemprego tem sido objecto de muita reflexão, estudo e análise estatística. É possível avaliar o risco de desemprego numa dada população e intervalo de tempo. Neste sentido, é natural o recurso ao formalismo matemático do cálculo de probabilidades para descrever a duração do emprego dos indivíduos. Começando por se fazer uma apresentação do conceito de seguros de protecção ao crédito, a evolução do desemprego e das condicionantes do foro demográfico, social e económico, faz-se depois uma actualização, com dados mais recentes. À semelhança das tábuas de mortalidade, as tábuas de emprego diferenciam-se pelas características da população analisada e por um conjunto de aspectos metodológicos que presidem à sua construção. Uma vez este diagnóstico realizado, propõe-se então um conjunto de situações para cálculos de prémios de seguro que permitirão concluir sobre os efeitos das condicionantes do emprego.
In Portugal, the debate regarding unemployment has been very active throughout the last months. The problematic assumes more importance in the daily life. The consumers' indebtedness has increase, following a change of consumption habits that reflects an alteration of cultural and social behaviors. The consumer credit is a market in strong expansion, with great variety of products offer and ampler access. The creditor insurance helps the customers to fulfill their obligations of payments to its financial commitments, such as personal loans, mortgage loans or credit cards, in case of involuntary unemployment. We will come near the growth of the credit consumption in the 21st century and the widening of credit protection insurances' scope and the necessary specialization of the insuring activity. The behavior of the unemployment has been purpose of much reflection, study and statistical analysis. It is possible to evaluate the risk of unemployment in one given population and specific period of time. In this direction, the resource to mathematical formalism of the calculation of probabilities to describe the duration of employment of the individuals is natural. We start for making a presentation of the concept of creditor insurance, the evolution of the unemployment and its demographics, social and economic environment update with most recent data. Similarly to mortality tables, an employment table is differentiated for the characteristics of the analyzed population and for a set of methodologies aspects that head over to its construction. Through the diagnosis, we considered a set of situations for premium calculations that will allow to conclude on the effect of protection the involuntary loss of employment.

La recherche menée dans cette thèse propose une contribution à l’analyse du risque sur le marché de l’assurance automobile en France. Trois nouveaux axes sont présentés : le premier axe s’inscrit dans un cadre théorique de marché d’assurance automobile. Un modèle original de double asymétrie d’information est présenté. Le principal résultat qui en découle est l’existence de deux sortes de contrats d’équilibre : un contrat séparateur et un contrat mélangeant. Le deuxième point est lié à la prise en compte de la sinistralité passée dans l’étude de la relation risque - couverture. Des modèles bivariés et trivariés sont appliqués pour cette fin. Il en ressort que l’hypothèse de l’asymétrie d’information est vérifiée. Enfin, la troisième question soulevée dans cette thèse concerne l’application de la surprime aux jeunes conducteurs. Nous montrons par des modélisations économétriques de la sinistralité que la légitimité des assureurs à proposer quasi systématiquement des tarifs plus élevés aux jeunes conducteurs par rapport aux conducteurs expérimentés n'est pas toujours vérifiée
This dissertation provides a contribution to the risk analysis on the French automobile insurance market. The objective of this thesis is threefold. The first aim relates to a theoretical framework applied on insurance market. An original model of double asymmetry of information is presented The main result that emerges is the existence of two kinds of contracts at equilibrium :a separating contract and a pooling contract. The second point concerns the past claims and the risk-coverage correlation. Bivariate and trivariate models are applied for this purpose. It results that the assumption of asymmetry of information is not rejected. The third issue is related to the over-premium that insurers apply quasi-systematically to the young drivers. We show, using econometric modeling, that this over-pricing compared to the experienced drivers’premium isnot necessary and its removal does not compromise the sustainability of the insurance company

Résumé de la thèse d’Alexandre Janiak intitulée « Essais sur la mobilité géographique, sectorielle et intra-sectorielle en périodes de changement structurel »

Le changement structurel est un processus nécessaire qui améliore considérablement les conditions de vie dans nos sociétés. Il peut découler par exemple de l'introduction de nouvelles avancées technologiques qui permettent d'augmenter à long terme la productivité agrégée dans nos économies. En retour, la hausse de la productivité a un impact sur notre consommation de tous les jours. Elle nous permet notamment de vivre dans un plus grand confort. Les individus peuvent alors s'épanouir dans leur ensemble. Il est évident que le changement structurel peut prendre d'autres formes que celle du changement technologique, mais il est souvent issu d'une transformation des forces qui influencent les marchés et en général aboutit à long terme à une amélioration du bien-être global.

Mais le changement structurel est aussi un processus douloureux. Il peut durer plusieurs décennies et, durant cette période, nous sommes beaucoup à devoir en supporter les coûts. Comme nous allons l'illustrer dans ce chapitre introductif, le changement structurel a pour conséquence une modification du rapport aux facteurs de production, ce qui alors mène à modifier l'ensemble des prix relatifs qui caractérisent une économie. En particulier, la modification des prix est due à une transformation des demandes relatives de facteurs. Ces derniers se révèlent alors inutiles à l'exécution de certaines tâches ou sont fortement demandés dans d'autres points de l'économie.

Souvent, le changement structurel entraîne alors un processus de réallocation. Des pans entiers de travailleurs doivent par conséquent se réallouer à d'autres tâches. Les lois du marché les incitent ainsi à devoir s'adapter à un nouveau contexte, mais elles le font pour un futur meilleur.

Cette thèse s'intéresse à cette problématique. Elle suppose que tout processus de changement structurel implique un mouvement de réallocation des facteurs de production, notamment des travailleurs puisqu'il s'agit d'une thèse en économie du travail, mais qu'un tel processus engendre souvent des coûts non négligeables. Elle se veut surtout positive, mais la nature des questions qu'elle pose mène naturellement à un débat normatif. Par exemple, elle cherche des réponses aux interrogations suivantes: comment s'ajuste une économie au changement structurel? Quelle est la nature des coûts associés au changement? Ces coûts peuvent-ils en excéder les gains? Le processus de réallocation en vaut-il vraiment la peine? Les gains issus d'un tel processus sont-ils distribués de manière égale?

La thèse est composée de quatre chapitres qui chacun considère l’impact d’un changement structurel particulier.

Le premier chapitre s’intéresse à l’impact de l’ouverture internationale aux échanges sur le niveau de l’emploi. Il s’appuie sur des travaux récents en économie internationale qui ont montré que la libéralisation du commerce mène à l’expansion des firmes les plus productives et à la destruction des entreprises dont la productivité est moins élevée. La raison de cette dichotomie est la présence d’un coût à l’entrée sur le marché des exports qui a été documentée par de nombreuses études. Certaines entreprises se développent suite à la libéralisation car elles ont accès à de nouveaux marchés et d’autres meurent car elles ne peuvent pas faire face aux entreprises les plus productives. Puisque le commerce crée à la fois des emplois et en détruit d’autres, ce chapitre a pour but de déterminer l’effet net de ce processus de réallocation sur le niveau agrégé de l’emploi.

Dans cette perspective, il présente un modèle avec firmes hétérogènes où pour exporter une entreprise doit payer un coût fixe, ce qui implique que seules les entreprises les plus productives peuvent entrer sur le marché international. Le modèle génère le processus de réallocation que l’ouverture au commerce international suppose. En effet, comme les entreprises les plus productives veulent exporter, elles vont donc embaucher plus de travailleurs, mais comme elles sont également capables de fixer des prix moins élevés et que les biens sont substituables, les entreprises les moins productives vont donc faire faillite. L’effet net sur l’emploi est négatif car les exportateurs ont à la marge moins d’incitants à embaucher des travailleurs du au comportement de concurrence monopolistique.

Le chapitre analyse également d’un point de vue empirique l’effet d’une ouverture au commerce au niveau sectoriel sur les flux d’emplois. Les résultats empiriques confirment ceux du modèle, c’est-à-dire qu’une hausse de l’ouverture au commerce génère plus de destructions que de créations d’emplois au niveau d’un secteur.

Le second chapitre considère un modèle similaire à celui du premier chapitre, mais se focalise plutôt sur l’effet du commerce en termes de bien-être. Il montre notamment que l’impact dépend en fait de la courbe de demande de travail agrégée. Si la courbe est croissante, l’effet est positif, alors qu’il est négatif si elle est décroissante.

Le troisième chapitre essaie de comprendre quels sont les déterminants de la mobilité géographique. Le but est notamment d’étudier le niveau du chômage en Europe. En effet, la littérature a souvent affirmé que la faible mobilité géographique du travail est un facteur de chômage lorsque les travailleurs sans emploi préfèrent rester dans leur région d’origine plutôt que d’aller prospecter dans les régions les plus dynamiques. Il semble donc rationnel pour ces individus de créer des liens sociaux locaux si ils anticipent qu’ils ne déménageront pas vers une autre région. De même, une fois le capital social local accumulé, les incitants à la mobilité sont réduits.

Le troisième chapitre illustre donc un modèle caractérisé par diverses complémentarités qui mènent à des équilibres multiples (un équilibre avec beaucoup de capital social local, peu de mobilité et un chômage élevé et un autre avec des caractéristiques opposées). Le modèle montre également que le capital social local est systématiquement négatif pour la mobilité et peut être négatif pour l’emploi, mais d’autres types de capital social peuvent en fait faire augmenter le niveau de l’emploi.

Dans ce troisième chapitre, une illustration empirique qui se base sur plusieurs mesures montre que le capital social est un facteur dominant d’immobilité. C’est aussi un facteur de chômage lorsque le capital social est clairement local, alors que d’autres types de capital social s’avèrent avoir un effet positif sur le taux d’emploi. Cette partie empirique illustre également la causalité inverse où des individus qui vivent dans une région qui ne correspond pas à leur région de naissance accumulent moins de capital social local, ce qui donne de la crédibilité à une théorie d’équilibres multiples.

Finalement, en observant que les individus dans le Sud de l’Europe semblent accumuler plus de capital social local, alors que dans le Nord de l’Europe on tend à investir dans des types plus généraux de capital social, nous suggérons qu’une partie du problème de chômage en Europe peut mieux se comprendre grâce au concept de capital social local.

Enfin, le quatrième chapitre s’intéresse à l’effet de la croissance économique sur la qualité des emplois. En particulier, il analyse le fait qu’un individu puisse avoir un emploi qui corresponde ou non à ses qualifications, ce qui, dans le contexte de ce chapitre, détermine s’il s’agit de bons ou mauvais emplois.

Ce chapitre se base sur deux mécanismes qui ont été largement abordés par la littérature. Le premier est le concept de « destruction créatrice » qui dit que la croissance détruit de nouveaux emplois car elle les rend obsolètes. Le second est le processus de « capitalisation » qui nous dit que la croissance va créer de nombreux emplois car les entreprises anticipent des profits plus élevés dans le futur.

Alors que des études récentes, suggèrent que la destruction créatrice ne permet pas d’expliquer le lien entre croissance et chômage, ce chapitre montre qu’un tel concept permet de mieux comprendre la relation entre croissance et qualité des emplois.

Avec des données issues du panel européen, nous illustrons que la corrélation entre croissance et qualité des emplois est positive. Nous présentons une série de trois modèles qui diffèrent de la manière suivante :(i) le fait de pouvoir chercher un emploi ou non alors qu’on en a déjà un, (ii) le fait pour une entreprise de pouvoir acquérir des équipements modernes. Les résultats suggèrent que pour expliquer l’effet de la croissance sur la qualité des emplois, la meilleure stratégie est une combinaison entre les effets dits de destruction créatrice et de capitalisation. Alors que le premier effet influence le taux de destruction des mauvais emplois, le second a un impact sur la mobilité du travail des mauvais vers les bons emplois.

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

Les crises globales entraînent souvent d'énormes perturbations économiques, qui peuvent durer de nombreuses années. Il est donc important de comprendre leurs conséquences et comment élaborer des politiques efficaces dans la réduction de leurs impacts. Il existe une littérature abondante sur les effets d’une crise au niveau agrégé et le rôle stabilisateur des politiques macroéconomiques. Toutefois, on a accordé beaucoup moins d'attention aux effets distributifs des crises et encore moins aux interactions entre ces effets et l'évolution de l’activité macroéconomique post crise. Si une aggravation des inégalités peut contribuer à une reprise faible de l'activité, alors le système d’impôts et prestations sociales peut être un stabilisateur macroéconomique en sus de son rôle redistributif. Il est donc essentiel de comprendre comment le système peut influer tant sur les effets agrégés, que sur les inégalités en temps de crise. Cette thèse vise à apporter un éclairage neuf sur ces questions, en utilisant de multiples méthodologies et ensembles de données, au niveau micro et macro, dans une approche empirique et théorique.Le premier article fait une évaluation détaillée de l'évolution des inégalités de revenus et des effets redistributifs du système d’impôts et prestations sociales après la crise de 2007-08 aux États-Unis. Utilisant un large éventail d'indicateurs, il examine plusieurs sections de la distribution de revenus et analyse la contribution des différentes composantes du système d’impôts et prestations sociales. Le second article développe une nouvelle méthode pour modéliser la distribution de revenus disponibles et décomposer l’évolution de celle-ci dans le temps, utilisant une double approche microéconométrique et de microsimulation. Il l’applique à l'étude de l'évolution de la distribution de revenus au Portugal après la crise de 2007-08 en tenant compte des effets de la crise et des politiques de relance et de consolidation budgétaire. Le troisième article développe un modèle théorique DSGE à agents hétérogènes, avec une hétérogénéité à la fois ex-ante et ex-post des ménages et assurance chômage. Il présente les résultats d'une première expérience quantitative, étudiant les effets distributifs et agrégés d'une crise et le rôle de l'assurance chômage pour ces effets, sous plusieurs scénarios hypothétiques de crise.Plusieurs conclusions émergent des résultats obtenus dans cette thèse. Premièrement, les crises globales peuvent avoir des effets très hétérogènes et persistants sur la répartition de revenus, particulièrement pénalisants pour les ménages à faible revenu. Deuxièmement, le système d’impôts et prestations sociales peut jouer un rôle crucial dans l'évolution de la distribution de revenus à la suite d'une crise. Un système fort peut amortir une augmentation des inégalités induite par la crise, tandis qu'un système faible peut les aggraver. Troisièmement, non seulement la magnitude, mais aussi la conception du système affecte son rôle en temps de crise. En particulier, un instrument plus progressif aura un effet stabilisateur plus important qu'un instrument uniforme. Quatrièmement, les politiques de stabilisation des agrégats économiques en temps de crise peuvent avoir des effets importants sur la répartition de revenus. En particulier, la mise en œuvre de mesures de consolidation peut renforcer les pertes de revenus induites par la crise et augmenter l'hétérogénéité des effets d'une crise. Enfin, l'hétérogénéité des ménages et de l’assurance sociale jouent un rôle important dans la transmission d'une crise globale à l’activité économique. La contraction de la consommation agrégée suite à une crise sera plus accentuée dans un monde où les ménages sont hétérogènes à la fois ex ante et ex post que dans un monde où l'hétérogénéité est uniquement ex post. De plus, une crise impliquera une contraction de la consommation agrégée plus faible dans un monde avec assurance sociale que dans un monde sans assurance sociale
Aggregate crises often bring tremendous economic disruptions, which may persist for many years. Understanding their consequences and how to effectively design crisis-coping policies is therefore of capital importance. The aggregate effects of crises and the stabilising role of macroeconomic policies have been significantly studied in the literature. Much less attention, however, has been given to the distributional effects of crises and even less to the possible interactions between these effects and the post-crisis evolution of aggregate outcomes. If a crisis-led increase in inequality can feedback into an anemic recovery of economic activity, then the tax and transfer system may have a role in stabilising not only the income distribution but also the macroeconomy. Understanding how the system may affect both distributional and aggregate developments in a crisis aftermath is therefore key. This thesis aims at shedding new light on these issues, using multiple methodologies and datasets both at the micro and macro level, applying both an empirical and theoretical approach.The first paper provides a detailed assessment of the evolution of income inequality and the redistributive effects of the tax and transfer system following the 2007-2008 crisis, in the US. Using a wide range of indicators, it looks at several sections of the income distribution and analyses the contribution of different components of the tax and transfer system. The second paper develops a new method to model the household disposable income distribution and decompose changes in this distribution over time, integrating both a microeconometric and microsimulation approach. It applies the method to the study of changes in the income distribution in Portugal following the 2007-2008 crisis, accounting for the effects of the crisis and of the aftermath fiscal stimulus and consolidation policies. The third paper develops a theoretical heterogeneous agents DSGE model, with both ex-ante and ex-post household heterogeneity and unemployment insurance. It presents the results of a first quantitative experiment, studying the distributional and aggregate effects of a crisis and the role of unemployment insurance in shaping these effects, under several hypothetical crisis scenarios.Several conclusions can be drawn from the results obtained in this thesis. First, aggregate crises may have substantial heterogeneous effects across the income distribution, being particularly penalising for lower income groups, and these effects may be highly persistent. Second, the tax and transfer system can crucially shape distributional developments following a crisis. A strong tax and transfer system may fully cushion a crisis-led increase in inequality, while a weak one may deepen it. Beyond the effects of automatic stabilisers, discretionary policy choices may have substantial effects. Third, not only the size but also the design of the tax and transfer system matters for its role in times of crisis. In particular, a more progressive instrument will have a higher stabilising effect than a flat one, both at the distributional and aggregate level. Fourth, policies aimed at stabilising aggregate outcomes in times of crisis may have significant "collateral" effects on the income distribution. In particular, the implementation of consolidation measures may reinforce income losses induced by the contractionary effects of the crisis and increase the heterogeneity of the effects of a crisis on households' incomes. Finally, household heterogeneity and social insurance matter for the transmission of an aggregate crisis to aggregate outcomes. A crisis will lead to a higher contraction of aggregate consumption in a world where there are both ex-ante and ex-post sources of household heterogeneity than in a world where there is only ex-post heterogeneity. Furthermore, a crisis will imply a smaller contraction of aggregate consumption in a world with social insurance than in a world without

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.

This thesis is an investigation of econometric crop yield models divided into two essays. In the first essay, I propose estimating a single heteroscedasticity coefficient for all counties within a crop-reporting district by pooling county-level crop yield data in a two-stage estimation process. In the context of crop insurance---where heteroscedaticity has significant economic implications---I demonstrate the pooling approach provides economically and statistically significant improvements in rating crop insurance contracts over contemporary methods. In the second essay, I propose a new method for measuring the rate of technological change in crop yields. To date the agricultural economics literature has measured technological change exclusively at the mean; in contrast, the proposed model can measure the rate of technological change in endogenously-defined yield subpopulations. I find evidence of different rates of technological change in yield subpopulations, which leads to interesting questions about the effect of technological change on agricultural production.
Ontario Ministry of Agriculture and Food

The contribution of this thesis is to build a small macro-econometric model of the Namibian economy, which demonstrates that there is significant statistical support for the hypothesis that there is a contemporaneous relationship between real wage, productivity, unemployment and interest rates in Namibia. This phenomenon has not yet been exploited using macro-econometric modelling, and thus, represents a significant contribution to modelling literature in Namibia. The determination of the sources of unemployment also receives special attention given that high unemployment is a chronic problem in Namibia. All models specified and estimated in the study use the SVAR methodology for the period 1980 to 2013. The study develops a small macro-econometric model using three modular experiments, which include, a basic model, models that separately append demand and exchange rate channels variables to the basic model, and the specification of a small macro-econometric model. The ultimate aim is to find out if monetary policy plays a role in influencing labour market and nominal variables. The hypothesis that the basic real wage, productivity, unemployment rate and interest rate system can be estimated simultaneously is validated. Further, demand and exchange rate channels variables are found to have important additional information, which explains the monetary transmission process, and that shocks to labour market variables affect monetary policy in Namibia. The results also show that the demand channel (import prices and bank credit to the private sector) and the exchange rate channel (nominal exchange rate) variables have important additional information, which affects monetary transmission process in Namibia, which justifies their inclusion in the small macro-econometric model. In addition, shocks to the import price and exchange rate in the macro-econometric model significantly affect labour market variables. However, shocks to bank credit only partially perform as expected, implying that its results need to be considered cautiously. The study further finds that tight monetary policy shocks significantly affect real and nominal variables in Namibia. The results also show that shocks to all variables in the unemployment model significantly affect unemployment, suggesting that the hysteresis assumption is corroborated. This implies that long run aggregate demand is non-neutral in Namibia.
Economics
D. Litt. et Phil. (Economics)

The thesis examines the generosity of unemployment benefits granted to non-standard (outsiders) and standard workers (insiders) in four different countries (Germany, the United Kingdom, Italy and Sweden) between 2000 and 2017, which were selected based on their value to represent a different institutional legacy. These legacies were based off the Varieties of Capitalism literature and the Welfare Regime literature. Comparative Case Study Analysis was the chosen methodology to assess the unemployment benefit reforms, which were primarily retrieved from the LABREF database. Two supporting theories were used to analyse the outcomes, dualization theory and liberalization theory. The findings showed a clear correlation between the institutional legacies of each case and the generosity of the unemployment benefits given to insiders and outsiders. The alternative explanation that a common trend towards liberalization made unemployment benefit systems converge in all four countries could not be supported.