Thèses sur le sujet « Industrial relations – Econometric models »

In the first chapter,a harmonised linked employer-employee dataset is used to study the impact of firm-level agreements on the wage structure in the manufacturing sector in Belgium, Denmark and Spain. To our knowledge, this is one of the first cross-country studies that examines the impact of firm-level bargaining on the wage structure in European countries. We find that firm-level agreements have a positive effect both on wage levels and on wage dispersion in Belgium and Denmark. In Spain, firm also increase wage levels but reduce wage dispersion. Our interpretation is that in Belgium and Denmark, where firm-level bargaining greatly expanded since the 1980s on the initiative of the employers and the governments, firm-level bargaining is mainly used to adapt pay to the specific needs of the firm. In Spain, the structure of collective bargaining has not changed very much since the Franco period where firm agreements were used as a tool for worker mobilisation and for political struggle. Therefore, firm-level bargaining in Spain is still mainly used by trade unions in order to reduce the wage dispersion.

In the second chapter, we analyse the impact of the bargaining level and of the degree of centralisation of wage bargaining on rent-sharing in Belgium. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study that considers simultaneously both dimensions of collective bargaining. This is also one of the first papers that looks at the impact of wage bargaining institutions on rent-sharing in European countries. This question is important because if wage bargaining decentralisation increases the link between wages and firm specific profits, it may prevent an efficient allocation of labour across firms, increase wage inequality, lead to smaller employment adjustments, and affect the division of surplus between capital and labour (Bryson et al. 2006). Controlling for the endogeneity of profits, for heterogeneity among workers and firms and for differences in characteristics between bargaining regimes, we find that wages depend substantially more on firm specific profits in decentralised than in centralised industries ,irrespective of the presence of a formal firm collective agreement. In addition, the impact of the presence of a formal firm collective agreement on the wage-profit elasticity depends on the degree of centralisation of the industry. In centralised industries, profits influence wages only when a firm collective agreement is present. This result is not surprising since industry agreements do not take into account firm-specific characteristics. Within decentralised industries, firms share their profits with their workers even if they are not covered by a formal firm collective agreement. This is probably because, in those industries, workers only covered by an industry agreement (i.e. not covered by a formal firm agreement) receive wage supplements that are paid unilaterally by their employer. The fact that those workers also benefit from rent-sharing implies that pay-setting does not need to be collective to generate rent-sharing, which is in line with the Anglo-American literature that shows that rent-sharing is not a particularity of the unionised sector.

In the first two chapters, we have shown that, in Belgium, firm-level bargaining is used by firms to adapt pay to the specific characteristics of the firm, including firm’s profits. In the third and final chapter, it is shown that firm-level bargaining also allows wages to adapt to the local environment that the company may face. This aspect is of particular importance in the debate about a potential regionalisation of wage bargaining in Belgium. This debate is, however, not specific to Belgium. Indeed, the potential failure of national industry agreements to take into account the productivity levels of the least productive regions has been considered as one of the causes of regional unemployment in European countries (Davies and Hallet, 2001; OECD, 2006). Two kinds of solutions are generally proposed to solve this problem. The first, encouraged by the European Commission and the OECD, consists in decentralising wage bargaining toward the firm level (Davies and Hallet, 2001; OECD, 2006). The second solution, the regionalisation of wage bargaining, is frequently mentioned in Belgium or in Italy where regional unemployment differentials are high. In this chapter we show that, in Belgium, regional wage differentials and regional productivity differentials within joint committees are positively correlated. Moreover, this relation is stronger (i) for joint committees where firm-level bargaining is relatively frequent and (ii) for joint committees already sub-divided along a local line. We conclude that the present Belgian wage bargaining system which combines interprofessional, industry and firm bargaining, already includes the mechanisms that allow regional productivity to be taken into account in wage formation. It is therefore not necessary to further regionalise wage bargaining in Belgium.

Doctorat en Sciences économiques et de gestion
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The aim of the thesis is to further explore the relationship between economic integration and firm mobility and investment, both from an empirical and a theoretical perspective, with the objective of drawing conclusions on how government policy can be used to strengthen the positive impact of integration on investment, which is crucial in moving and maintaining countries at the forefront of the technology frontier and accelerating economic growth in a world of rapid technical change and high mobility of ideas, goods, services, capital and labor.

The first chapter aims to bring together the literature on economic integration, firm mobility and investment. It contains two sections: one dedicated to the literature on FDI and the second covering the literature on firm entry and exit, economic performance and economic and business regulation.

In the second chapter I examine the relationship between the Single Market and FDI both in an intra-EU context and from outside the EU. The empirical results show that the impact of the Single Market on FDI differs substantially from one country to another. This finding may be due to the functioning of institutions.

The third chapter studies the relationship between the level of external trade protection put into place by a Regional Integration Agreement(RIA)and the option of a firm from outside the RIA block to serve the RIA market through FDI rather than exports. I find that the level of external trade protection put in place by the RIA depends on the RIA country's capacity to benefit from FDI spillovers, the magnitude of set-up costs of building a plant in the RIA and on the amount of external trade protection erected by the country from outside the reigonal block with respect to the RIA.

The fourth chapter studies how the firm entry and exit process is affected by product market reforms and regulations and impact macroeconomic performance. The results show that an increase in deregulation will lead to a rise in firm entry and exit. This in turn will especially affect macroeconomic performance as measured by output growth and labor productivity growth. The analysis done at the sector level shows that results can differ substantially across industries, which implies that deregulation policies should be conducted at the sector level, rather than at the global macroeconomic level.
Doctorat en sciences économiques, Orientation économie
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The objective of this study is to evaluate the effects of macroeconomic policy variables on bilateral trade between the United States and Japan. An auto-regressive distributed lag model is developed to estimate the effects of government economic policies on four commodity groups: agriculture; materials and chemicals; machinery and transport equipment; and manufactured goods. Results indicate that monetary policy significantly affects U. S. and Japanese imports of manufactured goods and transport equipment. The results also show that changes in government expenditure have a significant long-run effect on U.S. imports of manufactured goods and Japanese imports of materials and chemicals, while the long-run effects of income and exchange rates are significant for most commodity groups.

This thesis is a theoretical study of relationships between patent races and market structure. The outcome of a patent race can be an important determinant of market structure. For example, whether or not a new firm enters a market may depend upon its winning a patent race against an incumbent firm already in that market. Moreover, market structure can be a major influence upon competition in a patent race. In the example, the asymmetry between incumbent and potential entrant has an effect upon their respective incentives in the patent race. Chapter I discusses models of R and D with uncertainty. We show that, as the degree of correlation between the uncertainties facing rival firms increases, R and D efforts increase under some, but not all, conditions, and the number of active competitors falls. Chapter II discusses the approach of representing patent races as bidding games. We examine a model in which several incumbent firms compete with a number of potential entrants in a patent race, and ask whether the incumbents have an incentive to form a joint venture to deter entry. They do so if and only if the patent does not offer a major cost improvement. In Chapter III we examine the strategic interactions between competitors during the course of a race, in an attempt to clarify (for different types of race) the idea that a race degenerates when one player becomes 'far enough ahead' of his rivals, in a sense made precise. In Chapter IV we examine the evolution of market structure in a duopoly model when there is a sequence of patent races. The nature of competition in the product market is shown to determine whether one firm becomes increasingly dominant as industry leader, or whether there is 'action - reaction' between firms.

Este trabalho teve por objetivo determinar a influência das características dos países e indústrias no comércio intra-industrial brasileiro de produtos manufaturados, considerando fluxos de quantidades comercializadas ao ano, para o período de 2002 a 2006, através de estimativas de uma equação gravitacional adaptada à análise dessa forma de comércio. As variáveis explicativas são relacionadas ao tamanho de mercado, representado pela proxy LPIBij, diferenças entre as rendas per capita dos países, representadas pela proxy LdPIBpcij, e tarifas aduaneiras aplicadas pelos países importadores, LTarifas. Tais variáveis foram utilizadas para analisar o comércio intraindustrial e seus componentes horizontal e vertical. A fundamentação teórica para proceder à segmentação do comércio intra-industrial brasileiro, segundo tais características, foi derivada de trabalhos conduzidos por Falvey (1981), Helpman e Krugman, (1985) e Greenaway, et al. (1995). A mensuração do Índice de Grubel-Lloyd e a posterior separação dos componentes do CII utilizando valor unitário indicam uma composição do comércio intra-industrial brasileiro com forte predomínio do componente CII Vertical Inferior.Os resultados da estimação das equações gravitacionais, com a utilização dos dados em painel e a utilização de Poisson Pseudo-Maximum-Likelihood comprovou ser a mais adequada para a estimativa econométrica.Para o comércio intraindustrial total, os resultados indicaram que o tamanho de mercado, tem um efeito positivo sobre o fluxo de exportação dos produtos brasileiros com comércio intraindustrial (0,517), porém, as diferenças entre as rendas per capita dos países (-0,183) e tarifas aduaneiras dos países importadores (-0,356), são negativamente relacionados. Os resultados para o comércio intra-industrial vertical e horizontal apresentam os mesmos sinais que o CII total, com alteração na magnitude.
This study aimed to determine the influence of characteristics for countries and industries in intra-industry trade (IIT) of Brazilian manufactured products, considering the annual trade flows for the period 2002 to 2006 and using a gravity equation adapted to analysis this form of trade . The explanatory variables are related to market size, represented by proxy LPIBij, differences between per capita incomes of countries represented by proxy LdPIBpcij, and tariffs imposed by importing countries, represented by proxy LTarifas. These variables were used to analyze the intra-industry trade and its horizontal and vertical components. The theoretical basis to make the segmentation of intra-industry in Brazil, according to such characteristics, was derived from studies conducted by Falvey (1981), Helpman and Krugman (1985) and Greenaway et al.(1995). The measurement of the Grubel-Lloyd index and the subsequent separation of components from IIT using unit value indicates that the brazilian intra-industry trade has a strong predominance of IIT Vertical Low quality. The results of the estimation of the gravitational equations with the use of panel data and the use of Poisson Pseudo- Maximum-Likelihood proved to be the most suitable for econometric estimation. The results for intra-industry total indicated that the market size, has a positive effect on the flow of exports of Brazilian products with intra-industry trade (0,517), however, the differences between per capita incomes (-0,183) of countries and tariffs in importing countries (-0,356) have a negative relation. The results for vertical and horizontal intraindustry trade have the same signals than intra-industry total but they differ in magnitude.

O objetivo deste trabalho é apresentar o Modelo Vetorial Autorregressivo (VAR) e uma das suas variações, o Modelo Vetorial de Correções de Erros (VEC), segundo uma abordagem Bayesiana, considerando componentes regionais, que serão inseridos nos modelos apresentados através de informações a priori que levam em consideração a localização dos dados. Para formar tais informações a priori são utilizados conceitos referentes à econometria espacial, como por exemplo, as relações de contigüidade e as implicações que estas trazem. Como exemplo ilustrativo, o modelo em questão será aplicado a um conjunto de dados regionais, coletados por estados brasileiros. Este conjunto de dados consiste em observações da variável produção industrial para oito estados, no período de janeiro de 1991 a setembro de 2006. Em função da escolha do modelo adequado, a questão central foi descobrir em que medida a incorporação destas informações a priori no modelo VEC Bayesiano é coerente quando estimamos modelos que consideram informações localizacionais.
The main goal of this work is to present the Vector Autoregressive Model (VAR) and one of its variations, the Vector Error Correction Model (VEC), according to a Bayesian variant, considering regional components that will be inserted in the models presented through prior information, which takes in consideration the data localization. To form such prior information, spatial econometrics is used, as for example the contiguity relations and the implications that these bring to the modeling. As illustrative example, the model in question will be applied to a regional data set, collected for Brazilian states. This data set consists of industrial production for eight states, in the period between January 1991 and September 2006. The central question is to uncover whether the incorporation of these prior informations in the Bayesian VEC Model is coherent when we use models that consider contiguity information.

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
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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.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Ohio State University, 2003.
Title from first page of PDF file. Document formatted into pages; contains xiii, 268 p.; also includes graphics (some col.). Includes abstract and vita. Adviser: Donald Haurin, Dept. of Economics. Includes bibliographical references (p. 256-268).

This thesis consists in a collection of research works dealing with various aspects of International Economics. More precisely, we focus on three main themes: (i) the existence of a world business cycle and the implications thereof, (ii) the likelihood of asymmetric shocks in the Euro Zone resulting from fluctuations in the euro exchange rate because of differences in sector specialization patterns and some consequences of such shocks, and (iii) the relationship between trade openness and growth influence of the sector specialization structure on that relationship.

Regarding the approach pursued to tackle these problems, we have chosen to strictly remain within the boundaries of empirical (macro)economics - that is, applied econometrics. Though we systematically provide theoretical models to back up our empirical approach, our only real concern is to look at the stories the data can (or cannot) tell us. As to the econometric methodology, we will restrict ourselves to the use of panel data analysis. The large spectrum of techniques available within the panel framework allows us to utilize, for each of the problems at hand, the most suitable approach (or what we think it is).
Doctorat en sciences économiques, Orientation économie
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Linking education, science and technology with national development is a subject of increasing concern in many developing countries. In this dissertation, we have studied empirically the contribution, or lack of it, which public investment in education, science and technology has made to the attainment of development objectives in Cameroon since 1960. Using a small computable macroeconometric model of Cameroon incorporating some major relevant quantitative aspects of the knowledge sector, we have investigated the effects on that sector and on the overall economic system of increased education- and research-service resources. We have also analyzed some of the major qualitative factors that are important in this sector.
Our results suggest that, given existing patterns of education, science and technology in Cameroon, the contribution of public investment in this sector may be small compared to the potential contribution suggested in the literature. The implications of these results are examined for policy-making and planning at the national level.

Defence date: 17 December 1990
Examining board: Prof. Alexis Jacquemin, Université Catholique de Louvain and Commission of the European Communities, Brussels ; Prof. Daniel Jones, Cardiff Business School ; Prof. Neil Kay, University of Strathclyde ; Prof. Stephen Martin, thesis supervisor, European University Institute, Flroence ; Prof. Joachim Schwalbach, Freie Univeristät Berlin
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Thesis (M.S.)--University of Wisconsin--Madison, 1992.
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The relevance of domestic and foreign capacity utilization rates in forecasting future inflation rate has been investigated empirically, using five industrialized countries for which the comparable data are available. It has been found that capacity utilization rates, both domestic and foreign, have a long run stable relationship with domestic inflation rate and a positive shock in the capacity utilization rate results in a significant, although a little bit delayed, acceleration in the domestic inflation rate. Various econometric techniques have been used and led to consistent empirical findings. The results in the present study, therefore, dispute the claim that an increase in capacity utilization rate may not necessarily lead to an accelerated inflation down the road.
Graduation date: 1995

The dissertation has three main chapters on product quality innovation. First, we compare innovation effort and social welfare between monopoly, duopoly, and the social planner in a dynamic model with quality dependent on a continuous know-how stock. The technology frontier--the largest reachable know-how socks--does not always positively depend on competitiveness, i.e. a duopoly may technologically surpass the social planner. However, social welfare is always positively tied to competitiveness. Second, with a general equilibrium model, we derive a relative price function expressing productivity and quality effects, and develop a method for inferring relative quality changes. An application to services versus goods of the US from 1946-2006 provides evidence on aggregate quality changes and suggests us to incorporate quality variations when explaining relative prices. Third, we build a two-product model where productivity changes lead to reallocations of labor between quantity production and quality innovation. The correlation between relative productivity and relative quality is negative for low-range substitutability and positive for medium-range substitutability between two products. Looking at services versus goods of the US, the correlation is negative and productivity-driven quality can play a significant role in general quality development.

碩士
國立臺灣大學
經濟學研究所
100
This is a study conducted to explore the role of industrial structure to macroeconomic environment in Taiwan. Initially, by reviewing relevant papers about ways to measure industrial structure、industry and labor market、unemployment rate and economic growth and originating from many research with macro-econometric model, I get a basic idea to establish the model for this topic. While building the macro-econometric model, it is required to divide the economy into many sectors and markets. Linkage among the variables will be connected through the setup of the equation or the function. These linkages can help the model to make a simulation of the way real economy circulates, and this macro-economy will be much well-working just as the structure of the model’s equations becomes complete. To examine the accuracy that model works, it needs to take a look on the prediction of in-sample and out-sample with some criterions. After checking the ability the model works, this study starts to do scenario analysis on this model. First, the fertility rate in Taiwan rises due to government’s promotion of family planning policy, and it aims support for population growth rate.. Second, world oil price increases steadily in following years. Finally, the soft landing of China affects Taiwan. These three cases are highly expected to meet in future. By doing the scenario analysis, it may provide some help to have more comprehension about Taiwan economy’s prospect.

Liquidity, often defined as the ability of markets to absorb large transactions without much effect on prices, plays a central role in the functioning of financial markets. This dissertation aims to investigate the implications of liquidity from several different perspectives, and can help to close the gap between theoretical modeling and practice. In the first part of the thesis, we study the implication of liquidity costs for systemic risks in markets cleared by multiple central counterparties (CCPs). Recent regulatory changes are trans- forming the multi-trillion dollar swaps market from a network of bilateral contracts to one in which swaps are cleared through central counterparties (CCPs). The stability of the new framework de- pends on the resilience of CCPs. Margin requirements are a CCP’s first line of defense against the default of a counterparty. To capture liquidity costs at default, margin requirements need to increase superlinearly in position size. However, convex margin requirements create an incentive for a swaps dealer to split its positions across multiple CCPs, effectively “hiding” potential liquidation costs from each CCP. To compensate, each CCP needs to set higher margin requirements than it would in isolation. In a model with two CCPs, we define an equilibrium as a pair of margin schedules through which both CCPs collect sufficient margin under a dealer’s optimal allocation of trades. In the case of linear price impact, we show that a necessary and sufficient condition for the existence of an equilibrium is that the two CCPs agree on liquidity costs, and we characterize all equilibria when this holds. A difference in views can lead to a race to the bottom. We provide extensions of this result and discuss its implications for CCP oversight and risk management. In the second part of the thesis, we provide a framework to estimate liquidity costs at a portfolio level. Traditionally, liquidity costs are estimated by means of single-asset models. Yet such an approach ignores the fact that, fundamentally, liquidity is a portfolio problem: asset prices are correlated. We develop a model to estimate portfolio liquidity costs through a multi-dimensional generalization of the optimal execution model of Almgren and Chriss (1999). Our model allows for the trading of standardized liquid bundles of assets (e.g., ETFs or indices). We show that the benefits of hedging when trading with many assets significantly reduce cost when liquidating a large position. In a “large-universe” asymptotic limit, where the correlations across a large number of assets arise from a relatively few underlying common factors, the liquidity cost of a portfolio is essentially driven by its idiosyncratic risk. Moreover, the additional benefit from trading standardized bundles is roughly equivalent to increasing the liquidity of individual assets. Our method is tractable and can be easily calibrated from market data. In the third part of the thesis, we look at liquidity from the perspective of market microstructure, we analyze the value of limit orders at different queue positions of the limit order book. Many modern financial markets are organized as electronic limit order books operating under a price- time priority rule. In such a setup, among all resting orders awaiting trade at a given price, earlier orders are prioritized for matching with contra-side liquidity takers. In practice, this creates a technological arms race among high-frequency traders and other automated market participants to establish early (and hence advantageous) positions in the resulting first-in-first-out (FIFO) queue. We develop a model for valuing orders based on their relative queue position. Our model identifies two important components of positional value. First, there is a static component that relates to the trade-off at an instant of trade execution between earning a spread and incurring adverse selection costs, and incorporates the fact that adverse selection costs are increasing with queue position. Second, there is also a dynamic component, that captures the optionality associated with the future value that accrues by locking in a given queue position. Our model offers predictions of order value at different positions in the queue as a function of market primitives, and can be empirically calibrated. We validate our model by comparing it with estimates of queue value realized in backtesting simulations using marker-by-order data, and find the predictions to be accurate. Moreover, for some large tick-size stocks, we find that queue value can be of the same order of magnitude as the bid-ask spread. This suggests that accurate valuation of queue position is a necessary and important ingredient in considering optimal execution or market-making strategies for such assets.

Professors Bela Balassa and Paul Samuelson (1964) have made a significant contribution to the theories of exchange rate by bringing a new thinking to the most popular exchange rate model, Purchasing Power Parity (PPP). They have elucidated the contribution of productivity in the determination of PPP. Accordingly, the emphasis of this thesis is Balassa and Samuelson’s Productivity Bias Hypothesis (PBH) in Purchasing Power Parity (PPP) and the application thereof to South Africa and Switzerland for the period 1994Q1 -2003Q4. The productivity bias hypothesis that explains real exchange rate movements in terms of sectoral productivities rests on two components: firstly, it implies that the relative price of non-traded goods in each country should reflect the relative productivity of labour in the traded and non-traded goods sectors. Secondly, it assumes that purchasing power parity holds for traded goods. The deviation of PPP from the equilibrium exchange rate or the real exchange rate is directly related to the ratio of productivity in a counter country over that of the base country. With inter-country productivity differences believed to be smaller in the service sector than in the sectors producing goods and with the prices of traded goods equalised through arbitrage, the relative prices of non-traded goods (services) would be directly correlated with productivity levels in individual countries. The thesis employs stationarity and cointegration tests in order to determine the presence of long-term, equilibrium, relationship between PPP and productivity variables of the above-mentioned two countries. The overall finding of this thesis is supportive of the productivity bias hypothesis in purchasing power parity concerning the two countries, South Africa and Switzerland. Accordingly, it has been found out that the deviation from equilibrium exchange rate can be explained by differences in productivity. Though currently being challenged by the service sector, South Africa’s manufacturing sector is assuming an important place in the economy. Given the need for improved competitiveness in the manufacturing sector, it is imperative that policy analysis and formulation render increased emphasis on efficiency and costeffectiveness. Such an integrated approach may aid not only in raising productivity but also in managing the intertwined socio-economic challenges of unemployment, poverty and inequality.
Thesis (M.A.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 2005.

Australia may present a special case in the analysis of strikes because, for most of the Twentieth Century, the Australian Industrial Relations Commission has acted as an industrial "umpire" charged with keeping the industrial peace. We begin with a review of major contributions to the theory of strikes, and reestimations and evaluations of the time-series models of previous Australian researchers. We then develop theoretical models of strikes and non-strike industrial action, stemming from Marshall's (1920) contribution to the theory of wages. If higher real wages lead to lower levels of employment, union demands are likely to be greater, and industrial action more frequent, when the duration of unemployment of retrenched workers is shorter. Important determinants of the opportunity costs of wage demands to employees, are wage losses of retrenched employees during unemployment and in subsequent re-employment. Critical in the union's decision to threaten a strike or a non-strike action, is a permanent loss of market share directly associated with strikes. The model of strikes is tested, along with variables suggested by other theories, using time-series data from the period 3:1959 to 4:1992. We show that the model is robust and out-performs modified versions of other Australian models. We find that the Prices and Incomes Accord is associated with a reduction in strike activity, but that other researchers have over-estimated its impact. Australian Workplace Industrial Relations Survey data is used to produce cross-sectional models of strikes and non-strike actions in unionised workplaces. We test the importance of the opportunity costs of wage demands and strikes, using variables describing the firm's competitive environment and local labour market conditions. Because the objectives of workplaces differ, we estimate separate models for privately owned workplaces, government non-commercial establishments and government business enterprises. All empirical models are broadly consistent with the predictions of our theoretical model.

This thesis examines the channels and mechanisms of technological catch-up and industrial upgrading in the context of economic development. Technological progress is critical for a country's sustainable growth and for the successful transition of a country from imitation to innovation. Therefore, to clarify the main channels and mechanisms driving the accumulation of knowledge and technologies in an economy contributes to an understanding of the sources of economic growth. The specific aspects of technological catch-up and industrial upgrading covered in the thesis include inter-sectoral industrial upgrading, the intensification of R&D activities, a country's tapping into foreign sources of knowledge, and a country's changing position in the global value chain. In studying these channels and mechanisms, in-depth theoretical discussion and quantitative methods are applied. In terms of theoretical discussion, the thesis covers many issues relating to the factors contributing to technological progress and draws our attention to the key aspects of such progress. In terms of quantitative methods, advanced econometric methods such as Generalized Method of Moments (GMM), the estimator from Kyriazidou (1997), the Heckman two-step estimator, the Tobit and Probit estimators and various instrumental variable estimators are employed to address different econometric issues and data structures in model estimations. The thesis finds evidence of the critical role of institutional quality in promoting the productive use of scarce tertiary human capital, in stimulating the Research and Development (R&D) investment of firms, and in attracting R&D investment in host countries by multinational enterprises. The thesis also reveals the importance of human capital as an essential input to the process of technological catch-up and industrial upgrading. A case study of Chinese manufacturing firms clarifies the determinants of firm-level R&D investment, which helps us understand and predict the prospects for innovation in the Chinese economy. By linking firm-level production and customs datasets, the thesis probes into the important question of how trade participation affects innovation in the context of the Chinese economy, which is an especially interesting case due to the huge contribution from trade to China's growth miracle to date. The findings draw attention to processing trade and suggest that under some circumstances deep and long-term engagement in processing trade may adversely influence the R&D investment and innovation prospect of firms. This point reflects the difficulty of technological catch-up and industrial upgrading in a world where global production sharing continues to deepen. Based on the results of empirical and quantitative analyses, several policy suggestions are proposed. These include (1) enhancing institutional quality to accompany other growth-promoting policies, (2) encouraging individual and household-level investment in human capital, (3) nurturing domestic R&D stock and research talents at relatively early stages of development and (4) looking beyond the direct targets of industrial and trade policies to take into account the implications for technological catch-up and industrial upgrading when making such policies. The thesis also points out some directions for future research to extract from the dynamics of the world economy those channels and mechanisms of technological catch-up and industrial upgrading yet unclarified by this thesis.

Thesis about regional external economic relations try to resolve a question how subjects in a selected region (Prachatice district) conduct to economic relations with subjects of other territory and how these economic interactions can be describe. The target of the thesis is to characterize these relations on inferior level than the national economy. Literature retrieval cites authors from the field of regional science. Recherché summarises the base methods of research of the matter. The main part of the study describes collecting data about economic activities on two levels external regional relations LAU1 - NUTS1 and LAU1 - LAU1. Data about turnover of goods between 114 entities and subjects from the EU for years from 2004 to 2009 on LAU 1 - NUTS 1 level was obtained from the database Intrastat. Data about interregional exchange on LAU 1 - LAU 1 level were drawn from accounts of three companies from Prachatice district. All data are presented in several ways in tables, charts and maps and commented too. In the thesis is formulated equation which objectifies interregional distances so that responded to its negative effect to size of economic relations between regions. For prediction of the relations can be used reciprocal of the distance (index). The hypothesis on the validity of the formula (index), is statistically tested and confirmed on the end of thesis.

Ce mémoire a pour objectif d’étudier la relation entre la culture organisationnelle et la violence au travail. Plus spécifiquement, les résultats permettent de déterminer comment la perception des cultures organisationnelles de type groupal, développemental, hiérarchique et rationnel de l’approche des valeurs concurrentes de Cameron et Quinn (1999) s’associent aux conflits interpersonnels et au harcèlement physique et sexuel dans les organisations. Les données proviennent de l’Étude SALVEO, menée par l’Équipe de recherche sur le travail et la santé mentale de l’Université de Montréal. À notre connaissance, aucune étude n’a étudié les perceptions des cultures organisationnelles globales des entreprises. Les études antérieures se sont intéressées à certains traits spécifiques des cultures, telles que l’acceptation, la tolérance et la banalisation de la violence, sans considérer intégralement la culture organisationnelle. Il est possible d’utiliser le modèle de Cameron et Quinn (1999) avec l’échelle de Marchand, Haines et Dextras-Gauthier (2013) pour mesurer la perception que les travailleurs se font de leur culture organisationnelle pour pouvoir les associer avec les niveaux de conflits interpersonnels et de harcèlement physique et sexuel par la suite. Les analyses multiniveaux de cette recherche ont révélé que la culture groupale s’associe à des niveaux plus bas de conflits interpersonnels et la culture développementale à des niveaux plus élevés. Bien que les résultats ne soient pas significatifs pour tous les types de culture organisationnelle, les entreprises qui adoptent des caractéristiques de la culture groupale, telles que le soutien social, la participation des travailleurs et la justice organisationnelle, semblent mieux prévenir le phénomène de la violence au travail. D’autre part, l’intégration d’un grand nombre de variables contrôles a permis de déterminer que les facteurs individuels et organisationnels les plus associés à la violence sont : le fait d’être une femme, d’être jeune, d’être syndiqué, l’effort au travail et l’injustice organisationnelle.
This master’s thesis aims to study the relation between the organizational culture and workplace violence. More specifically, the results allow us to determine how the organizational culture of groupal, developmental, hierarchical and rational type of the competing values framework of Cameron and Quinn (1999) joins the interpersonal conflicts and physical or sexual harassment in organizations. The data results come from the SALVEO surveys led by the research team on work and mental health of University of Montreal (ERTSM). Most studies were interested in some specific features of culture, such as the acceptance and tolerance of violence without considering the organizational culture. It is possible to use the model of Cameron and Quinn (1999) with the Marchand, Haines and Dextras-Gauthier scale (2013) to calculate the perception that the workers have of their organizational culture to be able to measure them with the levels of interpersonal conflicts and physical or sexual harassment afterward. Multilevel analyses revealed that the perception of the groupal culture shows lower levels of interpersonal conflicts and the developmental culture, higher levels. Although the results are not significant for all types of organizational culture, companies which adopt the characteristics of the groupal culture, such as social support, workers participation and organizational justice, seem to better prevent the phenomenon of workplace violence. Moreover, the integration of a large number of control variables allows us to determine that the individual and organizational factors that are most associated with violence are : being a woman, being young, being a member of a union, having a work overload and the presence of organizational injustice.