Charles University in Prague Faculty of Social Sciences Institute of Economic Studies MASTER THESIS Financial Stress Transmission from Developed to Emerging Countries Author: Bc. Nicolae Gavrilenco Supervisor: doc. Roman Horvàth, Ph.D. Academic Year: 2012/2013 Abstract In this research we have analyzed the financial system as it is today, describing the implications financial innovation had and the impact of the recent financial crisis. We tried to understand the nature of the financial stress and its measures. In the context of world financial integration it was also necessary to have a review upon the financial stress transmission channels from developed to emerging countries, determining the linkages and their measures. We employed a structural VAR model to determine whether there is empirical proof of financial Stress transmission from developed to emerging countries and see if financial integration represents the decisive factor in financial stress transmission. Our results suggest that there is a significant impact of financial stress in developed countries on the output of emerging ones. However we can observe an increasing influence of country-specific factors in explaining the variation in the rest of the variable of our model. The results also indicate the level of international financial...

This dissertation contains a series of essays that provide empirical evidence for Australia on some fundamental predictions of real business cycle models and on the convergence and persistence of real interest rates. Chapter 1 provides a brief introduction to the issues examined in each chapter and provides an overview of the methodologies that are used. Tests of various basic predictions of standard real business cycle models for Australia are presented in Chapters 2, 3 and 4. Chapter 2 considers the question of great ratios for Australia. These are ratios of macroeconomic variables that are predicted by standard models to be stationary in the steady state. Using time series econometric techniques (unit root tests and cointegration tests) Australia great ratios are examined. In Chapter 3 a more restrictive implication of real business cycle models than the existence of great ratios is considered. Following the methodology proposed by Canova, Finn and Pagan (1994) the equilibrium decision rules for some standard real business cycle are tested on Australian data. The final essay on this topic is presented in Chapter 4. In this chapter a large-country, small-country is used to try and understand the reason for the sharp rise in Australia??s share of world output that began around 1990. Chapter 5 discusses real interest rate linkages in the Pacific Basin region. Vector autoregressive models and bootstrap methods are adopted to study financial linkages between East Asian markets, Japan and US. Given the apparent non-stationarity of real interest rates a related issue is examined in Chapter 6, viz. the persistence of international real interest rates and estimation of their half-life. Half-life is selected as a means of measuring persistence of real rates. Bootstrap methods are employed to overcome small sample issues in the estimation and a non-standard statistical inference methodology (Highest Density Regions) is adopted. Chapter 7 reapplies the High Density Regions methodology and bootstrap half-life estimation to the data used in Chapters 2 and 5. This provides a robustness check on the results of standard unit root tests that were applied to the data in those chapters. Main findings of the thesis are as follows. The long run implications of real business cycle models are largely rejected by the Australia data. This finding holds for both the existence of great ratios and when the explicit decision rules are employed. When the small open economy features of the Australian economy are incorporated in a two country RBC model, a country-specific productivity boom seems to provide a possible explanation for the rise in Australia??s share of world output. The essays that examine real interest rates suggest the following results. Following the East Asian financial crisis in 1997-98 there appears to have been a decline in the importance of Japan in influencing developments in the Pacific Basin region. In addition there is evidence that following the crisis Korea??s financial market became less insular and more integrated with the US. Finally results obtained from the half-life estimators suggest that despite the usual findings from unit root tests, real interest rates may in fact exhibit mean-reversion.

In this dissertation we use Dynamic Stochastic General Equilibrium DSGE) models to explain empirical regularities and policy implications related to (1) durable goods, interest rates and small open economy business cycles, (2) Terms-of-Trade (ToT) and economic fluctuations in small open economies and (3) Budget Stabilization Funds (BSFs) and States’ business cycles. In the first essay, we document that durable spending in developed small open economies constitutes a large share of their total income. Their spending is highly procyclical, sensitive to interest rates, and leads the business cycle. We address these regularities with a RBC model with durable goods. The model successfully replicates the observed business cycle regularities and explains many anomalies not explained in the existing literature. It also emphasizes the role of interest rates uncertainty in explaining the dynamics of the small open economies. The second essay addresses the impacts of the ToT fluctuation on the business cycles of various small open economies. We argue that differences in the degree of durability in domestic production and imports may make these economies more or less sensitive to an identical ToT shock. We found that economies with higher durability usually enjoy more stable business cycle comparing with economies with lower degree of durability. Differences in the persistence of the ToT do affect the dynamic of the external accounts but it cannot explain the observed differences business cycles across small open economies. In the last essay, we evaluate the economic impacts of the Budget Stabilization Funds (BSF) on State-level business cycles. We lay out a State economy RBC model in which a State’s government applies a designated saving rule consistent with households’ optimization. Given the suggested rule we find that the BDFs become a significant automatic stabilizer. It is not only mitigates the procyclicality of the government spending but it also smooth the State’s business cycle.

This dissertation contains a series of essays that provide empirical evidence for Australia on some fundamental predictions of real business cycle models and on the convergence and persistence of real interest rates. Chapter 1 provides a brief introduction to the issues examined in each chapter and provides an overview of the methodologies that are used. Tests of various basic predictions of standard real business cycle models for Australia are presented in Chapters 2, 3 and 4. Chapter 2 considers the question of great ratios for Australia. These are ratios of macroeconomic variables that are predicted by standard models to be stationary in the steady state. Using time series econometric techniques (unit root tests and cointegration tests) Australia great ratios are examined. In Chapter 3 a more restrictive implication of real business cycle models than the existence of great ratios is considered. Following the methodology proposed by Canova, Finn and Pagan (1994) the equilibrium decision rules for some standard real business cycle are tested on Australian data. The final essay on this topic is presented in Chapter 4. In this chapter a large-country, small-country is used to try and understand the reason for the sharp rise in Australia??s share of world output that began around 1990. Chapter 5 discusses real interest rate linkages in the Pacific Basin region. Vector autoregressive models and bootstrap methods are adopted to study financial linkages between East Asian markets, Japan and US. Given the apparent non-stationarity of real interest rates a related issue is examined in Chapter 6, viz. the persistence of international real interest rates and estimation of their half-life. Half-life is selected as a means of measuring persistence of real rates. Bootstrap methods are employed to overcome small sample issues in the estimation and a non-standard statistical inference methodology (Highest Density Regions) is adopted. Chapter 7 reapplies the High Density Regions methodology and bootstrap half-life estimation to the data used in Chapters 2 and 5. This provides a robustness check on the results of standard unit root tests that were applied to the data in those chapters. Main findings of the thesis are as follows. The long run implications of real business cycle models are largely rejected by the Australia data. This finding holds for both the existence of great ratios and when the explicit decision rules are employed. When the small open economy features of the Australian economy are incorporated in a two country RBC model, a country-specific productivity boom seems to provide a possible explanation for the rise in Australia??s share of world output. The essays that examine real interest rates suggest the following results. Following the East Asian financial crisis in 1997-98 there appears to have been a decline in the importance of Japan in influencing developments in the Pacific Basin region. In addition there is evidence that following the crisis Korea??s financial market became less insular and more integrated with the US. Finally results obtained from the half-life estimators suggest that despite the usual findings from unit root tests, real interest rates may in fact exhibit mean-reversion.

abstract: I study the importance of financial factors and real exchange rate shocks in explaining business cycle fluctuations, which have been considered important in the literature as non-technological factors in explaining business cycle fluctuations. In the first chapter, I study the implications of fluctuations in corporate credit spreads for business cycle fluctuations. Motivated by the fact that corporate credit spreads are countercyclical, I build a simple model in which difference in default probabilities on corporate debts leads to the spread in interest rates paid by firms. In the model, firms differ in the variance of the firm-level productivity, which is in turn linked to the difference in the default probability. The key mechanism is that an increase in the variance of productivity for risky firms relative to safe firms leads to reallocation of capital away from risky firms toward safe firms and decrease in aggregate output and productivity. I embed the above mechanism into an otherwise standard growth model, calibrate it and numerically solve for the equilibrium. In my benchmark case, I find that shocks to variance of productivity for risky and safe firms account for about 66% of fluctuations in output and TFP in the U.S. economy. In the second chapter, I study the importance of shocks to the price of imports relative to the price of final goods, led by the real exchange rate shocks, in accounting for fluctuations in output and TFP in the Korean economy during the Asian crisis of 1997-98. Using the Korean data, I calibrate a standard small open economy model with taxes and tariffs on imported goods, and simulate it. I find that shocks to the price of imports are an important source of fluctuations in Korea's output and TFP in the Korean crisis episode. In particular, in my benchmark case, shocks to the price of imports account for about 55% of the output deviation (from trend), one third of the TFP deviation and three quarters of the labor deviation in 1998. / Dissertation/Thesis / Ph.D. Economics 2011

京都大学 / 0048 / 新制・課程博士 / 博士(経済学) / 甲第22682号 / 経博第618号 / 新制||経||293(附属図書館) / 京都大学大学院経済学研究科経済学専攻 / (主査)教授 柴田 章久, 准教授 高橋 修平, 教授 佐々木 啓明, 教授 敦賀 貴之(大阪大学) / 学位規則第4条第1項該当 / Doctor of Economics / Kyoto University / DGAM

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This thesis analyzes the connection between monetary policies and belief-driven fluctuation, and discusses the effects of monetary policies in a small open economy. We construct an endogenous growth model that introduces the role of money into the production function and allows elastic labor supply. In departing from the findings proposed by Benhabib and Farmer (1994), we find that belief-driven fluctuation can be easily encouraged, as long as there is lower increasing return to scale under money growth rate targeting. However, if there is a higher level of increasing return to scale, the increase of the growth rate of nominal money supply will only increase the economic growth rate temporarily, and money is super-neutral in the long run. More importantly, we show that under inflation rate targeting, the central bank will eliminate possibilities of belief-driven fluctuation in the small open economy, but lose the efficacy of monetary policy on the short-term economic growth at the same time.

The aim of this thesis is to analyze and assess the benefits and cosi resulting from the implementation of common currency in a small open economy in specific cases in chosen countries. The theoretical part is devoted to the monetary integration itself, its historical development in Europe anf the theory of optimum currency area. Attention will be focused also on the entry criteria of monetary union and the specifics of small open economies within the frame of monetary union. The analytical part evaluates and compares the readiness of chosen economies. Subsequently, the thesis deals with benefits and costs of monetary integration and their significance in a particular situation on the example of chosen countries. Individual benefits and costs will also be put into context with the crisis of monetary union. The results are discussed in conclusion.

京都大学 / 新制・課程博士 / 博士(経済学) / 甲第24164号 / 経博第658号 / 新制||経||302(附属図書館) / 京都大学大学院経済学研究科経済学専攻 / (主査)教授 西山 慎一, 准教授 高橋 修平, 准教授 安井 大真 / 学位規則第4条第1項該当 / Doctor of Economics / Kyoto University / DFAM