The objective of the thesis is to provide a theory that explains the stylized facts regarding the trend of taxation policies, public spending and sovereign debt in advanced economies for the past couple of decades. The thesis focuses on distinguishing two types of public spending - productive investment and welfare payment and develops two different frameworks to examine the importance of the composition of these two types of public spending for economic growth and welfare. Chapter 2 presents a dynamic political-economy model in which voters decide tax rates and the proportion of public goods expenditure devoted to non-productive (but utility-enhancing) public goods. This non-productive public goods expenditure gives rise to a habit effect - it has to be at least as large as a fraction of last period value to provide utility. The median voter theorem applies. Starting from a steady state without the habit effect, its introduction leads to transitional dynamics that mimic several stylized facts: in particular, countries with higher income tend to have larger government and spend more on welfare programme. Chapter 3 studies the impact of public deficit on long-run economic growth by distinguishing the different types of government spending: investment and welfare payment. The model in this chapter predicts a non-monotonic or threshold effect in the relationship between public deficit and steady state growth rate. The composition of the public spending (the ratio between productive and non-productive) dictates the "threshold" in the national debt level. Countries which spend more on providing productive public goods could maintain a higher level of national debt that promotes growth.

This dissertation consists of three chapters and is centered on the issues of external debt default and growth. In the first chapter, we develop a macrodynamic model of a small open economy that incorporates the effects of haircut and external debt default on the borrowing cost of a debtor country. We argue that the ability to impose a substantial haircut, a reduction in external debt in the face of a sovereign default can work as a strong enough incentive for a debtor country to borrow heavily even when it faces an increased default risk. Calibrating our model to real world data and employing numerical simulations we show that the observed overborrowing and consequently multiple external debt defaults by many countries around the world are equilibrium outcomes in the presence of the haircut induced benefit of sovereign default. Chapter two empirically investigates how debt default affects growth in low-income countries that have a high debt burden. We adopt Rose’s (2005) methodology of using dummy variables to examine both the contemporaneous and lagged effects of debt default on growth in countries that received debt relief assistance under the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries Initiative (HIPC). An inflow of capital is expected to affect these economies differently than other countries which are not eligible for the HIPC initiative. Our findings indicate that initiation of an external debt default leads to a downturn in growth, possibly due to the uncertainty created by such an event. However, debt renegotiation marking the conclusion of a default spell helps to revive growth and contributes to about 1 percentage point increase in growth for these countries. This positive growth effect of successful completion of a default episode is robust to different specifications and is pertinent even in the long run. In the third chapter, we examine the differential impacts of debt renegotiation on the various sectors within an economy. We analyze more than fifty years of data for ten broadly defined sectors from twenty-four mostly developing countries around the world. Our results indicate that debt rescheduling is associated with five to nine percent growth in sectoral productivity in countries outside of sub-Saharan Africa. This positive impact of debt renegotiation is particularly significant in the sectors of mining, construction, trade services, transport services, business services and personal services. Our findings provide support to the postulations of the debt overhang theory and the crowding out theory at sectoral level.

Submitted by GUSTAVO OKUYAMA (gus_okuyama@yahoo.com.br) on 2014-09-08T18:50:02Z No. of bitstreams: 1 DISSERTAÇÃO_-_GUSTAVO_PI_OKUYAMA.pdf: 3558280 bytes, checksum: acaa9096fa2c3acd422630503354a330 (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by JOANA MARTORINI (joana.martorini@fgv.br) on 2014-09-08T19:40:52Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 DISSERTAÇÃO_-_GUSTAVO_PI_OKUYAMA.pdf: 3558280 bytes, checksum: acaa9096fa2c3acd422630503354a330 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2014-09-08T19:42:44Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 DISSERTAÇÃO_-_GUSTAVO_PI_OKUYAMA.pdf: 3558280 bytes, checksum: acaa9096fa2c3acd422630503354a330 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2014-08-07 / This study examines how the variables of interest, inflation, exchange rates and economic activity influences the cost of issuing public debt fixed rate bonds in Brazil from 2006 to 2014, for four different maturities. To achieve this objective, variables with constant duration were created, by using the fixed rate costs of bonds in the sovereign debt. The econometric models are based on the estimation of the relation between basic interest rates, exchange rates, inflation, retail sales and the created fixed income bonds, using the autoregressive vector as the statistic model. We have concluded that, the present raise in SELIC implies in fixed rate debt costs decreasing, with the market pricing a future decreasing movement in SELIC. Also, dollar appreciation increases the debt cost in up to one (1) year, in response of a relative local and external interest rate adjusts, and as a possible expectation of a rise in inflation. The increase in inflation generates an interest rate hike in short term, causing interest rates of terms from two and four years to decrease. Retail Sales increase is a response of the market pricing; a need of an interest rate hike in the near future to control the economic activity. / Este trabalho teve como objetivo verificar como as variáveis de juros, inflação, câmbio e atividade econômica influenciam no custo de colocação da dívida pública pré-fixada nos horizontes de um semestre, um, dois e quatro anos. Com este objetivo, empregou-se a construção de variáveis de duration constante a partir das taxas dos títulos pré-fixados da dívida pública. Os modelos possuem como base a estimação da relação entre a taxa básica de juros, taxas de câmbio e de inflação, vendas no varejo e custo da dívida pré-fixada, utilizando como ferramenta estatística o modelo de vetores autorregressivos. Como resultado concluímos que um aumento na taxa básica de juros no presente gera uma queda no custo da dívida pré-fixada, com o mercado precificando um futuro movimento de queda nos juros. Já uma apreciação do dólar impacta negativamente a dívida, de até um ano, pela necessidade de correção da taxa de juros relativa local e estrangeira e como possível resposta a um aumento de inflação. O aumento na inflação gera a necessidade de aumento dos juros básicos em um prazo mais curto, refletindo então na diminuição das taxas pré-fixadas mais longas a partir de dois anos. A consistente resposta à variável vendas no varejo resulta da precificação de um aumento futuro na taxa básica de juros com o objetivo de desaquecer a atividade econômica.

We analyze how the impact of a change in the sovereign debt-to-GDP ratio on economic growth depends on the level of debt, the stress level on the financial market and the membership in a monetary union. A dynamic growth model is put forward demonstrating that debt affects macroeconomic activity in a non-linear manner due to amplifications from the financial sector. Employing dynamic country-specific and dynamic panel threshold regression methods, we study the non-linear relation between the growth rate and the debt-to-GDP ratio using quarterly data for sixteen industrialized countries for the period 1981Q1-2013Q2. We find that the debt-to-GDP ratio has impaired economic growth primarily during times of high financial stress and only for countries of the European Monetary Union and not for the stand-alone countries in our sample. A high debt-to-GDP ratio by itself does not seem to necessarily negatively affect growth if financial markets are calm. (authors' abstract) / Series: Department of Economics Working Paper Series

We analyze how the impact of a change in the sovereign debt-to-GDP ratio on economic growth depends on the level of debt, the stress level on the financial market and the membership in a monetary union. A dynamic growth model is put forward demonstrating that debt affects macroeconomic activity in a non-linear manner due to amplifications from the financial sector. Employing dynamic country-specific and dynamic panel threshold regression methods, we study the non-linear relation between the growth rate and the debt-to-GDP ratio using quarterly data for sixteen industrialized countries for the period 1981Q1-2013Q2. We find that the debt-to-GDP ratio has impaired economic growth primarily during times of high financial stress and only for countries of the European Monetary Union and not for the stand-alone countries in our sample. A high debt-to-GDP ratio by itself does not seem to necessarily negatively affect growth if financial markets are calm. (authors' abstract)

La tesi intende fornire un’analisi critica dello sviluppo dell’Unione Economica e Monetaria (UEM) alla luce della crisi del debito sovrano. A partire dal 2009 sono state progressivamente attuate diverse riforme che hanno limitato l’autonomia degli Stati Membri nell’esercizio delle loro prerogative sovrane ed hanno fornito alle istituzione europee nuovi poteri nell’ambito di diverse politiche. La ricerca investiga i trasferimenti di sovranità in corso dal livello nazionale a quello europeo focalizzandosi sulle trasformazioni sia dell’Unione Economica che di quella Monetaria. Nel primo capitolo la tesi analizza i carattere originali dell’UEM dalla sua creazione fino alla ratifica del trattato di Lisbona. Il secondo capitolo considera la creazione dei meccanismi di stabilizzazione introdotti per salvare i paesi a rischio default e garantire la stabilità finanziaria della zona euro nel suo complesso. Il terzo capitolo studia gli interventi della Banca Centrale Europea durante la crisi, analizzando in che modo la necessità di proteggere la moneta unica abbia sviluppato il ruolo della BCE ed esteso il suo mandato. Il quarto capitolo studia la riforma della governance economica tramite il rafforzamento della disciplina fiscale degli Stati Membri. Il quinto capitolo analizza la riforma della governance bancaria e la creazione dell’Unione Bancaria, che è stata finalmente introdotta per interrompere il circolo vizioso tra crisi del debito e crisi bancaria. Nello sviluppo della tesi le diverse riforme verranno analizzate dal punto di visto della loro legalità, efficacia e legittimità democratica. / The thesis aims to provide a critical analysis of the development of the Economic and Monetary Union (EMU) in the light of the sovereign debt crisis. Since 2009 a number of measures have been progressively implemented, which have limited the autonomy of Member States in exercising their sovereign prerogatives and have granted EU institutions new powers in key policy areas. The research will investigate the ongoing transfers of sovereignty from national to European level focusing on the transformation of both the Economic and the Monetary Union. In the first chapter, it will consider the original features of the EMU, from its introduction at the intergovernmental conference of Maastricht until the ratification of the Lisbon Treaty. The second chapter will focus on the creation of rescue and stabilization mechanisms put in place to save Member States from imminent default and to ensure the financial stability of the Eurozone as a whole. The third chapter will study the interventions of the European Central Bank during the crisis considering how the necessity to protect the single currency has developed its role and extended its mandate. The fourth chapter will focus on the reform of the economic governance through the fiscal discipline of Member States. The fifth chapter will take into consideration the reform of the banking governance and the establishment of the European Banking Union, which was finally introduced to stop the vicious cycle between the debt and banking crisis. By developing the thesis, the analysis will consider each reform from the point of view of its legality, effectiveness and democratic legitimacy.

In this thesis, we aim to find the effect of economic crisis announcements arising from the US subprime mortgage crisis and European sovereign debt crisis on the market volatility in theBRIC countries. We implement a GARCH model in order to compare the effect of individual news announcements and find that the US crisis had a bigger impact on BRIC market volatility than the European crisis. Of particular note, we find the US bailout had a higher impact than the failure of Lehman Brothers or any European crisis dates that were considered. We then examine the volatility transmission mechanism by implementing a VAR model to create a spillover index. Following, we apply a rolling window approach, creating spillover plots which show that both return and volatility spillovers are affected by crisis announcements. The importance of our results are related to investor decision making, particularly the relationship between market return and risk in developing country markets. Far to our knowledge, no recent literature has compared the two crises in the way we have nor with the datasets we have used.

The first part of this dissertation examines the presence of the financial contagion across European stock markets with respect to the Greece sovereign debt crisis by estimating the time-varying conditional correlations of stock returns between Greece and other European countries over 2001 to 2012. We find that the correlations vary over time and reach the peaks in the late 2008 during theU.S.subprime crisis, and in the beginning of 2010 of the height of European debt crisis. Further, the correlations between stock index returns of Greece and Spain, France, Ireland, Netherlands are significantly increased by Greek sovereign credit rating downgrade announcements. The second part of this dissertation examines the correlations of gold, dollar and U.S. stock returns over 2001 to 2012 using ADCC-GARCH model. The conditional correlations of gold-dollar returns are negative during all sub-sample periods and significantly increase in magnitude during both subprime crisis and sovereign debt crisis. The conditional correlations of gold-stock returns are positive on average over time. However, gold-stock correlation falls below zero during subprime crisis and sovereign debt crisis. Gold-stock correlation is significantly negatively affected by positive CPI announcements. And gold-dollar correlation is significantly negatively affected by negative GDP announcements and positive unemployment announcements. The effects of macroeconomic announcements are stronger during economic recessions.

Modern states are committed to the implicit assumption that one generation has the normative power to bind later generations through laws and contracts. My dissertation explores this assumption through two case studies: constitutions and sovereign debt contracts. I show that in both cases the assumption of transgenerational binding shapes the legal practices and doctrines of modern states. It informs, for instance, the ratification of eternity clauses, the interpretation of constitutions, and the doctrines of sovereign immunity and odious debt. But although these practices of transgenerational binding are prevalent in modern states, they stand in tension, I argue, with the liberal moral commitments of these states. Liberals are committed to moral individualism, according to which only individual human beings (and some nonhuman animals) are moral persons. Moral individualism, I show, is incompatible with the assumption of transgenerational binding and its accompanying practices and doctrines. By contrast, moral statism, according to which states themselves are moral persons, can easily justify those transgenerational practice. But moral statist justifications are illiberal because they assign states intrinsic moral status above and beyond individual human beings. I argue that liberals must engage in revisionism whichever theory of political obligation they pick - whether it is a theory of agreement, restitution, justice, reciprocity, or instrumentalism. If liberals assume moral individualism and combine it with any of these theories, they will be forced either to declare some transgenerational practices and doctrines illegitimate or to revise the justification and scope of transgenerational binding in light of instrumentalism. If liberals choose moral statism, they will be able to justify the transgenerational doctrines and practices of constitutions and sovereign debt contracts - but only at the cost of illiberalism. The dissertation's analysis thus shows that liberals face a trilemma between illegitimacy, instrumentalism, and illiberalism.

In 2009 the sovereign debt crisis started in the European Union. Every member state was involved in the financial turmoil, in particular Portugal, Ireland, Italy, Greece, and Spain. Why were these countries effected more so? Were they still committed to core ideas of the European Union? This paper will review this topic through the perspective of Portugal. Being a former colonial power, once having an authoritative government, and now a full-fledged member of the European Union, Portugal has a unique story to tell about the crisis at hand. This paper will evaluate different European Union principles involving gender equality, tertiary education, politics, and economics while comparing how Portugal ranks in Europeanization to the European Union specifically during the sovereign debt crisis. This paper will conclude by summarizing these topics, analyzing triumphs and setbacks, and hypothesizing Portugal's future in regard to their Europeanization of European Union standards and the current sovereign debt crisis the country faces today.