The thesis analyses co-movement of 10Y sovereign bond yields of 11 EU mem- bers (Greece, Spain, Portugal, Italy, France, Germany, Netherlands, Great Britain, Belgium, Sweden and Denmark) divided into the three groups (the Core of the Eurozone, the Periphery of the Eurozone, the states outside the Eurozone). In the center of attention are changes of co-movement in the crisis period, especially near the two significant dates - the fall of Lehman Brothers (15.9.2008) and the day, when increase of Greek public deficit was announced (20.10.2009). Main contribution of the thesis is usage of alternative methodol- ogy - wavelet transformation. It allows to research how co-movement changes across scales (frequencies) and through time. Wavelet coherence is used as well as wavelet bivariate and multiple correlation. The thesis brings three main findings: (1) co-movement significantly decreased in the crisis period, but the results differ in the groups, (2) co-movement significantly differs across scales, but its heterogeneity decreased in the crisis period, (3) near to the examined dates sharp and significant decrease of wavelet correlation was observable across lower scales in some states. JEL Classification C32, C49, C58, H63 Keywords Co-movement, Wavelet Transformation, Sovereign Debt Crisis, Sovereign Bond Yields,...

The efficient market hypothesis has been around since 1962, the theory based on a simple rule that states the price of any asset must fully reflect all available information. Yet there is empirical evidence suggesting that markets are too volatile to be efficient. In essence, this evidence seems to suggest that the reaction of the market participants to the information or events that is the crucial factor, rather than the actual information. This highlights the need to include the behavioural finance theory in the pricing of assets. Essentially, the research aims to analyse the efficiency of six key sovereign debt markets during a period of changing volatility including the recent global financial and sovereign debt crises. We analyse the markets in the pre-crisis period and during the financial and sovereign debt crises to determine the impact of the crises on the efficiency of these financial markets. We use two GARCH-based variance bound tests to test the null hypothesis of the market being too volatile to be efficient. Proposing a GJR-GARCH variant of the variance bound test to account for variation in the asymmetrical effect. This leads to an analysis of the changing behaviour of price volatility to identify what makes the market efficient or inefficient. In general, our EMH tests resulted in mixed results, hinting at the acceptance of the null hypothesis of the market being too volatile to be efficient. However, interestingly a number of 2017 observations under both models seem to be hinting at the rejection of the null hypothesis. Furthermore, our proposed GJR-GARCH variant of the variance bound test seems to be more likely to accept the EMH than the GARCH variant of the test.

[pt] A presente dissertação analisa a proposta apresentada, no final de 2001, por Anne Krueger, vice-diretora gerente do Fundo Monetário Internacional, para a criação de um mecanismo para facilitar a reestruturação da dívida soberana de países com perfil de endividamento insustentável. Ao menos em teoria, esse mecanismo, chamado em inglês de Sovereign Debt Restructuring Mechanism (SDRM), contribuiria para coordenar credores e devedores, tornar os processos de reestruturação mais rápidos e ordenados, diminuir o risco de crises de endividamento, promover ganhos para todos os envolvidos na cooperação e contribuir para a estabilidade do mercado de capitais internacional. Ainda assim, foi rejeitado por credores privados, por alguns devedores como o Brasil e o México e pelo governo norte-americano. Utilizando como arcabouço teórico o construtivismo de normas de Friedrich Kratochwil, este estudo pretende responder por que ocorreu essa reação. A análise dos documentos produzidos pelos defensores (especialmente membros do staff do FMI) e pelos críticos do SDRM no curso do debate que se seguiu até a rejeição formal do mecanismo, em reuniões do Fundo realizadas em abril de 2003, sugere como resposta que a reação contrária dos credores privados e dos devedores pode ser atribuída a profundas divergências de interpretação quanto ao conteúdo e ao papel das normas no mercado de capitais internacional. / [en] This dissertation analyzes the proposal for the creation of a mechanism for restructuring sovereign debt of countries with unsustainable debt burdens, presented in the end of 2001 by Anne Krueger, deputy manager director of the International Monetary Fund. Using Friedrich Kratochwil´s rule-based constructivism as its theoretical framework, this dissertation intends to answer why the Sovereign Debt Restructuring Mechanism (SDRM) was rejected by private creditors, by debtors such as Brazil and Mexico, and by the US government, even though it could, at least theoretically, contribute in the coordination of creditors and debtors, make restructuring processes quicker and orderly, reduce the risk of debt crises, and bring benefits and stability to the market and its participants. The review of the documents prepared by the defenders (especially those among the staff of the IMF) and the critics of the SDRM during the debate which ended with its formal rejection in the beginning of 2003, suggests that the reactions of private creditors and debtors can be attributed to deep-seated differences in the interpretation of the content and role of norms in the international capital market.

Die Arbeit befasst sich mit ökonomischen Effekten der rechtlichen Durchsetzung von Staatsschulden. Die Literatur nimmt weitgehend an, dass diese größtenteils irrelevant sind. Die Dissertation präsentiert neu erstellte Datensätze über Anlegerklagen in den USA und UK, und verbindet diese mit Finanzmarktdaten. Die zentralen Ergebnisse sind: (1) Staatsschuldenkrisen sind zunehmend begleitet von Anlegerklagen, wenn auch die Zahl gering ist. Klagen sind wahrscheinlicher wenn Regierungen hohe Verluste auf ihre Gläubiger abwälzen. Sie können zudem signifikante Kosten durch die Versperrung des Finanzmarktzugangs mit sich bringen. Insbesondere spezialisierte Investoren führen Klagen, und die vertragliche Gestaltung der Anleihen bedingt Teilnahme- und Klageraten. (2) Marktpreise spiegeln diese Entwicklungen wider. Die Marktliquidität nimmt während Schuldenkrisen signifikant ab und Staatsanleihen, die bessere rechtliche Durchsetzungsmöglichkeiten versprechen, werden zu höheren Preisen gehandelt. / This thesis studies the economic impact of legal enforcement of sovereign debt. The literature assumes that legal enforcement mechanisms are largely irrelevant. The thesis presents newly assembled datasets on lawsuits filed by private investors against governments in the US and the UK, and connects them with financial market data. The main findings are: (1) Sovereign defaults are increasingly subject to investor lawsuits, although the numbers are still small. Lawsuits are more likely if governments impose large losses on their creditors. Litigation can create significant costs by affecting governments'' financial market access. Distressed investors are especially likely to file suit, and contract design is a significant predictor of participation and litigation. (2) Sovereign bond pricing reflects these developments. Market liquidity decreases significantly during debt crises. Furthermore, sovereign bonds with stronger legal protection trade at higher prices during financial crises.

[pt] Nesta pesquisa documenta-se um novo canal de contágio internacional. Estuda-se o mercado de dívida soberana de Londres no período pré-1914, no qual, dada a ausência de agências internacionais de monitoramento e altos custos de coleta de informação, a intermediação financeira representou um papel importante na transmissão de informações aos investidores. A partir da análise de dois eventos de crise financeira - o Funding Loan brasileiro em 1898 e o Funding loan grego em 1893 - mostra-se que os preços de títulos públicos de países sem ligações econômicas com os países em que as crises se originaram, mas que mantinham relacionamento com os mesmos intermediários financeiros, sofreram uma significante redução relativa logo após a ciência dos investidores sobre as crises. Este resultado sugere que os investidores extraíram informação sobre a qualidade do crédito dos países com base na existência de relações credorintermediário financeiro. Este spillover é, em essência, informativo e não derivado de fundamentos econômicos em comum ou regras de realinhamento de portfólio. / [en] In this research I document a novel type of international financial contagion, whose driving force is shared financial intermediary. I study the London peripheral sovereign debt market the pre-1914 period, in which, given the absence of international monitoring agencies and substantial agency costs, financial intermediation played a major informational role to investors. Analyzing two events of financial distress - the Brazilian Funding Loan of 1898 and the Greek Funding Loan of 1893 - I find that the bond prices of countries with no meaningful commercial relations with the distressed countries, but which shared the same financial intermediary, suffered a reduction relative to the rest of the market just after the market learned about the crises, evidencing that investor were extracting information about the soundness of a debtor based on the financial intermediate which vouched the issued. This spillover is informational in essence, and arises as the flip-side of the relational lending coin: the same reason which explains why relational finance (in this case, underwriting) helps alleviate informational and incentive problems also produce contagion.

La conduite des politiques économiques a été mise en question après le déclenchement de la crise financière en 2007. Cette thèse analyse les faiblesses identifiées dans la réglementation existante avant la crise et propose des pistes d’amélioration. Le premier chapitre s’intéresse à l’existence du canal de la prise de risque en zone euro. Parle biais des mesures de causalité de long terme, nous démontrons que la politique monétaire a une influence sur le niveau de risque financier. Un autre constat tiré de cette analyse concerne l’absence des mesures de risque systémique.Par conséquent, le deuxième chapitre étudie les mesures proposées après la crise pour les institutions financières et les applique aux États membres de la zone euro. A l’aide de ces mesures, les autorités pourront imposer des règles plus strictes aux pays les plus risqués d’un point de vue systémique. Le chapitre trois envisage une première solution visant à atténuer l’effet des décisions monétaires sur le risque. Nous étudions, à travers un modèle DSGE, l’impact de la stratégie de “leaning against the wind” sur les cycles économiques et financiers. Les résultats montrent qu’unetelle approche n’est pas suffisante pour stabiliser l’économie et que des arbitrages entre objectifs apparaissent. Pour cette raison, le dernier chapitre porte plus en détail sur les arbitrages entre objectifs, et propose, comme une deuxième solution, l’intégration des mesures macroprudentielles dans l’analyse. En utilisant un modèle Néo-Keynésien sous forme réduite, nous trouvons que les fonds propres contracycliques aident à réduire la volatilité des cycles, mais que les trade-offs demeurent en cas de chocs financiers. Le rôle de la banque centrale dans le maintien de la stabilité financière s’avère aussi important, puisque l’utilisation du leaning against the wind semble améliorer la volatilité des cycles. / The conduct of economic policy has been called into question after the outbreak of the financial crisis in2007. This thesis analyzes the flaws identified in the regulation enforced before the crisis and offers suggestionsfor improvement. The first chapter focuses on the existence of the risk-taking channel in the Eurozone. Throughmeasures of long-term causality, we demonstrate that monetary policy influences the level of financial risk. Anotherconclusion drawn from this analysis is the absence of systemic risk measures. Therefore, the second chapter analyzesthe measures proposed after the crisis for financial institutions and applies them to members of the Eurozone. Basedon these measures, authorities may impose stricter rules on countries that prove to be systemically risky. Chapterthree considers a first solution to mitigate the effect of monetary policy decisions on risk. We study, through a DSGEmodel, the impact of the "leaning against the wind" strategy on economic and financial cycles. The results show thatthis approach is not sufficient to stabilize the economy and that it gives rise to trade-offs between objectives. For thisreason, the last chapter examines in more detail the trade-offs between objectives, and proposes as second solution,the integration of macroprudential measures in the analysis. Using a reduced form New-Keynesian model, we find thatcountercyclical capital helps to reduce the volatility of cycles, but trade-offs appear in case of financial shocks. Therole of the central bank in maintaining financial stability seems also important, as the use of leaning against the windimproves cycles’ volatility.

Cette thèse contribue à la littérature sur le défaut souverain en offrant une nouvelle approche d'analyse, réconciliant les approches statistiques et structurelles. Avec comme fil rouge le lien entre crises financières, accumulation de dette et défaut souverain, ce travail répond à trois questions principales.En premier lieu, quand les pays font-ils défaut ? En posant un simple regard sur les principales variables macroéconomiques et les composantes cycliques des défauts souverains, je montre que le défaut se produit quand le pays subit un retournement brutal de croissance, ajouté à un large choc discontinu sur son ratio de dette sur PIB, apporté en majorité par une crise de change ou une crise bancaire.En second lieu, en quoi le risque souverain au sein d'une zone monétaire (par exemple la zone euro) diffère de celui d'une petite économie ouverte en change flexible, majoritairement décrit dans la littérature ? Je construis un modèle DSGE néo-keynésien dans lequel j'introduis du risque souverain ; je mets l'accent sur le rôle clé des comportements de consommation, à la fois dans la préférence pour l'union monétaire et dans la décision de défaut. Je regarde également l'efficacité de certaines politiques fiscales sur la réduction du risque souverain dans une zone monétaire.Enfin, les instruments de politique monétaire ont-ils été efficaces pendant la crise pour réduire les taux souverains ? J'évalue la transmission de la politique monétaire de la BCE, à la fois conventionnelle et non-conventionnelle, aux taux et aux volumes d'émissions de titres souverains pour les quatre plus importantes économies européennes. Je montre que seule la transmission du taux directeur vers les taux souverains a été effective ; les instruments non-conventionnels ont eu des résultats contrastés et essentiellement sur les taux d'intérêt. / This thesis offers a new approach to sovereign default analysis, by tackling both statistical and the structural approaches to sovereign default. Starting from the link between financial crises, debt accumulation and sovereign default, it answers three main questions.First, when do countries default? Taking a simple look at macroeconomic variables and business cycles around default, I show that economic defaults occur when the country experiences a switch from a boom to a bust, combined with a large discontinuous shock on its debt-to-GDP ratio, brought mainly by a currency or a banking crisis.Second, how sovereign risk in a monetary union (e.g. the Eurozone) differs from sovereign default risk in a small open economy usually described in default literature? Constructing a New-Keynesian DSGE model with sovereign default risk, I exhibit the key role of habit persistence in the preference for a monetary union and the default decision. I am also able to test the efficiency of various policy tools on sovereign risk.Third, have monetary policy tools been efficient to reduce sovereign spreads in the Eurozone? I assess the transmission of ECB monetary policies, conventional and unconventional, to both interest rates and bond issuance for the four largest economies of the Euro area. The main result is that only the pass-through from the ECB rate to interest rates has been effective. Unconventional policies have had uneven effects and primarily on interest rates.

State responsibility is central to modern politics and international relations. States are commonly blamed for wars, called on to apologize, punished with sanctions, admonished to keep their promises, bound by treaties, and held liable for debts and reparations. But why, and under which conditions, does it make sense to assign responsibilities to whole states rather than to individual leaders and officials? The purpose of this thesis is to resurrect and develop a forgotten understanding of state responsibility from the political thought of Thomas Hobbes. Chapters 1 and 2 examine the two dominant theories of state responsibility and propose a Hobbesian alternative. According to the agential theory, states can be held responsible because they are moral agents like human beings, with analogous capacities for deliberation and intentional action. According to the functional theory, states can be held responsible because they act vicariously through their organs, much as principals act vicariously through agents. What makes Hobbes unique is that he considers states to be 'persons'-entities to which actions, rights, and responsibilities can be attributed-even though they are neither agents nor principals. Hobbes' idea of state personality relies on the concepts of authorization and representation, not of agency and intentionality, nor of functions and organs. Chapters 3, 4, and 5 develop the Hobbesian theory of state responsibility and apply it to three sets of problems. Chapter 3 addresses problems of attribution, such as whether the actions of dictators count as acts of state and whether states can commit crimes. Chapter 4 addresses problems of identity, such as whether revolutions and annexations negate the state's identity and hence its responsibilities. Chapter 5 addresses problems of distribution, such as whether the subjects of the state ought to bear the costs of debts and reparations that their state incurred before they were born. I argue that the Hobbesian theory provides better answers to each set of problems than the agential and functional alternatives.

Chapter I - Derivative Market Competition: OTC Markets Versus Organized Derivative Exchanges  Recent regulatory initiatives in the United States have again raised the issue of a ''level regulatory and supervisory playing field'' and the degree of competition globally between over-the-counter (OTC) derivatives and organized derivative exchange (ODE) markets. This chapter models some important aspects of how an ODE market interrelates with the OTC markets. It analyzes various ways in which an ODE market can respond to competition from the OTC markets and considers whether ODE markets would actually benefit from a more level playing field. Among other factors, such as different transaction costs, different abilities to mitigate credit risk play a significant role in determining the degree of competition between the two types of markets. This implies that a potentially important service ODE markets can provide OTC market participants is to extend clearing services to them. Such services would allow the OTC markets to focus more on providing less competitive contracts/innovations and instead customize their contracts to specific investors’ risk preferences and needs.  Chapter II – Crisis Resolution and Private Sector Adaptation Efforts at crisis resolution that succeed in reducing potential inefficiencies and instability in the international financial system are in the interest of both the private and the public sector. Unlike in the domestic context, in the international context, in the absence of clearly established rules of the game, the approaches adopted toward crisis resolution, and the extent to which they are interpreted by market participants as setting a precedent, can have profound implications for the nature and structure of international capital flows. The key conclusion of this chapter is that recent experiences with payment suspensions and bond restructurings are limited as guides to determining the future success or failures of these initiatives, as the private sector most likely has adapted in order to minimize any unwanted public sector involvement. Chapter III - European Equity Market Integration: Cyclical or Structural? Reviewing the empirical evidence of equity market integration in the European Union, the chapter finds a significant increase in the importance of global sector factors for a number of industries. Unlike most past studies, which only covered developments during the bull market of the late nineties, the results presented in this chapter suggest that the degree of Euroland equity market integration has declined gradually following the bursting of the TMT bubble. This seems to suggest that the findings of previous studies that Euroland equity markets were nearly fully financially integrated is worth revisiting. There are, however, several good reasons to believe that the structural factors driving European equity market integration have yet to play themselves out fully. Institutional investors both outside the Euroland area and within have substantial untapped capacity to take on Euroland exposures and invest additionally in Euroland equities. / Diss. Stockholm : Handelshögskolan, 2004

Diese kumulative Dissertation besteht aus drei Abschnitten.                                 I. Geopolitics, Aid and Growth Wir untersuchen den Effekt kurzfristiger politischer Motive auf die Effektivität von Entwicklungshilfe. Dabei testen wir, ob der Effekt der Hilfe auf Wirtschaftswachstum reduziert wird durch den Anteil der Jahre während der Hilfsvergabe, die ein Land temporäres Mitglied des Sicherheitsrates der Vereinten Nationen war. Diese Mitgliedschaft sorgt für eine quasi zufällige Variation in der Höhe der vergebenen Hilfsgelder. Unsere Ergebnisse zeigen, dass der Zusammenhang zwischen Hilfe und Wachstum schwächer und niedriger ist für Hilfe, die während der temporären Mitgliedschaft vergeben wurde. Unsere zwei Schlussfolgerungen sind: Erstens, der Einfluss politischer Motive untergräbt die Effektivität der vergebenen Hilfsgelder. Zweitens, Variablen die politisches Interesse widerspiegeln sind ungeeignet als ökonometrische Instrumente für Entwicklungshilfe. Dies weckt Zweifel an einer großen Anzahl existierender Forschungsergebnisse. II. Is there a Home Bias in Sovereign Ratings? Kreditratingagenturen werden oftmals für angeblich verzerrte Länderratings kritisiert. Dieser Abschnitt diskutiert, wie das Heimatland einer Ratingagentur deren Ratingentscheidungen aufgrund polit-ökonomischer Einflüsse und kultureller Unterschiede beeinflussen kann. Mithilfe von Daten über neun Agenturen aus sechs unterschiedlichen Ländern testen wir, ob die Agenturen bessere Ratings an ihr Heimatland oder mit ihnen ökonomisch, politisch oder kulturell verbundene Länder vergeben. Unsere Ergebnisse liefern Belege für die Existenz einer Verzerrung zugunsten des jeweiligen Heimatlandes, kulturell ähnlicher Länder, und von Ländern, in denen die Banken des Heimatlandes größeren Risiken ausgesetzt sind. Dabei scheint die linguistische Ähnlichkeit der Sprache die Haupterklärung für den gemessenen Vorteil des Heimatlandes zu sein. III. Crime, Incentives and Political Effort: A Model and Empirical Application for India Der große Anteil an Politikern, gegen welche kriminelle Vorwürfe erhoben werden, hat eine öffentliche Debatte und eine Literatur über dessen Gründe und Auswirkungen ausgelöst. Um die Auswirkungen von Kriminalität abzuschätzen, entwickeln wir ein Modell über die Anreize, welchen Abgeordnete ausgesetzt sind wenn sie entscheiden ob sie sich für ihren Wahlkreis engagieren sollen. Wir nutzen drei direkte und gut messbare Maße für das Engagement der Abgeordneten in der vierzehnten Lok Sabha während der Legislaturperiode von 2004-2009: Anwesenheitsquoten, Aktivität im Parlament und die Nutzungsrate eine Fonds für lokale Entwicklungsprojekte. Die Ergebnisse legen nahe dass kriminelle Abgeordnete im Schnitt ungefähr 5% niedrigere Anwesenheitsquoten haben, und niedrige Nutzungsraten des Fonds, aber sich nicht bezüglich der Aktivität im Parlament unterscheiden. Diese Unterschiede hängen vom ökonomischen Entwicklungsstand des Wahlkreises, einem Proxy für Möglichkeiten illegale Renten zu extrahieren und für die Intensität der Überwachung des Abgeordneten durch die Wähler, sowie von der Definition von Kriminalität ab. Wir nutzen beobachtbare Kontrollvariablen, Matchingtechniken und „Treatment Effect“ Regressionen, um zu zeigen, warum diese negativen Koeffizienten eine Obergrenze für den tatsächlich wohl noch größeren negativen Zusammenhang darstellen. Darüber hinaus analysieren wir, warum es unwahrscheinlich ist, dass Selektionsprobleme aufgrund unbeobachtbarer Einflussfaktoren unsere Ergebnisse vollständig erklären können.