Equity Risk Premium (ERP) is the cornerstone in Financial Economics. It is a basic requirement in stock valuation, evaluation of portfolio performance and asset allocation. For the last decades, several studies have attempted to investigate the relationship between macroeconomic drivers of ERP. In this work, I empirically investigate the macroeconomic determinants of UK ERP. For this I parsimoniously cover a large body of literature stemming from ERP puzzle. I motivate the empirical investigation based on three mutually exclusive theoretical lenses. The thesis is organised in the journal paper format. In the first paper I review the literature on ERP over the past twenty-eight years. In particular, the aim of the paper is three fold. First, to review the methods and techniques, proposed by the literature to estimate ERP. Second, to review the literature that attempts to resolve the ERP puzzle, first coined by Mehra and Prescott (1985), by exploring five different types of modifications to the standard utility framework. And third, to review the literature that investigates and develops relationship between ERP and various macroeconomic and market factors in domestic and international context. I find that ERP puzzle is still a puzzle, within the universe of standard power utility framework and Consumption Capital Asset Pricing Model, a conclusion which is in line with Kocherlakota (1996) and Mehra (2003). In the second paper, I investigate the impact of structural monetary policy shocks on ex-post ERP. More specifically, the aim of this paper is to investigate the whether the response of UK ERP is different to the structural monetary policy shocks, before and after the implementation of Quantitative Easing in the UK. I find that monetary policy shocks negatively affect the ERP at aggregate level. However, at the sectoral level, the magnitude of the response is heterogeneous. Further, monetary policy shocks have a significant negative (positive) impact on the ERP before (after) the implementation of Quantitative Easing (QE). The empirical evidence provided in the paper sheds light on the equity market’s asymmetric response to the Bank of England’s monetary policy before and after the monetary stimulus. In the third paper I examine the impact of aggregate and disaggregate consumption shocks on the ex-post ERP of various FTSE indices and the 25 Fama-French style value-weighted portfolios, constructed on the basis of size and book-to-market characteristics. I extract consumption shocks using Structural Vector Autoregression (SVAR) and investigate its time-series and cross-sectional implications for ERP in the UK. These structural consumption shocks represent deviation of agent’s actual consumption path from its theoretically expected path. Aggregate consumption shocks seem to explain significant time variation in the ERP. At disaggregated level, when the actual consumption is less than expected, the ERP rises. Durable and Semi-durable consumption shocks have a greater impact on the ERP than non-durable consumption shocks. In the fourth and final paper I investigate the impact of short and long term market implied volatility on the UK ERP. I also examine the pricing implications of innovations to short and long term implied market volatility in the cross-section of stocks returns. I find that both the short and the long term implied volatility have significant negative impact on the aggregate ERP, while at sectoral level the impact is heterogeneous. I find both short and long term volatility is priced negatively indicating that (i) investors care both short and long term market implied volatility (ii) investors are ready to pay for insurance against these risks.

Diese Dissertation besteht aus einer Einleitung und drei empirischen Kapiteln, die sich mit verschiedenen Aspekten der Offenmarktgeschäfte der Bank of England in der Zwischenkriegszeit befassen. Offenmarktgeschäfte sind der Kauf und Verkauf von kurzfristigen Staatsanleihen. Die Einleitung definiert Instrumente und Ziele der Geldpolitik und beschreibt welche Folgen die veränderte Rolle Großbritanniens in der Welt nach dem 1. Weltkrieg für die Geldpolitik hatte. Das zweite Kapitel zeigt, wie Offenmarktgeschäfte die verfügbare Liquidität auf dem Londoner Geldmarkt erhöhen oder senken können. Dies erlaubt die kurzfristigen Marktzinsen relativ zum Leitzins zu steuern, was wiederum häufige Änderungen der Leitzinsen unnötig machte. Die empirische Analyse zeigt, dass Offenmarktgeschäfte die Wahrscheinlichkeit verändern können, dass Marktteilnehmer sich Geld bei der Diskontfazilität leihen müssen. Das dritte Kapitel zeigt, dass Offenmarktgeschäfte noch weitere Zwecke erfüllen. In der Finanzkrise von 1931 trugen Offenmarktgeschäfte dazu bei die größten Geschäftsbanken in London vor größerem Schaden zu bewahren. Der Verlust von Goldreserven wurde durch Offenmarktgeschäfte in großem Maße kompensiert und stabilisierte so die Liquidität der Geschäftsbanken. Das vierte Kapitel zeigt, dass Offenmarktgeschäfte zudem eine entscheidende Rolle bei der Stabilisierung der kurzfristigen Marktzinsen nach Kriegsausbruch 1939 spielten. Die empirische Analyse zeigt wie sorgfältig gewählte Laufzeiten von Offenmarktgeschäften dazu beigetragen haben, übermäßige Schwankungen der kurzfristigen Marktzinsen zu verhindern. Insgesamt deutet diese Dissertation darauf hin, dass die Bank of England in der Zwischenkriegszeit ähnlich einer modernen Zentralbank agierte. Kurzfristige Marktzinsen waren das operatives Ziel der Geldpolitik und nicht die Zentralbankgeldmenge. Im Jahr 1931 zog die Bank of England es vor die Geschäftsbanken zu stützen, auch wenn dies die Aufgabe des festen Wechselkurses bedeutete. / This dissertation consists of an introductory chapter and three empirical chapters which deal with various aspects of open-market operations by the Bank of England during the interwar period. Open-market operations are the purchase and sale of Treasury bills. The introduction defines monetary policy implementation and describes the economic circumstances after World War I and outlines what consequences the changing role of Britain in the world had for monetary policy. The second chapter shows how open-market operations could add or drain liquidity in the London money market and help steer short-term market rates relative to the Bank rate, which made frequent changes in the Bank Rate unnecessary. The empirical analysis shows that open-market operations could change the probability of market participants having to borrow at the discount facility. The third chapter argues that in time of crisis the purpose of open-market operations goes further. During the financial crisis of 1931 open-market operations most likely helped to protect the largest clearing banks in London from severe harm. The empirical analysis shows how open-market operations offset the effect of reserves losses at an unprecedented scale and stabilized the liquidity of the London clearing banks. Chapter four examines the role of open-market operation after the outbreak of war in 1939. Open-market operations played a crucial role in stabilizing short-term market rates and preserving the London money market in its original form, most notably the London discount houses and clearing banks. The descriptive evidence shown suggests how carefully chosen maturities of open-market operations helped offset any undue disturbances to short-term market rates after the outbreak of war. Overall, this dissertation suggests that the Bank of England, not unlike modern central banks, targeted short-term market rates, not some monetary quantity, and chose banking stability over a fixed exchange rate in 1931.

This thesis analyses the role of the Euromarket, an offshore market for Eurodollars or expatriate US dollars, in the re-emergence of global finance during the 1960s and 1970s. It charts not only its Cold War origins and the development of various markets for Eurodollars, but also institutions and policies that shaped them from the return to convertibility in 1958 to the ill-fated efforts to regulate the nascent market by international financial institutions. By examining the nature of Eurodollars as both a US and global currency, the thesis sheds light on the changing features of the governance of global finance and its relationship with the economic sovereignty of nation-states. It argues that the Euromarket underwent repeated contestations as politicians, bankers, and economists vested their political ambitions and cultural assumptions in it. The popular, academic, and policy debates challenged the speculative nature of Eurodollars which would destabilise the domestic as well as the international monetary system of the Bretton Woods system. Without a single monetary authority, the tendency of the Euromarket to transcend the order of capitalist nation-states constrained national governments’ capacity to control capital flows and the autonomy of domestic monetary policy. However, nation-states were not impotent but deliberately sought to exploit the liquid pool of capital in Eurodollars. It was not merely the US government that benefited from the seigniorage of Eurodollars and the City of London which was reborn as the international financial centre in the Euromarket. Continental European countries that were hesitant about European economic integration, the UK Labour government, developing countries in the Global South, and even the Communist bloc, resorted to the Euromarket for their national interests. The ambivalent attitudes of national governments and their conflict of interests resulted in the failure of coordinated efforts to introduce the rules of the game but facilitated the transnational network of finance in Eurodollars.

The aim of this thesis is to document the importance of liquidity resources of central banks during banking panics and financial crises and analysis of the development of LLR function. We examined three historical examples: the banking panic of 1866, the Great Depression and the current financial crisis, and we focused on the interaction between the demand for liquidity on the one hand and the supply of liquidity by central banks on the other. On the wide historical background we also analysed the changes in the function of LLR. We present that a restrictive monetary policy during financial market distortions may lead to further disturbances and cause serious recession. The analysis of the BoE during 1866 and of the FED between 2007 and 2009, on the contrary shows that the expansionary stance and considerably endogenous liquidity supply are able to reduce financial market's distortions and mitigate possible recession. Analysis of FED's reaction also indicated that should the LLR remain efficient, central banks must expand their instruments portfolio.

The thesis deals with non-standard monetary policies of three central banks throughout the global financial crisis. The reason for using non-standard measures was also liquidity trap when monetary policy becomes ineffective. An important milestone was collapse of investment bank Lehman Brothers in September 2008. The central banks carried out some non-standard measures before the collapse such as the emergence of new or expanding existing facilities. However, after the collapse there was panic at the financial and capital markets and market interest rate spreads rose. Central banks were forced to respond to expanding its balance sheet and reducing the monetary policy rate to zero. The main reason for increasing total assets was securities purchases by central banks. The measure, which is expanding the balance sheet is called quantitative easing. In the thesis I try to describe and compare the non-standard measures (with a focus on quantitative easing) taken by the three central banks (Bank of England, the Fed and the ECB) and answer the question whether the measures are effective and whether they can replace the standard monetary policy.

This dissertation studies the role of sterling during the Bretton Woods period (1944-1971). The Bretton Woods system has often been described as a dollar system with sterling having lost its relevance as reserve currency. However, despite being a secondary reserve currency and having lost importance, sterling was the 'first line of defence for the dollar' as contemporaries put it. They frequently stressed the fact that a sterling crisis would have consequences on the stability of the Bretton Woods system but economic historians have never tested this empirically. This dissertation argues that sterling played an important role in the stability of the international monetary system. Foreign exchange market participants globally monitored sterling and US policymaker stepped in to avoid devaluation of the British currency. US support to sterling was mainly due to the fear of a British devaluation, which could trigger a run on the dollar. When the UK finally devalued the pound in 1967, it marked the beginning of an instable period for the international monetary system. The Gold Pool, a syndicate to defend the US gold parity, collapsed in 1968 and this prefigured the end of the Bretton Woods system. This dissertation presents new data along with novel archival material from seven archives across continents to demonstrate how contagion from sterling to the dollar occurred. Modern econometric methods are used to analyse a new dataset with over 80,000 observations of offshore exchange rates, central bank intervention and reserves. This evidence shows that a secondary reserve currency can still play a key role in the stability of the international monetary system.

This dissertation analyses the idea that parliament controls public money in parliamentary constitutional systems of government. That analysis proceeds through an historical and contemporary examination of the way legal practices distribute authority over public money between different institutions of government. The legislative and judicial practices concerning taxation, public expenditure, sovereign borrowing, and the government financing activities of central banks are selected for close attention. The contemporary analysis focuses on the design and operation of those legal practices in the United Kingdom and the Commonwealth of Australia, in the context of the boom-bust-recovery economic conditions experienced between 2005 and 2016. The dissertation's ultimate claims are explanatory: that "parliamentary control" is a poor explanation of the distribution of financial authority in parliamentary systems of government and should be jettisoned in favour of an idea of "parliamentary ratification". An empirically engaged methodology is adopted throughout the dissertation and (historical and contemporary) public sector financial data enrich the legal analysis. The dissertation acknowledges the impact of, but remains agnostic between, different economic and political perspectives on fiscal discipline and public financial administration. The dissertation makes a number of original contributions. It provides a detailed examination of the historical development, legal operation and constitutional significance of annual appropriation legislation, and the legal regimes governing sovereign borrowing and monetary finance. It also analyses the way that law interacts with government behaviour in situations of economic emergencies (focusing on the Bank of England's public financing activities since 2008), and the institutional and doctrinal obstacles facing judicial involvement in disputes concerning public finance (focusing on the Australian judiciary's recent engagements with public expenditure legislation).