The goal of this thesis is to empirically test connection between diaper consumption and business cycle. The analysis is based on real sell out data from period 2004-2013. Procyclical evolution of diapers consumption and procyclical evolution of household expenditures on diapers has been proved in the thesis. Substitution of branded products with cheaper variants of private label has not been proved in the Czech Republic. It has been proved that private label market share behaves procyclically, probably due to lower price difference between branded products and private label in times of recession and vice versa

This thesis seeks to analyze the phenomenon of political business cycle (PBC) in the Czech Republic. It follows up the efforts of previous authors to determine the existence and subsequent character of the PBC in the country. Based upon the related works, it summarizes the current situation. However, unlike the previous analyses, this work concerns the monetary side of the economy. To be more precise, it examines the role of the Czech National Bank (CNB) within the process of political business cycle. It questions the level of independency of the CNB and poses a question whether the institution might actively participate in the creation of PBC. The following empirical analysis reveals that the CNB actively reduces the monetary base level in the economy within the pre-election period. It might signal its tendency to mitigate opportunistic behavior of the government.

L’objet de la présente thèse porte sur le rôle de la monnaie, en particulier bancaire, dans la détermination du niveau général d’activité chez le fondateur de la théorie quantitative contemporaine, Irving Fisher (1867–1947). Nous y montrons comment évolue sa conception des fluctuations et de l’instabilité en confrontant sa théorie des cycles de crédit (1911) à la déflation par la dette (1932, 1933). Notre objectif est de retracer la manière dont l’essor de la monnaie bancaire à partir de la fin du 19ème siècle, puis des marchés financiers dans l’entre-deux-guerres, sont intégrés dans la pensée de Fisher et, à travers lui, dans la conception libérale de la neutralité monétaire. Nous dégageons ainsi les structures logiques de ses deux analyses, en faisant valoir qu’elles s’appuient sur des mécanismes qualitativement différents, l’un bancaire, l’autre financier, mettant en jeu des variables et des processus de nature distincte. Cependant, une fois cette hétérogénéité mise en avant, il est possible de rapprocher les deux théories de Fisher en soulignant une invariance plus profonde portant sur le caractère déstabilisant de la monnaie. C’est pourquoi les deux grands projets de réformes qu’il défend au cours de sa vie, le dollar-compensé (1911, 1920) puis le 100% Monnaie (1935), sont construits en vue de répondre au même objectif : stabiliser la valeur de la monnaie. Le chapitre 1, introductif, présente les ressorts de la déflation par la dette afin d’en discuter l’articulation à la théorie des cycles de crédit au chapitre 2. Dans celui-ci, nous faisons apparaître que cette analyse de Fisher constitue un cas particulier d’un modèle plus général dans lequel, contrairement à ce qu’il pense alors, la stabilité de l’équilibre n’est pas garantie. Au chapitre 3, nous abordons les solutions qu’il propose pour lutter contre les désordres monétaires. Plus spécifiquement, nous précisons les liens entre sa perception de l’instabilité et les réformes qu’il suggère pour neutraliser l’influence de la monnaie sur les grandeurs économiques réelles. Dans le chapitre 4, nous poursuivons notre étude de la vision de l’instabilité de Fisher en examinant les fondements logiques et historiques de la notion « d’effet Fisher » au sens que lui donne James Tobin (1980). Enfin, le chapitre 5 traite de la réception et de la postérité des idées de Fisher en matière d’analyse de l’instabilité financière. Nous y montrons que la déflation par la dette n’est ni ignorée, ni totalement rejetée par les économistes dans les années 1930 et 1940, puis qu’elle occupe une place importante à partir des années 1970 dans la constitution des programmes de recherche néo-keynésien et post-keynésien. / The purpose of this thesis is to examine the role of money, especially of bank deposits,in Irving Fisher’s (1867–1947) analysis of the general level of activity determination, which constitutes nowadays the foundation of the contemporary quantitative theory.We show how his explanation of monetary instability evolves by comparing his credit cycle theory (1911) with the debt-deflation (1932, 1933). Our aim is to highlight the influence of the development of bank currency (from the end of the 19th century) and financial markets (during the interwar period) on Fisher’s economic thought, and through him, on the liberal conception of monetary neutrality. In this way, we draw the logical structures of its two analyses, by pointing out that they are based on qualitatively different mechanisms, one banking, and the other one financial, involving variables and processes of different nature. However, once this heterogeneousness advanced, it is possible to reconcile the two theories of Fisher by underlining a deeper invariance concerning the destabilizing character of money. That is why his two big reforms projects, the compensated-dollar (1911, 1920), and then the 100% Money (1935), are intended to answer at the same purpose: stabilize the value of money.Chapter 1 introduces the dynamic of the debt-deflation to discuss his relation with thecredit cycle theory in the chapter 2. In the latter, we assert that this analysis of Fisher is only a particular case of a more general model in which, contrary to what he thinks at the time, the stability of the equilibrium is not guaranteed. In the chapter 3, we discuss the solutions he proposed to solve the monetary disorders. More precisely, we specify the links between his perception of instability and the reforms he suggests to neutralize the influence of money on the real economic variables. In the chapter 4, we pursue our study of Fisher’s conception of instability by examining the logical and historical foundations of the notion of “Fisher effect” in the meaning given by James Tobin (1980). Finally, the chapter 5 deals with the reception and the posterity of Fisher’s ideas regarding financial instability. We show that the debt-deflation is neither ignored, nor totally rejected by the economists in the 1930s and 1940s, then that it occupies an important place from 1970s in the constitution of the neo-Keynesian and post-Keynesian research program.

Thesis advisor: Ryan A. Chahrour / The dissertation studies the primary sources of business-cycle fluctuations and their interaction with uncertainty and financial frictions. In my work, I examine the degree to which changes in uncertainty and financial conditions can be independent drivers of economic fluctuations; I study the sources of boom-bust cycles and whether they are linkedto credit market sentiments; and I ask how financial frictions affect economic fluctuations in terms of prices and quantities. In "Financial and Uncertainty Shocks", I separately identify financial and uncertainty shocks using a novel SVAR procedure and discuss their distinct monetary policy implications. The procedure relies on the qualitatively different responses of corporate cash holdings: after a financial shock, firms draw down their cash reserves as they lose access to external finance, while uncertainty shocks drive up cash holdings for precautionary reasons. Although both financial and uncertainty shocks are contractionary, my results show that the former are inflationary while the latter generate deflation. I rationalize this pattern in a New-Keynesian model: after a financial shock, firms increase prices to raise current liquidity; after an uncertainty shock, firms cut prices in response to falling demand. These distinct channels have stark monetary policy implications: conditional on uncertainty shocks the divine coincidence applies, while in case of financial shocks the central bank can stabilize inflation only at the cost of more unstable output fluctuations. In "What are the Sources of Boom-Bust Cycles?", joint with Vito Cormun, we provide a synthesis of two major views on economic fluctuations. One view maintains that expansions and recessions arise from the interchange of positive and negative persistent exogenous shocks to fundamentals. This is the conventional view that gave rise to the profusion of shocks used in modern dynamic stochastic general equilibrium models. In contrast, a second view, which we call the endogenous cycles view, holds that business cycle fluctuations are due to forces that are internal to the economy and that endogenously favor recurrent periods of boom followed by a bust. In this environment, cycles can occur after small perturbations of the long run equilibrium. We find empirical evidence pointing at the coexistence of both views. In particular, we find that the cyclical behaviour of economic aggregates is due in part to strong internal mechanisms that generate boom-bust phenomena in response to small changes in expectations, and in part to the interchange of positive and negative persistent fundamental shocks. Motivated by our findings, we build a theory that unifies the dominant paradigm with the endogenous cycles approach. Our theory suggests that recessions and expansions are intimately related phenomena, and that understanding the nature of an expansion, whether it is driven by fundamentals or by beliefs, is a first order issue for policy makers whose mandate is to limit the occurrance of inefficient economic fluctuations. In "COVID-19 and Credit Constraints'', joint with Pierluigi Balduzzi, Emanuele Brancati, and Fabio Schiantarelli, we investigate the economic effects of the COVID-19 pandemic and the role played by credit constraints in the transmission mechanism, using a novel survey of expectations and plans of Italian firms, taken just before and after the outbreak. Most firms revise downward their expectations for sales, orders, employment, and investment, while prices are expected to increase at a faster rate, with geographical and sectoral heterogeneity in the size of the effects. Credit constraints amplify the effects on factor demand and sales of the COVID-19 generated shocks. Credit-constrained firms also expect to charge higher prices, relative to unconstrained firms. The search for and availability of liquidity is a key determinant of firms' plans. Finally, both supply and demand shocks play a role in shaping firms' expectations and plans, with supply shocks being slightly more important in the aggregate. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2021. / Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: Economics.

This dissertation consists of three essays on firm-level frictions and their aggregate implications. The first two chapters show that inter-firm lending plays an important role in business cycle fluctuations. In Chapter I, I theoretically investigate the role of supplier credit relationships in propagating and amplifying small shocks using a stylized model of inter-firm trade and lending. I build a network model of the economy in which trade in intermediate goods is financed by supplier credit. In the model, a financial shock to one firm affects its ability to make payments to its suppliers. The credit linkages between firms then transmit financial shocks across firms, amplifying their effects on aggregate output. In Chapter II, I embed this mechanism into a more general macroeconomic framework to study empirically the role that inter-firm credit plays in the business cycle. To calibrate the model, I construct a proxy of inter-industry credit flows from firm- and industry-level data. I find that the credit network of the US accounts for 22 percent of the fall in GDP occurring from an aggregate financial shock. Finally, I use a structural factor approach to estimate the shocks which affected US industrial production (IP) industries from 1997-2013. I find that most aggregate volatility in IP was driven by aggregate liquidity shocks and idiosyncratic productivity shocks, and that the credit network of IP industries generated 17 percent of observed aggregate volatility. During the recent recession, three-quarters of the drop in aggregate IP was due to an aggregate financial shock. Chapter III presents a theoretical investigation of the long-run relationship between international trade and unemployment. I develop and analyze a static general equilibrium model with labor market frictions and heterogeneous firms in which firms can engage in cross-border hiring by employing labor domestically or from abroad. This chapter outlines the conditions on the model parameters under which unemployment rises or falls after trade liberalization, and demonstrates that models in the literature which ignore cross-border hiring likely underestimate the upward force of trade liberalization on unemployment.

By using Arellano and Bond GMM estimator, this paper analyzes how the regulation framework of Basel, affects the profitability level of the banking industry. The data consists of savings and commercial banks located in 16 different OECD countries over the time period from 1992 to 2009. The cross-country study, evaluates, whether increased capital requirements have a negative effect on bank profitability, meaning, if banks that keep a larger capital buffer earn a lower return or if banks that increase capital are better prepared for the financial crisis and therefore manage to get a better return. To evaluate the effect, the time period utilized is divided into a pre-crisis period (1992 to 2007), which is compared with an average over the total period (1992-2009). The measure of profitability is the return on equity and to control for business cycle fluctuations macro economic factors are included. Previous research results are scattered and indicate that decreased risk taking increases profitability, meanwhile increased regulation decreases profitability. The main findings in this paper are that Tier 1 capital and risk-weighted assets have a negative effect on profitability, whereas the capital buffer illustrates a positive effect.

In the models analyzed in this paper, there exists an incumbent politician with one objective, two choices, and voters who remember the past differently. The politician's primary goal is to get reelected, which is done by maximizing the number of votes on the day of election. The politician can increase their chances of reelection if they influence the state of the economy over time and ensure the economy is in its 'best' state on the days leading up to the election. In conducting this research, I wanted to study how different rates of memory decay influences the choices the politician makes during the course of their term. Also, I wanted to explore how long a politician would wait to have an election if that were a choice they could make. I found that voters who remember more of the past place a greater constraint on the incumbent leading to moderate fluctuations in the economy and frequent elections.

This dissertation examines the role of asset prices to act as a transmission and amplification mechanism. Specifically, it looks at how changes in asset prices can help transmit and amplify technology shocks through the credit channel by changing the supply of loanable funds, or changing the supply of deposits, or both. Using a modified version of the Kiyotaki-Moore credit cycles model with concave utility and decreasing returns to scale production function, the dissertation illustrates that asset prices can as a credible amplification and transmission mechanism. Using concave utility and decreasing returns to scale production function allows the incorporation risk aversion into the credit cycles model. The model can help explain the gap between observed magnitude of shocks, and the corresponding changes in economic activity. The behavior of a heterogeneous agent economy in response to a technology shock is simulated using computer programs. The simulations show that a one percent technology shock translates into a more than four percent change in capital held by the constrained agents by moving capital from one agent type to the other. This moves the economy away from a first-best equilibrium. If the technology shock is positive there is an increased demand of capital from the more productive agents, and thus a more than proportionate increase in output. If the technology shock is negative, the opposite path is followed, and economic activity falls more than proportionately. There are credit constraints built into the model. Agents' access to credit is determined by the value of collateral on oer, which in turn depends on asset prices. Technology shocks change demand for assets, their prices, their value as collateral, and hence agents' access to credit. Further, since prices are forward looking, a shock in one period propagates through time. These simulations show that the effects of the shock can be felt up to 13 periods after it has hit. An event analysis with housing price data from 18 countries spanning a period of more than four decades is also performed. It shows that there is strong co-movement of housing prices and economic activity. In particular, larger changes in housing prices have been accompanied by qualitatively similar changes in economic activity. The period leading up to the peak of a real estate cycle is accompanied by a more than proportionate increase in private sector lending, and once the peak has been crested, there is a more than proportionate fall in nominal private sector lending. This evidence is in sync with the earlier observation that changes in asset prices influence agents' access to credit and contribute to the persistence of the effects of the shock far into the future. Further, the preferred measure of economic health, the rate of inflation, sees no measurable change in periods leading up to a real estate peak, and beyond. This throws up the need for some other measure of economic health that is better able to capture the events in asset markets. Policy makers have been paying more attention to this channel in the aftermath of the sub-prime mortgage crisis in the United States. There have been multiples changes in regulatory policy across the world, and specific steps are being taken to dampen exuberance in the real estate market. Only time can tell if these measures turn out to be effective, but at least a step has been taken towards realizing that housing market can lead to a wider economic and banking crisis. / Economics

EMU as the only functioning single currency area has been criticised as a non-optimal currency area since the Treaty on European Union was signed. Despite this, it has been seen as, probably, the most complete economic project that has ever been conducted by any group of governments. Through Dynamic Factor model and Panel VAR method, we are focusing on the issues of business cycle synchronisation, effectiveness of ECB monetary policy and the euro fiscal dividend, thus to advances the current studies on EMU through assessing whether it can be a sustainable system. For example, whether economic fluctuations can be effectively managed by implementing a single ECB monetary policy and financial market can be relied upon as a monitoring and enforcing device to discipline fiscal behaviour of Eurozone countries. Overall, we concluded that EMU could be more sustainable if it was just formed by its core members, leaving the periphery outside the single currency area. However, since the EU has recently conducted many rescue measures to save the Eurozone, we are unlikely to see those troubled countries to quit EMU, at least, at the present time. The sustainability of the current EMU can be improved if more intra-trade can be promoted to enhance business cycle convergence; hence, it will be more likely to have a union-wide appropriate monetary policy. This will also reduce the requirement of depending upon using fiscal measures to compensate the loss of monetary sovereignty. Moreover, fiscal activities can also be better monitored/enforced since the financial market has begun to adequately adjust the long-term interest rates on Eurozone government bonds according to the development in those countries fiscal stance.

Yes / The misery index (the unweighted sum of unemployment and inflation rates) was probably the first attempt to develop a single statistic to measure the level of a population’s economic malaise. In this letter, we develop a dynamic approach to decompose the misery index using two basic relations of modern macroeconomics: the expectations-augmented Phillips curve and Okun’s law. Our reformulation of the misery index is closer in spirit to Okun’s idea. However, we are able to offer an improved version of the index, mainly based on output and unemployment. Specifically, this new Okun’s index measures the level of economic discomfort as a function of three key factors: (1) the misery index in the previous period; (2) the output gap in growth rate terms; and (3) cyclical unemployment. This dynamic approach differs substantially from the standard one utilised to develop the misery index, and allow us to obtain an index with five main interesting features: (1) it focuses on output, unemployment and inflation; (2) it considers only objective variables; (3) it allows a distinction between short-run and long-run phenomena; (4) it places more importance on output and unemployment rather than inflation; and (5) it weights recessions more than expansions.