Cette thèse parle de l'impact des comportements spéculatifs sur l'économie réelle. Les comportements spéculatifs peuvent avoir deux origines: les développements positifs de l'économie réelle et les perspectives économiques, les marchés financiers comme par exemple les marchés actions. Nous analyserons les deux origines. Par conséquent, nous allons mettre en ouvre des comportements réalistes dans un contexte évolutif en utilisant l’hétérogénéité grandissante, pour évaluer l'impact des comportements spéculatifs. En se basant sur la bulle dotcom, nous allons nous concentrer sur l'avancement technologique comme possible facteur de l'optimisme grandissant. Dans la première partie de cette thèse nous allons présenter les résultats obtenus via un modèle déterminé par des contraintes de financement, et utilisant les prix des actions. Nous allons nous concentrer sur 3 types de répercussions assez connues: l'information donnée par le marché de l'action en vue de déterminer la solvabilité, la valeur de marché du titre en vue de déterminer la probabilité de banqueroute, et la partie de la rémunération du management qui est adossée sur la performance. La seconde partie de la thèse parlera les contraintes de financement dans un cadre évolutif et soulignera les déterminants de l'offre de crédit qui impactent la fréquence des innovations. Ces déterminants sont basés sur les données de marché et concernent des aspects comportementaux. La troisième partie fournit en détail le comportement des banques et de deux secteurs industriels qui se battent pour le crédit. La troisième partie est donc un approfondissement de la seconde. / This dissertation deals with the impact of speculative behaviour on output patterns of the real economy. The impact may be twofold. Speculative behaviour occurs due to positive developments at the real economy and optimistic outlooks. Also, speculative behaviour may occur at other markets, like the stock market. We address both, a spill-over effect and the build up of speculation due to economic activity. Therefore, we implement realistic behaviour in an evolutionary framework and use emerging heterogeneity for the impact assessment. lnspired by the dotcom-bubble we focus on technological advancement as possible factor of growing optimism. ln the first part of this thesis we introduce feedback from stock prices into a model of economic growth determined by financing constraints. We focus on three known feedback channels: stock market information for the assessment of creditworthiness, stock market value as determinant in determining bankruptcy of a firm and performance based compensation of the firm management. The second part introduces financing constraints into an evolutionary framework and tackles determinants of credit supply for their impact on the occurrence of innovation. Those determinants are market based and also behavioural in nature. The third part provides a more detailed bank behaviour and two industrial sectors competing for credit. Therefore, the third part is a refinement of the second one.

Thesis advisor: Fabio Schiantarelli / My doctoral research focuses on analyzing how credit policies and regulations affect the credit access of constrained firms. The first chapter focuses on the effectiveness of a national-level directed credit program in India. I exploit a policy-induced variation in program eligibility to study the differential impact of the program across the firm-size distribution. In the second chapter, I evaluate the impact of an export program that subsidized short-term export loans for manufacturing firms in India. I estimate the effect of the credit subsidy scheme on subsidized firms by mapping the eligible product lines to firms while controlling for firm- and sector-level differences across firms and accounting for shocks to export demand. Chapter 1. Governments around the world implement programs to improve the credit access of small businesses. Evaluating the impact of policies undertaken is important to ensure that the policies achieve the desired outcomes. However, in the absence of randomized policy assignment and the availability of controls for the credit demand of firms, establishing a causal link between the program eligibility and the improvement in credit access is an econometric challenge. In the first chapter “Could Directed Lending Programs Hurt Small Businesses? Evidence from India,” I study the impact of an expansion in a size-based directed or preferential credit policy that targets small businesses in India. In 2006, the Indian Government expanded the official definition of small businesses, thereby including relatively bigger firms in the pool of firms eligible for its large-scale directed credit program called the priority sector lending program. The discontinuity in eligibility to the nation-wide credit program helps identify the impact of the program across the firm-size distribution. Larger eligible firms are likely to be favored by banks because making bigger loans to larger firms helps banks economize on transaction costs while still meeting their directed lending quotas. Exploiting the eligibility discontinuity and using a modified difference-in-differences strategy, I find that the benefits of the policy intervention flow disproportionately to the larger firms. Newly-eligible firms experience an increase in the rate of growth of institutional credit, as well as higher investment and sales growth. The smaller, previously-eligible firms, on the other hand, are crowded out in the bank credit market, when compared to a reference group of ineligible firms. The positive impact on newly-eligible firms is highly correlated with firm size, even within the group. The financial constraints literature documents the role of banking relationships in overcoming credit constraints for small firms, specifically, the duration of the relationship and the multiplicity of bankers. Using the information on bankers of the firms and the duration of each firm-bank pair, I find that the firms with longer and multiple banking relationships experience less crowding out. While my analysis confirms the results from the empirical literature on the positive role of longer bank relationships and the multiplicity of bankers, I do not find evidence supporting the relationship-lending advantage of small and local banks. These findings suggest that the comparative advantage of small banks in relationship-lending is limited by the cost-minimizing incentive of banks. Moreover, firms that borrow from banks that are farther away from the mandated directed lending target experience less crowding out as well. Smaller firms located in districts with more intense local competition from newly-eligible firms are also crowded out more, implying that such policy expansions could potentially worsen the existing regional disparities in access to institutional credit across the country. This study points to an important side effect of a well-intentioned policy intervention, aimed at increasing credit access of all small firms, and simultaneously providing banks with more lending avenues to achieve their directed lending targets. By virtue of its design, however, it distorts the lending incentives of banks, allowing them to exploit the policy shift as an opportunity to lower transaction costs. This suggests that in a setting with lending quotas if institutional lenders are unable to satisfactorily lower transaction and information costs, they will make loans to the largest eligible borrowers, whenever possible. Future policy design must be guided by research that assesses the overall impact of existing programs, in order to develop programs that expand access to finance while limiting economic distortions. Chapter 2. In “The Impact of Credit Subsidies on Export Performance,” I study the impact of an export credit intervention on the export performance of firms in the subsidized product lines in India, both at the intensive and at the extensive margin of exports. The Government of India formulated the Interest Rate Subvention Scheme in 2007 to reduce the cost of short-term credit for exporters in employment-intensive sectors, given their important contribution to the GDP and the workforce employment. Short-term loans of exporters are mainly working capital loans in the form of pre- and post-shipment export credit. Between 2007 and 2013, the government announced subsidies on short-term bank loans on a semi-annual or annual basis for specific sectors or product lines. The immediate goal of the scheme was to minimize short-term credit frictions of SMEs across all sectors, and large firms in export-oriented labor-intensive sectors. The long-term goal of the scheme, as has been understood in recent years when the subsidies were expanded, was to provide Indian exporters credit at internationally competitive rates. I construct a detailed data set which matches the balance-sheet data on medium and large exporting firms in the Indian manufacturing sector from 2006-2013, with their eligibility status based on products manufactured by them. To control for export demand shocks, I create a demand index that measures the product-level shocks to export demand, aggregated across importer countries for the firms in the sample. There are three key findings in this paper. First, I find that the impact of subsidies is estimated at about 5-8% in a difference-in-differences sense, compared to non-subsidized firms. The subsidies are not effective in the event of a substantial drop in world demand, as that experienced in 2009, in the aftermath of the global financial recession. This points to the limited usefulness of credit support as a policy tool during a major downturn. Second, the impact of credit subsidies is increasing in pre-existing fiscal benefits enjoyed by exporting firms, implying that there is a complementary effect of existing export incentives. The impact of the subsidy is also highly heterogeneous across firm-specific characteristics. Larger and more productive firms benefit to a lesser extent than their counterparts. In contrast to the findings in the literature, firms’ financial health indicators such as liquidity and leverage do not have any differential effect on the subsidized firms. Also, subsidized firms with longer bank relationships benefit relatively more. Finally, I do not find any impact on the export participation of firms, which is not unexpected given the short-term and unanticipated nature of the subsidy s cheme. The findings from these two studies are policy relevant not only for India but for other developing economies that implement similar policies. If government authorities and regulators in India want to effectively evaluate similar credit subsidy programs, they must be forward-looking and collect appropriate data that facilitate the evaluation of these programs, especially for small and micro-firms. Future research evaluating credit support programs would benefit immensely from improved data on variables such as employment, expansion in product variety and export destinations, as well as loan-level details of firms. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2018. / Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: Economics.

No description available.

Med anledning av att arbetslösheten är hög bland invandrare och att de i stor utsträckning startar företag är det intressant att se hur invandrarföretagare finansierar uppstarten av sin verksamhet. Av den anledningen är det också intressant att förstå vad som ligger bakom den valda finansieringsformen. Många invandrare som vill starta företag i Sverige stöter på problem tidigt i processen då de ofta blir diskriminerade av banker genom att inte bli beviljade lån i samma utsträckning som svenskfödda. Dessa begränsningar i tillgång till kapital via formella vägar öppnar upp för mer informella alternativ. En lösning skulle kunna vara att anförskaffa sig kapital via släkt och vänner som är kvar i hemlandet, med så kallade reverse remittances. Genom intervjuer med invandrarföretagare uppdelade i två olika grupper (en grupp som helt eller delvis använt reverse remittances som finansiering och en grupp som använt banklån och/eller andra finansiella medel) studerades valet av finansieringsform. Även sambandet mellan att ta emot och själv skicka remitteringar observerades. Då större delen av de invandrarföretagare som intervjuades inte hade varit i kontakt med banken innan finansieringsformen bestämdes finns ingenting i den här studien som tyder på att finansiering med reverse remittances beror på diskriminering hos bankerna. Den här studien visar istället att de främsta anledningarna till att reverse remittances används som finansiering är att det uppfattas som ett tillgängligt alternativ då invandrarföretagarna ingår i transnationella nätverk som byggs på en hög grad av tillit. Skillnaderna mellan de två urvalsgruppernas mönster i huruvida de själva remitterar eller inte visar sig i den här studien vara näst intill obefintliga. Istället beror remitteringsmönstret i båda urvalsgrupperna på kulturen inom de transnationella nätverken, en stark relation till remitteringsmottagaren och ett uttalat behov av pengar. Även om det finns antydningar på att företagarna som helt eller delvis finansierats med reverse remittances har något större benägenhet att själva remittera har studien inte kunnat se något tydligt samband mellan att ta emot remitteringar och själv remittera. / Given that the labor market for immigrants in Sweden has high unemployment and that immigrants to a large extent start businesses, makes it interesting to see how they finance the start-up. It also makes it interesting to try to understand the reasons that may lay behind the choice of funding source. However, many immigrants who want to start a business in Sweden encounter problems early in the process since banks tend to discriminate immigrants and not grant them loans to the same extent as to those born in Sweden. The constraints in access to capital through formal options open up for more informal alternatives. One solution could be to go through friends and family who still live  in their country of origin, through so-called reverse remittances. The reason behind the choice of funding source was studied through interviews with immigrant entrepreneurs divided into two groups; one group that received reverse remittances as funding source and one group that used bank loans and/or other funding sources. Additionally this study also looked at the linked relationship between entrepreneurs receiving and sending remittances. Since the greater part of the immigrant entrepreneurs that where interviewed had not been in contact with the bank before choosing source of funding, discrimination cannot be said to be the reason behind funding by reverse remittances. This study shows that the main reason for the use of reverse remittances rather is because the immigrant entrepreneurs belong to strong transnational networks built up by a high level of trust. No specific differences in the remittance pattern between the two sample groups have been found. It is rather the culture within the transnational network, strong ties to the remittance receiver and an expressed need for money that seem to decide whether immigrant entrepreneurs send remittances or not. This study has not either been able to point out whether there is a relationship between receiving and sending remittances among immigrant entrepreneurs in Sweden, apart rom some insinuations that the entrepreneurs funded by reverse remittances tend to remit to a slightly larger extent.

Este estudo têm como objetivo identificar qual o comportamento de empresas brasileiras de capital aberto com relação à aplicação dos recursos financeiros de seus fluxos de caixa (recursos internos) em investimentos e não investimentos (em fins que não se configuram como um projeto real de investimento) no curto e longo prazo e mostrar como essa questão está relacionado com o grau de restrições financeiras enfrentado pelas empresas. Para alcançar esse objetivo foram estimadas quatro regressões pelo método OLS (Ordinary Least Square / Mínimos Quadrados Ordinários), cada uma delas com uma das variáveis resposta correspondentes aos principais usos de caixa, ou seja, retenção de caixa, investimentos, dividendos e redução do financiamento externo e com as variáveis explicativas dadas pelo fluxo de caixa nos períodos t, t-1 e t-2 e algumas variáveis de controle específicas da firma. Os resultados sugerem que empresas brasileiras restritas e irrestritas se comportam de forma diferente ao receberem um choque positivo em seus fluxos de caixa e que o comportamento das mesmas também difere no curto e no longo prazo. Empresas restritas e irrestritas ao receberem um choque positivo em seus fluxos de caixa, retêm caixa no período contemporâneo e alocam tais recursos intertemporalmente. Empresas restritas investem mais no curto prazo enquanto as irrestritas investem mais no longo prazo. No curto prazo, empresas irrestritas distribuem mais dividendos do que empresas irrestritas e no longo prazo, os coeficientes dos fluxos de caixa não são significativos para nenhum dos grupos. No curto prazo empresas irrestritas reduzem o financiamento externo, enquanto empresas restritas levantam mais financiamentos externos e no longo prazo, esse comportamento se inverte. Dessa forma, fica clara a importância de se considerar o longo prazo bem como as restrições financeiras enfrentadas pelas empresas. / This study aim to identify what is the behaviour of Brazilian public companies regarding the use of financial resources of cash flows (internal resources) in investments and not investments (for purposes that are not configured as a real investment project) in the short and long term and show how this is related to the degree of financial constraints faced by firms. To achieve this aim, four regressions were estimated by OLS ( Ordinary Least Square), each with one of the response variables corresponding to the main uses of cash, ie , cash holding, investments, dividends and external finance reduction and the explanatory variables given by the cash flow in periods t , t - 1 and t - 2 and some control variables specific of the firm. The results suggest that restricted and unrestricted Brazilian companies behave differently when they receive a positive shock on cash flows and their behavior also differs in the short and long term. When constrained and unconstrained firms receive a positive impact on cash flows, they retain cash in the contemporary period and intertemporally allocate such resources. Constrained firms invest more in the short term while the unrestricted invest more in the long run. In the short term, unconstrained firms distribute more dividends than unconstrained firms and in the long run, the coefficients of cash flows are not significant for either groups. In the short term unconstrained firms reduce external finance, while constrained firms raise more external finance and in the long term, this behavior is reversed. Thus, it is clear that it matters to consider the long term as well as financial constraints faced by firms.

Submitted by Guilherme Stein (stein.guilherme@gmail.com) on 2016-09-14T03:16:35Z No. of bitstreams: 1 tese.pdf: 430062 bytes, checksum: 5a8a1a0eaba91cd18e8142932105ee3b (MD5) / Rejected by Letícia Monteiro de Souza (leticia.dsouza@fgv.br), reason: Prezado Guilherme, Favor fazer as alterações abaixo para que seu trabalho seja aprovado: 1: O nome da fundação (Getulio) não possuí acento. Favor retirar de todas as páginas que constam o nome. 2: Faltam as sessões de Agradecimentos, Resumo e Abstract. Atenciosamente, Letícia 3799-3631 on 2016-09-14T12:11:08Z (GMT) / Submitted by Guilherme Stein (stein.guilherme@gmail.com) on 2016-09-14T13:20:27Z No. of bitstreams: 1 tese 2.0.pdf: 432636 bytes, checksum: 00494ab653e6be0fae54f42a49f2fe99 (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Letícia Monteiro de Souza (leticia.dsouza@fgv.br) on 2016-09-14T13:22:52Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 tese 2.0.pdf: 432636 bytes, checksum: 00494ab653e6be0fae54f42a49f2fe99 (MD5) / Rejected by Letícia Monteiro de Souza (leticia.dsouza@fgv.br), reason: Prezado Guilherme, Os agradecimentos em uma trabalho tem uma importância significante. Para tirar suas dúvidas, a Suzinei irá entrar em contato com você para esclarecer essa situação. Após o contato dela, favor mandar o novo trabalho. Atenciosamente, Letícia 3799-3631 on 2016-09-14T13:24:21Z (GMT) / Submitted by Guilherme Stein (stein.guilherme@gmail.com) on 2016-09-14T14:45:23Z No. of bitstreams: 1 tese 3.0.pdf: 434242 bytes, checksum: 203925cdcd2f5883b66766677952d8f0 (MD5) / Rejected by Letícia Monteiro de Souza (leticia.dsouza@fgv.br), reason: Prezado Guilherme, Favor fazer a ultima alteração: A sessão Resumo deve estar após a sessão Abstract, devido ao seu trabalho ser em inglês. Atenciosamente, Letícia, 3799-3631 on 2016-09-14T14:48:27Z (GMT) / Submitted by Guilherme Stein (stein.guilherme@gmail.com) on 2016-09-14T14:53:21Z No. of bitstreams: 1 tese 4.0.pdf: 434238 bytes, checksum: 2c9c2be7ae9e557ae3eb8805d6b97afd (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Letícia Monteiro de Souza (leticia.dsouza@fgv.br) on 2016-09-14T14:54:23Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 tese 4.0.pdf: 434238 bytes, checksum: 2c9c2be7ae9e557ae3eb8805d6b97afd (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2016-09-14T14:55:45Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 tese 4.0.pdf: 434238 bytes, checksum: 2c9c2be7ae9e557ae3eb8805d6b97afd (MD5) Previous issue date: 2016-08-19 / This thesis presents two theoretical models. The first shows how the cost of doing business associated with red tape arises as a response to institutional failure, namely, a failure of the legal system. It shows that, when legal system is inefficient, an increase in the cost of doing business can increase society’s welfare. The second model shows how credit constraints affect political preferences of the society relating to human capital investments. Families that are credit constrained invest less in their offspring human capital and thus also prefer policies that involve direct cash transfers to human capital investments. / A tese desenvolve dois modelos teóricos. O primeiro deles mostra como o custo de realizar negócios associados a burocracia surge como resposta a uma falha instituicional, em particular, uma falha no sistema de justiça. Ele mostra que, quando o sistema de justiça é ineficiente, um aumento no custo de realizar negócios pode aumentar o bem-estar da sociedade. O segundo modelo mostra como restrições de crédito afetam as preferências políticas da sociedade no que tange investimentos em capital humano. Famílias com restrição de crédito investem menos no capital humano dos filhos e, por esse motivo, acabam também acabam preferindo políticas que envolvam transferências diretas de renda a investimentos em capital humano.

Este estudo têm como objetivo identificar qual o comportamento de empresas brasileiras de capital aberto com relação à aplicação dos recursos financeiros de seus fluxos de caixa (recursos internos) em investimentos e não investimentos (em fins que não se configuram como um projeto real de investimento) no curto e longo prazo e mostrar como essa questão está relacionado com o grau de restrições financeiras enfrentado pelas empresas. Para alcançar esse objetivo foram estimadas quatro regressões pelo método OLS (Ordinary Least Square / Mínimos Quadrados Ordinários), cada uma delas com uma das variáveis resposta correspondentes aos principais usos de caixa, ou seja, retenção de caixa, investimentos, dividendos e redução do financiamento externo e com as variáveis explicativas dadas pelo fluxo de caixa nos períodos t, t-1 e t-2 e algumas variáveis de controle específicas da firma. Os resultados sugerem que empresas brasileiras restritas e irrestritas se comportam de forma diferente ao receberem um choque positivo em seus fluxos de caixa e que o comportamento das mesmas também difere no curto e no longo prazo. Empresas restritas e irrestritas ao receberem um choque positivo em seus fluxos de caixa, retêm caixa no período contemporâneo e alocam tais recursos intertemporalmente. Empresas restritas investem mais no curto prazo enquanto as irrestritas investem mais no longo prazo. No curto prazo, empresas irrestritas distribuem mais dividendos do que empresas irrestritas e no longo prazo, os coeficientes dos fluxos de caixa não são significativos para nenhum dos grupos. No curto prazo empresas irrestritas reduzem o financiamento externo, enquanto empresas restritas levantam mais financiamentos externos e no longo prazo, esse comportamento se inverte. Dessa forma, fica clara a importância de se considerar o longo prazo bem como as restrições financeiras enfrentadas pelas empresas. / This study aim to identify what is the behaviour of Brazilian public companies regarding the use of financial resources of cash flows (internal resources) in investments and not investments (for purposes that are not configured as a real investment project) in the short and long term and show how this is related to the degree of financial constraints faced by firms. To achieve this aim, four regressions were estimated by OLS ( Ordinary Least Square), each with one of the response variables corresponding to the main uses of cash, ie , cash holding, investments, dividends and external finance reduction and the explanatory variables given by the cash flow in periods t , t - 1 and t - 2 and some control variables specific of the firm. The results suggest that restricted and unrestricted Brazilian companies behave differently when they receive a positive shock on cash flows and their behavior also differs in the short and long term. When constrained and unconstrained firms receive a positive impact on cash flows, they retain cash in the contemporary period and intertemporally allocate such resources. Constrained firms invest more in the short term while the unrestricted invest more in the long run. In the short term, unconstrained firms distribute more dividends than unconstrained firms and in the long run, the coefficients of cash flows are not significant for either groups. In the short term unconstrained firms reduce external finance, while constrained firms raise more external finance and in the long term, this behavior is reversed. Thus, it is clear that it matters to consider the long term as well as financial constraints faced by firms.

Este estudo têm como objetivo identificar qual o comportamento de empresas brasileiras de capital aberto com relação à aplicação dos recursos financeiros de seus fluxos de caixa (recursos internos) em investimentos e não investimentos (em fins que não se configuram como um projeto real de investimento) no curto e longo prazo e mostrar como essa questão está relacionado com o grau de restrições financeiras enfrentado pelas empresas. Para alcançar esse objetivo foram estimadas quatro regressões pelo método OLS (Ordinary Least Square / Mínimos Quadrados Ordinários), cada uma delas com uma das variáveis resposta correspondentes aos principais usos de caixa, ou seja, retenção de caixa, investimentos, dividendos e redução do financiamento externo e com as variáveis explicativas dadas pelo fluxo de caixa nos períodos t, t-1 e t-2 e algumas variáveis de controle específicas da firma. Os resultados sugerem que empresas brasileiras restritas e irrestritas se comportam de forma diferente ao receberem um choque positivo em seus fluxos de caixa e que o comportamento das mesmas também difere no curto e no longo prazo. Empresas restritas e irrestritas ao receberem um choque positivo em seus fluxos de caixa, retêm caixa no período contemporâneo e alocam tais recursos intertemporalmente. Empresas restritas investem mais no curto prazo enquanto as irrestritas investem mais no longo prazo. No curto prazo, empresas irrestritas distribuem mais dividendos do que empresas irrestritas e no longo prazo, os coeficientes dos fluxos de caixa não são significativos para nenhum dos grupos. No curto prazo empresas irrestritas reduzem o financiamento externo, enquanto empresas restritas levantam mais financiamentos externos e no longo prazo, esse comportamento se inverte. Dessa forma, fica clara a importância de se considerar o longo prazo bem como as restrições financeiras enfrentadas pelas empresas. / This study aim to identify what is the behaviour of Brazilian public companies regarding the use of financial resources of cash flows (internal resources) in investments and not investments (for purposes that are not configured as a real investment project) in the short and long term and show how this is related to the degree of financial constraints faced by firms. To achieve this aim, four regressions were estimated by OLS ( Ordinary Least Square), each with one of the response variables corresponding to the main uses of cash, ie , cash holding, investments, dividends and external finance reduction and the explanatory variables given by the cash flow in periods t , t - 1 and t - 2 and some control variables specific of the firm. The results suggest that restricted and unrestricted Brazilian companies behave differently when they receive a positive shock on cash flows and their behavior also differs in the short and long term. When constrained and unconstrained firms receive a positive impact on cash flows, they retain cash in the contemporary period and intertemporally allocate such resources. Constrained firms invest more in the short term while the unrestricted invest more in the long run. In the short term, unconstrained firms distribute more dividends than unconstrained firms and in the long run, the coefficients of cash flows are not significant for either groups. In the short term unconstrained firms reduce external finance, while constrained firms raise more external finance and in the long term, this behavior is reversed. Thus, it is clear that it matters to consider the long term as well as financial constraints faced by firms.

My research seeks to understand the behaviour of workers and firms and how their decisions affect labour market outcomes. My PhD dissertation consists of three separate Chapters that use detailed historical, census and administrative data to gain insights into the mechanisms at play when incentives for production and location decisions change. Chapter 1 asks whether financial incentives can induce inventors to innovate more. I exploit a large reduction in the patent fee in the United Kingdom in 1884 to distinguish between its effect on increased efforts to invent, and a decrease in patent quality due to a lower quality threshold. For this analysis I create a detailed new dataset of 54,000 British inventors with renewal information for each patent. In the longer run high-quality patenting increases by over 100 percent, and the share of new patents due to greater effort accounts for three quarters of the pre-reform share of high-quality patents. To test for the presence of credit constraints I generate two wealth proxies from inventor names and addresses, and find a larger innovation response for inventors with lower wealth. These results indicate efficiency gains from decreasing the cost of inventing and in addition, from relaxing credit constraints. In Chapter 2 we assess the effects of changes in ethnic neighbourhood composition in England and Wales. A change in social housing allocations in the 1990s serves as instrument for changes in the local ethnic composition. For the analysis we create a dataset of highly disaggregated census geographies for 1991-2011. The results imply that an exogenous increase in social housing minority share by 10 percentage points raises the minority share in private housing by 1.2 percentage points initially. This sorting effect is larger for privately rented than for privately owned housing. We further show that an increase in the minority share leads to higher local population growth and a small decrease in house prices in the longer run. Chapter 3 proposes a new approach for analysing responses to comprehensive labour market reforms. Using detailed micro data we evaluate the German Hartz reforms that aimed at reducing unemployment. The timing of the reforms affects the model parameters, which are estimated using matched data on 430,000 workers in 340,000 firms. Contrary to previous findings, our analysis shows that the reforms marginally reduced unemployment at the cost of a pronounced decline in wages. Low-skilled workers suffered the largest wage losses. Furthermore, we decompose the contribution of each reform wave on employment and wages, and document a structural shift in the factors that govern overall wage dispersion.

O objetivo do presente estudo foi verificar empiricamente as implicações dos modelos desenvolvidos por Almeida e Campello (2007) e Acharya, Almeida e Campello (2007) em um contexto de simultaneidade entre as decisões financeiras da firma e no qual o impacto do ambiente legal sobre a capacidade de crédito da mesma fosse considerado. Para alcançar esse objetivo estimou-se um sistema de quatro equações simultâneas, que incorpora os avanços teóricos recentes no tocante as decisões financeiras da firma, para uma amostra de firmas de diversos países. Os resultados alcançados sugerem a rejeição empírica das implicações dos referidos modelos, visto que as diferenças esperadas entre as firmas classificadas como não restritas e classificadas como restritas não puderam ser confirmadas. Os resultados também sugerem que ignorar a simultaneidade que caracteriza as decisões financeiras da firma consiste em um erro de especificação que pode ter consequências sérias sobre as estimativas dos parâmetros e que as restrições financeiras manifestam-se em praticamente todas as firmas, possivelmente em intensidades diferentes. / The purpose of this study is to empirically verify the implications of the Almeida and Campello (2007) and Acharya, Almeida, and Campello (2007) models in a context of simultaneous financial decisions of the firm while taking into account the effects of the legal environment on the credit capacity of the firm. To achieve this goal I estimated a system of four simultaneous equations, which incorporates recent theoretical advancements, over a sample of firms from several countries. The results suggest the rejection of the empirical implications, since the expected differences between constrained and unconstrained firms could not be confirmed. The results also suggest that ignoring the simultaneity among financial decisions induces a misspecification that could have serious consequences on the estimated parameters and that the financial constraints arises in almost all firms, possibly in different degrees.