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

Submitted by VITOR HUGO DA SILVA DANTAS de MORAES (vitor.engmec@gmail.com) on 2015-02-24T23:43:41Z No. of bitstreams: 1 MPE - DISSERTAÇÃO MESTRADO - VITOR MORAES - REVISADO V2.pdf: 629479 bytes, checksum: 84bdb0a8f1a9a631f407867932459037 (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Renata de Souza Nascimento (renata.souza@fgv.br) on 2015-02-25T18:55:48Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 MPE - DISSERTAÇÃO MESTRADO - VITOR MORAES - REVISADO V2.pdf: 629479 bytes, checksum: 84bdb0a8f1a9a631f407867932459037 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2015-02-25T18:59:56Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 MPE - DISSERTAÇÃO MESTRADO - VITOR MORAES - REVISADO V2.pdf: 629479 bytes, checksum: 84bdb0a8f1a9a631f407867932459037 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2015-01-28 / This paper seeks to go beyond such decision, own capital or third, and verify the decision of what type of third resource raise, so this study analyzes the company's debt composition with respect to the source of financing: private or public sources. Therefore, econometric models were built in order to investigate which features are relevant in seeking the decision of the best sources of financing their activities. Data were collected from panel of Brazilian companies outside the finance and insurance sector, whose shares are traded on the São Paulo Stock Exchange (BOVESPA). In this paper we report variables of enterprises regarding the quality and credibility of financial reporting, total fixed assets, profitability, leverage, sector, company size and internationalization. The results indicated that factors such as total fixed assets, leverage, profitability and some sectors of activity are relevant to establishing the firm's financing strategy. The variable level of disclosure, responsible for differentiating a company with higher accounting information quality from others, was not significant, as it was expected. Therefore, the results suggest that the studied companies tend to follow the theory of inefficient liquidation when they take their funding decisions. / O presente trabalho busca ir além da decisão, capital próprio ou terceiro, e verificar a decisão de qual tipo de recurso terceiro angariar, portanto, analisa a composição do endividamento da empresa com relação à fonte de financiamento: recursos privados ou públicos. Logo, foram construídos modelos econométricos com o intuito de investigar quais características, por parte da empresa, são relevantes na escolha de qual fonte recorrer para financiar suas atividades. Foram utilizados dados em painel de empresas brasileiras não pertencentes ao setor de Finanças e Seguros, cujas ações são negociadas na Bolsa de Valores de São Paulo (BOVESPA). Neste trabalho foram investigadas variáveis das empresas referentes à qualidade e credibilidade das informações contábeis, total de ativos imobilizados, lucratividade, alavancagem, setor de atuação, tamanho da empresa e internacionalização. Os resultados indicaram que fatores como total de ativos imobilizados, alavancagem, lucratividade e alguns setores de atuação são relevantes para determinar a estratégia de financiamento da firma. A variável nível de disclosure, responsável por diferenciar a empresa que possui qualidade da informação contábil superior às demais, não apresentou ser significante, embora, com o sinal esperado. Portanto, os resultados sugerem que as empresas estudadas tendem a seguir a teoria da liquidação ineficiente quando tomam as suas decisões de financiamento.

[pt] Nesse trabalho abordamos a importância do gerenciamento na sustentabilidade da dívida. Em um primeiro instante, definimos períodos de insustentabilidade da dívida pública de forma alternativa à literatura corrente. Através de modelos probabilísticos com variável dependente insustentabilidade sendo binária, encontramos evidências empíricas de que a composição e a duração da dívida influenciam a probabilidade de ocorrência de períodos de insustentabilidade, para o período compreendido entre janeiro de 1996 e setembro de 2005. Em um segundo momento, utilizamos a abordagem de gerenciamento de risco para analisar a sustentabilidade da dívida. Agregamos a essa abordagem o fato de decompormos a dívida pública por indexador. Através de simulações de Bootstrap em bloco e Monte Carlo, obtemos trajetórias explosivas da dívida pública, embora na ausência de risco, haja sustentabilidade. Além do mais, estimamos estatísticas de risco para a dívida e encontramos razoável correlação entre essas e o risco-país. Por fim, observamos que títulos indexados à taxa de juros selic e a moeda estrangeira aumentam a probabilidade de haver insustentabilidade. / [en] We discuss the importance of the debt management in its sustainability. At first, we define unsustainability periods of the public debt in an alternative way, if compared to the current literature. Using probabilistic models with unsustainability dependent dummy variable, we find empiric evidences that composition and duration of the debt influence the probability that unsustainability periods might occur, for the period between January 1996 and September 2005. In a second step, we use the risk management approach to analyze the debt sustainability. We include in this approach an analysis of the decomposition of the public debt. Applying Bootstrap and Monte Carlo simulations, we obtain some explosive trajectories of the public debt, although in the lack of risk, there is sustainability. In addition, we estimate risk statistics of the debt and we find reasonable correlation between these and the country risk. Finally, we observe that Selic interest rate and foreign currency indexed bonds raise the probability of unsustainability.