This dissertation consists of three essays on monetary economics. The first two essays have a focus on the zero lower bound on the nominal interest rate (ZLB) and the Great Recession. In the first essay, I investigate optimal discretionary monetary policy under the ZLB in the case of a distorted steady state due to monopoly and taxation. I find that the central bank in a more distorted economy would cut the interest rate less aggressively under a particular adverse demand shock. This occurs because the ZLB is less likely to bind and the economy escapes from the ZLB sooner. In addition, I show that the conventional linear-quadratic method is not accurate when the ZLB binds. In the second essay, I model the role of subprime lending, deleveraging and an incomplete financial market in driving an economy to the liquidity trap with binding ZLB. There are two key features that differentiate my work from the current literature of deleveraging and the ZLB. First, I endogenize the debt limit of borrowing-constrained households by tying it to the market value of collateral assets. Second and more importantly, I allow for subprime lending. I am able to show that the second feature drives the economy to the ZLB more likely under an adverse shock to the credit market. When the ZLB binds, a great recession emerges with a free fall in output and the price level, mostly due to the Fisherian debt deflation that puts more debt burden on the borrowers. The third essay examines the role of habit formation in solving the persistence problem - output response is transient and not hump-shaped under a monetary shock - in the conventional state dependent pricing model. Intuitively, incorporating habit formation makes consumers less aggressive in spending under a shock, resulting in more persistent response of output. With a moderate habit formation, I am able to show that the model produces hump-shaped and very persistent response of output under a monetary growth shock.

Submitted by André Diniz (andrediniz89@yahoo.com.br) on 2014-02-04T18:20:18Z No. of bitstreams: 1 dissertacaovf.pdf: 527587 bytes, checksum: 98ea804e4e4f494e3f3e89a534c12776 (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Suzinei Teles Garcia Garcia (suzinei.garcia@fgv.br) on 2014-02-07T18:57:56Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 dissertacaovf.pdf: 527587 bytes, checksum: 98ea804e4e4f494e3f3e89a534c12776 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2014-02-07T18:58:13Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 dissertacaovf.pdf: 527587 bytes, checksum: 98ea804e4e4f494e3f3e89a534c12776 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2014-01-24 / This dissertation analyses quantitatively the costs of sovereign default for the economy, in a model where banks with long positions in government debt play a central role in the financial intermediation for private sector’s investments and face financial frictions that limit their leverage ability. Calibration tries to resemble some features of the Eurozone, where discussions about bailout schemes and default risk have been central issues. Results show that the model captures one important cost of default pointed out by empirical and theoretical literature on debt crises, namely the fall in investment that follows haircut episodes, what can be explained by a worsening in banks’ balance sheet conditions that limits credit for the private sector and raises their funding costs. The cost in terms of output decrease is though not significant enough to justify the existence of debt markets and the government incentives for debt repayment. Assuming that the government is able to alleviate its constrained budget by imposing a restructuring on debt repayment profile that allows it to cut taxes, our model generates an important difference for output path comparing lump-sum taxes and distortionary. For our calibration, quantitative results show that in terms of output and utility, it is possible that the effect on the labour supply response generated by tax cuts dominates investment drop caused by credit crunch on financial markets. We however abstract from default costs associated to the breaking of existing contracts, external sanctions and risk spillovers between countries, that might also be relevant in addition to financial disruption effects. Besides, there exist considerable trade-offs for short and long run path of economic variables related to government and banks’ behaviour / Este trabalho analisa de forma quantitativa os custos para a economia de um default soberano, num modelo onde bancos comprados em d´ıvida tˆem um papel central na intermedia¸c˜ao financeira para os investimentos do setor privado e enfrentam fric¸c˜oes financeiras que limitam sua alavancagem. A calibra¸c˜ao busca refletir economias da Eurozona, onde discuss˜oes sobre risco de calote das d´ıvidas e programas de resgate aos governos tem sido temas centrais. Os resultados mostram que o modelo captura um importante custo apontado pela literatura emp´ırica e te´orica, qual seja, a contra¸c˜ao do investimento que segue um epis´odio de default, o que pode ser explicado pela piora no balan¸co do setor financeiro, limitando cr´edito e liquidez para o setor privado e aumentando os custos para o seu financiamento. O custo em termos de perda de produto, no entanto, n˜ao ´e suficiente para explicar a existˆencia de mercados de d´ıvida e os incentivos dos governos em honrar seus compromissos. Assumindo que a reestrutura¸c˜ao do perfil de pagamentos da d´ıvida imposta num caso de default permite ao governo aliviar sua restri¸c˜ao or¸cament´aria e cortar impostos, o modelo apresenta resultados bastante distintos para impostos lump-sum e distorsivos. Para nossa calibra¸c˜ao, a resposta quantitativa de produto e utilidade mostra que ´e poss´ıvel que o efeito na oferta de trabalho gerado por cortes de impostos distorsivos domine a queda no investimento, causada pela escassez de cr´edito nos mercados privados. S˜ao abstra´ıdos, no entanto, os custos de default associados a quebras de contratos, san¸c˜oes externas e transbordamentos de risco entre pa´ıses, que podem ser bastante relevantes em adi¸c˜ao ao impacto sobre o cr´edito no sistema financeiro. Al´em disso, existem trade-offs consider´aveis na trajet´oria de curto e longo prazo das vari´aveis econˆomicas relacionados ao comportamento dos governos e dos bancos.

The aim of the thesis is to quantify the impact of the 2008 financial crisis to U.S. economic growth and also identify potential scenarios for future development. For this purpose, there was selected a sample of historical cases of financial crisis where followed the process of deleveraging. Identified impacts were applied to estimate the future GDP growth. In the period 0-5 years after the crisis GDP typically slowed by 40-45%, in 0-7 year horizon by 28-35%, and in the 10 year horizon by 17-20%. In a case of deducting export effect, slowdown of GDP growth is even higher. For the next 8 years average U.S. GDP growth is estimated to 2.26-2.6%. Compared with the pre-crisis period, slowdown reaches 14-25%. Process of deleveraging is now in the one third of the expected duration. The financial sector and household sector remains vulnerable to return the economy into recession and will deleverage further. Non-financial firms are sound. The greatest risk is hidden in the public sector which is experiencing high deficits and uncontrolled growth of debt. Debt is starting to approach level that may reduce long-term dynamics of GDP growth. The future path is in the hands of government officials. Fiscal consolidation treat the root of the problem, but it is painful and hard to approve. Delays in solving the problem is less painful way, but it can result in massive government debt, as it is now in Japan. Repeating Japan scenario is unlikely. The magnitude of balance sheet recession in Japan was much larger. The measures taken have not been so quick and strong.

Recent episodes of financial instability have motivated researchers as well as policy makers to intensify research on financial stability. This thesis contributes to current research and policy discussion by elaborating and empirically testing methodologies, which can be used to measure financial sector vulnerabilities and identify potential risks for financial stability. It further focuses on the link between real and the financial sector as well as possible implications of household financial distress on the aggregate economy. Together with the proposed framework we provide the survey of the current literature on these topics as well as the empirical results. We argue in favour of stress testing methodologies covering the key risks on banks' balance sheets. These frameworks can also be used for emerging markets where data availability is typically limited. It is shown that due to high volatility of credit growth in emerging economies, the static approach assuming constant balance sheet items is not very appropriate. Furthermore, the feedback effect between the financial sector and the real economy might play an important role under certain assumptions, and therefore it should be taken into account by policy makers. This effect can also emerge in the real sector itself as potential instability can...