Yes / The global economy has experienced considerable turbulence since 2007. The financial crisis has been viewed as the trigger for a prolonged period of economic decline. This decline remains an issue for all member states of the European Union, the eurozone and beyond. We argue genesis of this crisis lies in the integration negotiations of 1991, ratified in 1992. These produced a flawed economic model within the eurozone. Given the seeds of decay were planted at origin; we argue the solution can be found through a reconstructed eurozone via looser integration, where countries less equipped to deal with the realities of closer integration will be economically independent.

The thesis complexly assesses the role of Germany in present European Union and Eurozone, especially its influence and responsibility on the formation of the macroeconomic imbalances before the Eurozone crisis, as well as its resolution. The crisis is caused by a divergence in unit labour costs between member countries, and the thesis aims to evaluate the effect of applied austerity measures in the debtor countries on the adjustment of said unit labour costs divergence. It explores additional policy options available as well. Keywords Germany, Eurozone, European Union, crisis, balance of payments, unit labour cost Author's e-mail Thorrmartin@gmail.com Supervisor's e-mail dedek@fsv.cuni.cz

The relation between the euro cash changeover and the perceived inflation in the Baltic countries Abstract This thesis focuses on the effect of euro cash changeover on inflation perception, and its relation to the inflation measured by central banks or by national statistical offices. We present an analyses of inflation gap in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania at the euro introduction and detect its determinants by econometric methods. We use Ordinary Least Squares, Random Effects Generalized Least Squares and Fixed Effects estimator. The thesis is divided into two main parts. The first part examines the theoretical background of perceived inflation and focuses at the phenomenon of increased inflation gap at the euro introduction. Second part contains an empirical study on inflation gap. We find out that perceived inflation in Baltic countries does not show such a divergence, as it was presented at the establishment of the Eurozone. Moreover, we find out that education and available income in general has a small, but evincible effect on inflation gap observed at euro introduction.

Considérant les fragilités d’une union monétaire hétérogène, ainsi que l’incapacité de la politique monétaire unique pour stabiliser les cycles financiers nationaux, des nouveaux outils pour sauvegarder la stabilité financière sont de rigueur dans l’Union Economique et Monétaire (UEM). En réponse à la crise financière, les économies avancées ont fortifié la boite à outils avec l’approche macroprudentielle à la réglementation prudentielle ; à savoir la pratique de se servir des instruments prudentiel dans le but de protéger la santé du système financier dans sa globalité et l’économie réelle, et plus seulement la santé des banques individuellement. La politique macroprudentielle porte sur ses épaules la responsabilité de maîtriser le risque systémique dans l’Union, mais les hétérogénéités nationales qui la caractérisent entraînent des redoutables défis. Cette thèse a comme but d’enrichir le débat en examinant comment les hétérogénéités macrofinancières et institutionnelles peuvent conditionner la conduite des politiques macroprudentielles. Il s’agit d’un sujet souvent abordé dans la littérature macroéconomique d’après-crise, mais la réflexion est souvent fondée sur des prémisses ne prenant pas compte des complexités inhérentes aux concepts fondamentaux, tels que la stabilité financière elle-même. Plutôt que construire des modèles davantage sophistiqués visant à incorporer toutes les dimensions du phénomène, il est possible d’améliorer l’exercice de modélisation en portant en réévaluant les bases conceptuelles. Pour cette raison, le premier chapitre est dévoué à un survol critique de la littérature dans lequel on identifie plusieurs points de tension souvent ignorés, puis on les interprète dans le contexte de l’UEM. Sur la base des enseignements du chapitre I, le chapitre II aborde la question de s’il est souhaitable que les régulateurs se soucient de stabiliser le cycle financier national en présence d’effets de report transfrontaliers, tel que dans le régime en vigueur. Dans ce but, on se sert d’un modèle statique Néo-Keynésien à deux pays où l’utilisation du coussin de fonds propres contracyclique dans le cœur nuit à la stabilité financière de la périphérie via le marché interbancaire. En comparant une règle de stabilisation nationale à un régime où le régulateur du cœur internalise les effets de report, on cible des scénarios où le statu quo se révèle sous-optimal. Finalement, le chapitre III s’intéresse aux importantes divergences institutionnelles qui existent entre les régulateurs nationaux. En examinant l’information officielle, ainsi que les évaluations du FMI et du FSB, on documente les différences qualitatives dans le cadre de gouvernance à travers six axes : mécanismes de coordination, complétude des instruments, indépendance, fluidité du processus de décision, force du mandat légal, degré de transparence et recours à la communication. Sachant que les caractéristiques institutionnelles affectent la vitesse de réaction, on propose un index synthétique comparatif pour capturer quantitativement comment ces divergences institutionnelles sont susceptibles d’influencer le biais à l’inaction. On trouve que les pays sont inégalement protégés contre le biais d’inaction, mais qu’il existe différentes approches possibles pour créer des cadres de gouvernance résilients. / Given the fragilities of a heterogenous monetary union and the inability of the single monetary policy to lean against the wind of national financial cycles, new policies to defend financial stability in the European Monetary Union (EMU) are of the upmost importance. In response global financial crisis, advanced economies have supplemented their policy arsenal with a macroprudential approach to financial regulation, the practice of using prudential regulation to protect the health of the financial system and the economy as a whole, rather than just the health of individual institutions. Policymakers have unambiguously placed the task of containing systemic financial risk on the shoulders of macroprudential policy, but the national heterogeneities that characterize the Euro area pose significant challenges. The purpose of this thesis dissertation is to enrich the debate surrounding Euro area macroprudential policy by exploring how macrofinancial and institutional heterogeneity can condition its proper conduct. Macroprudential policy is a popular subject in post-crisis macroeconomics, but analysis is often built on premises that fail to acknowledge the complexities inherent to its most basic concepts, such as financial stability itself. Rather than building ever-more complex models that aim to incorporate all the dimensions of the phenomenon, the problem can be addressed by conducting a critical reflection on the field’s conceptual bases before formulating a model’s assumptions. In the first chapter, we conduct a critical review of the literature and identify several points of tension, interpreting their implications for the Euro area case. Based on the insights of chapter I, chapter II revisits the question of whether it is ideal for regulators to keep a narrow focus on national financial stabilization in the presence of cross-border spillovers, as is currently done. To do so, we build a static two-country New-Keynesian model where countercyclical capital regulation in the core affects financial stability in the periphery through the interbank market. By comparing national stabilization rules to a regime where the core regulator internalizes the spillover, we identify scenarios where the status quo is suboptimal. Finally, chapter III examines the significant institutional differences that exist among EMU national regulators. By reviewing official information , as well as assessment reports from the IMF and the FSB; we map the qualitative differences of national governance frameworks across six dimensions: presence of coordination mechanisms, completeness of instruments, independence, decision-making expeditiousness, strength of the legal mandate, use of communication and transparency. Given that institutional characteristics influence reactivity, we aim to quantify how this institutional heterogeneity affects the vulnerability to inaction bias through a comparative synthetic index. We find that countries are unequally protected against inaction bias, but there are several possible approaches to building robust governance frameworks.

The task was to show on an example of Slovakia, which has accepted the euro, in comparison with V4 countries, which have kept their own currencies, that common currency does not necessarily bring only negatives. Current EMU problems don't come from the nature of euro but the key problem comes from the public finance and irresponsibility of politicians. On the base of this knowledge, the work suggests an alternative approach to solve debt crisis on the example of Greece, meaning a fiscal rent of Greek touristic islands. The work also deals with the vision of EMU in future to avoid this kind of problems and to change the overall approach to fiscal policy. I see a solution in monetary-fiscal union, which is based on the new fiscal rule derived from Okun's law and also on common supervision institution over national government budgets with the right to arbitrarily intervene in case of need.

This thesis is a comprehensive interpretation of European political history in the periodization from 2008 to 2016. The history begins with an exploration of the intellectual and political origins of the post-World War II project of European integration and the development of, and opposition to, the early institutions that eventually formed the contemporary assemblage of the European Union. Following a traditionally structured history, this work is styled as a ‘history of the present’ that specifies the role of the European Union in precipitating and attempting to overcome the financial and monetary crises, foreign policy quandaries on its Eastern periphery, an unmanageable escalation in migration rates, and the materialization of Eurosceptic, populist, and anti-establishment political actors at European and national levels. The specific arrangement of this thesis intends to fulfill its ultimate purpose of identifying the dynamic circumstances that aided the outcome of the United Kingdom referendum to leave the European Union.

Cette thèse étudie quelques aspects de la contagion financière en Europe, pendant la crise des subprimes et celle des dettes souveraines européennes. Ainsi, dans le premier chapitre, nous étudions la transmission du stress financier de la zone euro aux pays de l’Europe Orientale, et centrale (PECO). Notre objectif est d’examiner empiriquement le lien entre la dégradation de l’environnement financier de la zone euro -pendant ces deux crises- et les variations de la volatilité sur les marchés boursiers des PECO. Dans le deuxième chapitre, notre objectif est d’étudier la contagion entre les marchés boursiers des PECO et de la zone euro. Pour ce faire, nous optons pour la méthodologie de Flavin et al. (2008) fondée sur une approche unifiée qui permet de tester à la fois la shift et la pure contagion. Enfin, dans le troisième chapitre, nous nous intéressons aux effets des crises financières récentes sur les rendements des actions bancaires de 15 pays. Notre contribution à la littérature est double. Tout d’abord, nous utilisons un modèle multifactoriel des rendements des actions bancaires augmenté par un facteur de risque souverain. En outre, nous optons pour un modèle de régression avec transition douce (STR) qui permet une définition endogène des périodes de crises et capte les changements de paramètres associés à la shift contagion. / This thesis examines some aspects of the financial contagion in Europe during the subprime crisis and the European sovereign debt. The aim of the first chapter is to study the transmission of financial stress in the Eurozone to Central and Eastern European countries (CEE). Our goal is to empirically examine the relationship between the degradation of the financial environment of the Eurozone -during these two crises- and the variations of volatility on the CEE’s stock markets. In the second chapter, we investigate contagion between pairs of Eurozone and CEE’s stock market. For this purpose, we opt for the methodology of Flavin et al. (2008) based on a unified approach that allows for testing both shift and bi-directional pure contagion. In the third chapter, we analyze the influence of the recent European sovereign debt crisis on banks’ equity returns for 15 countries. Our contribution to the literature is twofold. First, we use an explicit multifactor model of equity returns extended with a sovereign risk factor. Second, we adopt a Smooth Transition Regression (STR) framework that allows for an endogenous definition of crisis periods and captures the changes in parameters associated with shift contagion.

Submitted by Elesbão Santiago Neto (neto10uepb@cche.uepb.edu.br) on 2016-10-25T17:00:50Z No. of bitstreams: 1 PDF - Anna Beatriz Leite Henriques.pdf: 2031474 bytes, checksum: 86ae7c77f5882000eb6b8dd3e35e2542 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2016-10-25T17:00:50Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 PDF - Anna Beatriz Leite Henriques.pdf: 2031474 bytes, checksum: 86ae7c77f5882000eb6b8dd3e35e2542 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2016-05-25 / CAPES / The main goal of this dissertation is to demonstrate how the decision making process of the European Union during the eurozone crisis has deepened its democratic deficit between 2008 and 2014. The historical and institutional evolution of the EU together w ith the gradual transfer of competences from the domestic sphere to the supranacional one have raised academic and popular suspicion (HIX e FØLLESDAL, 2006; AZMAN, 2001; JOLLY, 2013) about how democratic and legitimate were the decisions taken by the EU. In the context of the global financial turmoil initiated in 2008 with the Lehman Brothers ‟ s declaration of bankruptcy , it did not take long until the European Union started to feel the effects of this major financial crisis, which shed light into an even d eeper problem: the crisis of the eurodemocracy. In this sense, this dissertation aims to analyze how the EU‘s decision making to refrain the crisis has deepened its democratic d e ficit between 2008 and 2014. The hypothesis is that the EU, during the eurozon e crisis, concentrated its decision making process in the hands of indirectly elected political actors and of the wealthiest member states. In order confirm that, it will briefly present the institucional setup and the decision ma k ing process of the EU, as well as the academic debate regarding the existence of such demoratic d e ficit. The second section will cover the global financial crisis and how it affected Europe, leading to the emergence of the so called european sovereign debt crisis. The third sectio n will present the new architecture of the EU emerged to contain the crisis, especially the new fiscal transfers mechanisms, the new institutional framework and the European Central Bank‘s new role. The fourth and final section will aggregate the previousl y presented data and analyze them in the light of Føllesdal and Hix‘s (2006) systematization of the democratic deficit. Th is dissertation will delineate the causal pathway that led the EU to use technocratic resources to adopt crisis contention policies an d to concentrate its decision making processes in unelected Executive and suprana tional actors. It will also demonstrate how the EU lost its legitimacy and democratic accountability, both in relation to the (lack of) popular participation, the (poor) polit ical outcomes and also in relation to the very political process who lead to the adoption of all these measures. / O objetivo precípuo dessa dissertação é demonstrar de que forma a tomada de decisão da União E uropeia durante a crise da Zona do Euro aprofundou o seu déficit democrático entre os anos de 2008 e 2014. A evolução histórica e institucional da UE , concomitante à gradual transferência de competências da esfera interna para a supranacional, levantou questionamentos da academia (HIX e FØLLESDAL, 2006; AZMAN, 2001; JOLLY, 2013) e dos cidadãos a respeito do quão democráticas e legítimas seriam a s políticas discutidas e/ou adotadas pela UE. No contexto do revés financeiro mundial iniciado em 2008 com a quebra do Banco Lehman Brothers , nos EUA, a Europa não demorou a sentir os efeitos da crise que, além de afetar as grandes e conomias europeias, evidenciou que a maior crise talvez não fosse a do euro, mas sim a da eurodemocracia . Dessa forma, a presente proposta tem como objetivo analisar de que forma a tomada de decisão para conter a crise aprofundou o défic it democrático da UE entre os anos de 2008 e 2014. A hipótese é a de que, durante a crise, a UE concentrou a tomada de decisão nas mãos de atores políticos indiretamente eleitos e dos Estados membros com maior poderio financeiro. Em um primeiro momento , s e rá apresentada brevemente a estrutura institucional e o processo decisório da UE, bem como o debate acadêmico acerca da existência ou não de déficit democrático. O segundo capítulo versará sobre a crise financeira mundial e como ela verberou na Europa, ger ando a chamada crise do endividamento soberano europeu . O terceiro capítulo abordará a nova arquitetura emergida na UE para conter a crise, em especial os mecanismos para transferências fiscais, a nova arquit etura institucional e o novo papel do Banco Cent ral. Por fim, o quarto capítulo agregará os dados expostos nas seções anteriores e analisará a reação europeia à crise à luz da sistematizaçãoo do déficit democrático feita por Føllesdal e Hix (2006). Ser á demonstrado o caminho causal que levou a UE a usar recursos tecnocráticos para adotar medidas impopulares de contenção à crise e a concentrar sua tomada de decisão em atores Executivos e instituições supranacionais indiretamente eleitas. Em decorrência disso , houve perda de legitimidade e accountability d emocrático da UE, tanto em relação à participação popular, quanto aos resultados políticos e ao processo político que deu origem a essas políticas.

This paper analyzes what factors influence the long-term interest rate, in order to give an understanding of why the government debt has increased in EU member states. It is a statistical study of panel data analyzed by the fixed effect model. The research of the 27 EU member states is based on secondary data from the European Commission; Eurostat and EconStats. The results by the fixed effect model show that government debt, budget deficit and presidential system are significant and have a positive relationship with the long- term interest rate. The growth rate is significant, having a negative relationship with the long-term interest rate and the financial crisis did not increase the long-term interest rate. The results were not entirely consistent with theories and previous studies.

While linkages between some macroeconomic phenomena (e.g. unemployment, GDP growth) and suicide rates in some countries have been explored, only one study, hitherto, has established a causal relationship between fiscal consolidation and suicide, albeit in a single country. This study examines the impact of budget consolidation on suicide mortality across all Eurozone peripheral economies, while controlling for various economic and sociodemographic differences. The impact of fiscal adjustments is found to be gender, age and time specific. In particular, fiscal consolidation has short-, medium- and long-run suicide increasing effects on the male population between 65 and 89 years of age. A one percentage point reduction in government spending is associated with an 1.39%, 2.35% and 2.64% increase in the short-, medium- and long-run, respectively, of male suicides rates between 65 and 89 years of age in the Eurozone periphery. These results are highly robust to alternative measures of fiscal consolidation. Unemployment benefits and substantial employment protection legislation seem to mitigate some of the negative effects of fiscal consolidation on suicide mortality. Plausible explanations for these impacts are provided and policy implications drawn. (authors' abstract) / Series: Department of Economics Working Paper Series