Yes / As major financial crises, and the rise of China have shaped the new world order, so it is inevitable that those nations, especially in South East Asia, that once looked west for stability need to reappraise their situation. With the markets so intertwined in events, studying the propagation of equity price shocks within the wider set of macroeconomic variables allows us to say more about how relations are changing, and the likely impacts of any future crash. With data reaching into 2014, this paper is better able to reflect the post global financial crisis period. Using a Global Vector Autoregressive (GVAR) model we analyse these changes and what lies in store for South East Asia, and the ASEAN 4 in particular. Isolating three distinct trade patterns in our weight matrices responses to crises are clearly identifiable, and the opening up of China readily chartable. Indirect effects of China’s rise are highlighted; impacts on the ASEAN 4 being via other nations to date, but direct impact is appearing.

Le thème principal de cette thèse est celui des liens macro financiers. J’ai couvert trois questions différentes liées à ce sujet. Dans le premier chapitre, Gaël Giraud et moi-même développons un modèle pour la zone euro en réponse à de nombreuses critiques des modèles de politiques avant le GFC et en mettant l’accent sur l’interaction entre le secteur financier et la macroéconomie. Les deuxième et troisième chapitres portent sur le comportement du secteur financier au lendemain de la crise financière mondiale et ses implications pour la macroéconomie. Le chapitre 2 examine la pratique de l’abstention à l’égard des emprunteurs en difficulté. La question finalement pertinente dans ce chapitre est de savoir dans quelle mesure ce comportement influe sur l’économie réelle. Enfin, le troisième chapitre met en lumière un épisode de manipulation sur les marchés des matières premières. Cette prétendue manipulation n’était apparemment possible qu’en raison de la position dominante des banques sur le marché pendant la période qui a précédé la crise et par la suite. En fin de compte, je quantifie les effets d’un tel comportement et apporte la preuve d’un changement structurel du marché manipulé au cours de la période de manipulation alléguée. Le premier chapitre exploite un ensemble de données au niveau des banques, tandis que dans les chapitres 2 et 3, je développe des modèles macroéconomiques structurels. En particulier, le modèle de système dynamique du deuxième chapitre est une innovation. Cette catégorie de modèles, et plus particulièrement un modèle de la taille que nous développons, n’a jamais été estimée et utilisée par la suite pour l’analyse des politiques. / The main theme of this thesis are macro-financial linkages. I covered three different questions related to this topic. In the first chapter Gaël Giraud and I develop a model for the Euro Area answering to many of the critiques of policy models before the Global Financial Crisis and with a focus on the interaction between the financial sector and the macroeconomy. The second and third chapter focus on behaviour of the financial sector in the aftermath of the Global Financial Crisis and its implications for the macroeconomy. Chapter 2 investigates the practice of forbearance towards stressed borrowers. The ultimately relevant question in this chapter is to what extend there is a feedback to the real economy due to this behaviour. Finally, the third chapter sheds light on an episode of manipulation in commodity markets. This alleged manipulation was apparently only possible due to the dominant market position banks took in the run up to the crisis and thereafter. Ultimately I quantify the effects of such behaviour and provide evidence of a structural change of the manipulated market during the period of alleged manipulation. The first chapter exploits a bank level dataset, whereas in chapter 2 and 3 I develop structural macroeconomic models. Especially the dynamical system model in the second chapter is an innovation. This class of models and more specifically a model of the size we develop has never been estimated and subsequently used for policy analysis.

AL’objectif de cette thèse est de tester la corrélation des cycles économiques entre les pays développés et les pays émergents, et de déterminer, en outre, l’importance relative des mécanismes causaux de la synchronisation/désynchronisation cyclique entre ces deux groupes de pays. Il s’agit notamment d’examiner comment les phases cycliques qui secouent les pays avancés se transmettent aux pays émergents. En étudiant les relations économiques entre les pays avancés et les pays émergents, nos résultats montrent qu’il existe une synchronisation cyclique entre les deux groupes de pays, mais aussi, en même temps, un découplage partiel des cycles conjoncturels entre un nombre limité de ces deux groupes de pays, notamment l’Inde et la Chine. Les circuits commerciaux et les canaux financiers sont les déterminants principaux de la synchronisation cyclique entre les pays développés et les pays émergents, en tenant compte d’une importance relative des facteurs financiers. Ce résultat nous a amené à analyser plus en profondeur les aspects financiers. Ainsi, on a étudié, en premier lieu, l’indice des turbulences financières. On observe qu’il existe une forte corrélation entre les troubles financiers des pays avancés et ceux des pays émergents. On a également testé, en second lieu, la synchronisation cyclique sous les différents régimes de change. On constate que les économies émergentes qui adoptent un régime de change intermédiaire sont les plus synchronisées, parce qu’il existe un lien entre corrélation cyclique et comportement des réserves de change. Ces dernières arrivent à leur pic dans un régime de change intermédiaire, ce qui est probablement dû aux relations intenses avec l’Europe et les Etats-Unis qui atteignent leur plus haut niveau sous un système intermédiaire de changes / The aim of this thesis is to analyze business cycles correlation between developed and emerging countries, and to determine the relative importance of causal mechanisms of synchronization/desynchronization between these two groups of countries. The business cycles across countries: divergence or convergence? How cyclical phases that shake the developed countries are transmitted to emerging countries ? By examining the economic relations between advanced and emerging countries, our results show that there is business cycles synchronization between the two groups of countries, but also at the same time, a partial decoupling of business cycles between a limited number of these two groups of countries, particularly India and China. Trade integration and financial channels are the main determinants of cyclical synchronization between developed countries and emerging economies, with a relative importance of the financial factors. This result led us to analyze, further, the financial aspects. Thus, we studied in the first place, the financial stress index. It is observed that there is a strong correlation between financial turmoil of developed countries and emerging countries. It was tested, in the second place, the cyclical synchronization under different exchange rate regimes. It appears that emerging economies that adopt an intermediate exchange rate regime are more synchronized because there is a link between their cyclical correlation and their international reserves behavior. These arrive at their peak under an intermediate exchange rate regime, probably due to the intense relations with Europe and the United States, which reach their highest level under an intermediate exchange rate system.

How do financial variables, such as firms’ cash flow and banks’ capital, affect macroeconomic variables, such as investment and GDP growth? What are the macroeconomic effects of exchange rate depreciation in countries where firms and households have extensive foreign-currency liabilities? The doctoral thesis Empirical Essays on Macro-Financial Linkages consists of four separate papers in the field of empirical macroeconomics. The first three papers investigate the macroeconomic implications of financial-market imperfections. Imperfect information between borrowers and lenders makes it more costly for firms to finance investments with external funds than with internal funds. The external finance risk premium depends on the strength of firm balance sheets, which hence affects firm investment. The first paper, The Effect of Cash Flow on Investment: An Empirical Test of the Balance Sheet Channel, examines the importance of financial constraints for investment using a large Swedish firm-level data set which includes many smaller firms (where balance sheet effects are likely to be especially important). I find a positive effect of cash flow on investment, controlling for fundamental determinants of investment and any information in cash flow about investment opportunities. As predicted by the balance sheet channel, the estimated effect of cash flow on investment is especially large for firms which, a priori, are more likely to be financially constrained (low-dividend, small and non-group firms). Moreover, the investment-cash flow sensitivity is significantly larger and more persistent during the first half of the sample period, which includes a severe banking crisis and recession. The second paper, Credit Matters: Empirical Evidence on U.S. Macro-Financial Linkages, written jointly with Tamim Bayoumi, estimates the impact of an adverse shock to bank capital on credit availability and spending in the United States, allowing for feedback from spending and income through the balance sheets of banks, firms and households. We find that an exogenous fall in the bank capital/asset ratio by one percentage point reduces real GDP by some 1 ½ percent through its effects on credit availability, while an exogenous fall in demand of 1 percent of GDP is gradually magnified to around 2 percent through financial feedback effects. The third paper, The Effects of Real Exchange Rate Shocks in an Economy with Extreme Liability Dollarization, studies the effects of real exchange rate depreciation in Bolivia, where over 95 percent of bank credit is denominated in dollars. Currency depreciation increases the domestic-currency value of foreign-currency liabilities and the debt service burden, thus adversely affecting firm balance sheets. A key issue for policymakers in countries with widespread foreign-currency borrowing is whether depreciation would have the standard, expansionary effect on output, or if an adverse balance sheet would dominate. I find that real exchange depreciation has negligible effects on output, since a contractionary balance-sheet effect on investment is counteracted by the standard expansionary effect on net exports. The fourth paper, Uncovered Interest Parity in a Partially Dollarized Developing Country: Does UIP Hold in Bolivia? (And If Not, Why Not?), studies another aspect of macro-financial linkages. The so-called uncovered interest parity (UIP) condition states that interest rate differentials compensate for expected exchange rate changes, equalizing the expected returns from holding assets which only differ in terms of currency denomination. Because of data availability problems, there is a lack of empirical tests of UIP for developing countries. The paper studies the case of Bolivia, where there are bank accounts which only differ in terms of currency denomination (bolivianos or U.S. dollars). I find that UIP does not hold in Bolivia, but that the deviations are smaller than in most other studies of developed and emerging economies. / Diss. Stockholm : Handelshögskolan, 2009 Sammanfattning jämte 4 uppsatser