La question de la transmission internationale des cycles a reçu une attention considérable en raison de l’intensification de la globalisation économique et financière. La problématique générale de cette thèse s’inscrit dans le prolongement de la littérature consacrée à cette question. Plus précisément, elle focalise son attention sur l’analyse de la transmission du cycle des Etats-Unis sur les pays émergents. Elle comporte trois chapitres. Le premier, en se basant sur une nouvelle approche économétrique en termes de modèle Global VAR, s’attache à étudier l’effet des chocs provenant des Etats-Unis sur les pays émergents. Il confirme l’idée que les Etats-Unis jouent un rôle important dans la transmission des cycles économiques étant donné leur poids dans l’économie mondiale. Le second chapitre propose d’étudier la transmission financière des Etats-Unis en s’intéressant à la crise des subprimes sur ces pays. L’estimation du modèle switch à probabilité variée développée indique que la persistance des stress financiers, le durcissement des conditions du crédit et l’augmentation du risque de non-solvabilité bancaire ont été les causes fondamentales de la transmission financière. La volatilité de l’indice boursier américain a été le facteur clé de la contamination avec tous les pays étudiés. Le troisième chapitre est consacré à étudier si les pays émergents sont en mesure d’adopter des politiques budgétaires contracycliques pouvant atténuer les chocs provenant de l’extérieur. En utilisant le modèle à seuil avec transition lisse en panel (le modèle PSTR), ce chapitre confirme que la politique budgétaire dans les pays émergents est procyclique en période de ralentissement économique et aussi lorsque la dette publique dépasse le seuil critique. De ce fait, une solide position budgétaire est fondamentale pour assurer la stabilité macroéconomique. / The issue of international transmission cycles has considerably received attention due to the increasing economic and financial globalization. Our thesis is in line with the literature dedicated to this question. More specifically, we focusour attention on the analysis of the transmission cycle of the United States to emerging countries. It consists of three chapters. The first one, based on a new econometric approach in terms of Global VAR model, aims to study the effect of shocks from the U.S. to emerging countries. The main resultconfirms the idea that the United States plays an important role in the transmission of economic cycles given their weight in the world economy. The second chapter proposes to study the financial transmission of the United States by focusing on the subprime crisis on these countries. The estimation of time varyingtransitionprobability (TVTP) Markov switchingmodel indicates that the persistence of financial stress, the tightening of the conditions of the credit and the increase of the risk of Banking solvency constitute the major determinants of the financial transmission. The US stock market volatility is the key factor transmission channel for all the studied countries. The third chapter is devoted to investigate whether emerging countries are able to adopt countercyclical fiscal policies to mitigate the impact from outside. Using the threshold model with smooth transition panel ( the PSTR model ), this chapter confirms that fiscal policy in emerging countries is procyclicalin the slowdown periodand also when public debt exceeds the critical threshold. Therefore, a strong fiscal position is fundamental to ensure macroeconomic stability.

Der Zweck dieser Arbeit ist es, die Beziehung zwischen die Größe des Landes und das Wachstum auf internationaler Ebene und vergleichsweise in der Wirtschafts-und Währungsunion zu untersuchen und erarbeiten ihre Folgen für das Verhalten der wachstumsorientierte Finanzpolitik. Um ein globales Verständnis des Zusammenhangs zwischen Größe des Landes und das Wachstum in der EWU weiter verfolgen wir einen interdisziplinären Ansatz, einschließlich der makroökonomischen Modellierung (DSGE), Ökonometrie und Analyse der politischen Ökonomie. Die Kombination dieser Untersuchungen schließen wir, dass die Größe des Landes einen Einfluss auf die wirtschaftlichen Strukturen der Nationen, die Auswirkungen ihrer Politik und damit auf ihre Wachstumsdynamik hat. Aus diesem Grund ist es notwendig, die Bedeutung der Größe des Landes und ihre Folgen für die WWU wieder. / The purpose of this dissertation is to investigate the relationship between country size and growth at the international level and comparatively in the Economic and Monetary Union, and to draw up its consequences for the conduct of growth-orientated fiscal policies. To further a global understanding of the link between country size and growth in the EMU, we follow an interdisciplinary approach, including macro-economic modelling (DSGE), econometrics and political economy analysis. Combining these analyses, we conclude that country size has an incidence on the economic structures of nations, the effects of their policies and therefore on their pace of growth. For this reason there is a need to reinstate the importance of country size and its consequences for the EMU.

Abstract of thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the Degree of Master of Commerce and Management Dynamics of macroeconomic variables in Fiji : a cointegrated VAR analysis By Shiu Raj Singh The objective of this study is to examine how macroeconomic variables of Fiji inter-relate with aggregate demand and co-determine one another using a vector autoregression (VAR) approach. This study did not use a prior theoretical framework but instead used economic justification for selection of variables. It was found that fiscal policy, which is generally used as a stabilisation tool, did not have a positive effect on real Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth in the short term. Effects on GDP growth were positive over the long term but not statistically significant. Furthermore, expansionary fiscal policy caused inflationary pressures. Fiji has a fixed exchange rate regime, therefore, it was expected that the focus of monetary policy would be the maintenance of foreign reserves. It was, however, found that monetary expansion in the short term resulted in positive effects on real GDP growth and resulted in inflation. The long term effects of monetary policy on real GDP growth were negative, which are explained by the fixed exchange rate regime, endogenous determination of money supply by the central bank, an unsophisticated financial market and, perhaps, an incomplete transmission of the policy. Both merchandise trade and visitor arrivals growth were found to positively contribute to short term and long term economic growth. Political instability was found not to have significant direct effects on real GDP growth but caused a significant decline in visitor arrivals which then negatively affected economic growth in the short term.

L'objectiu d'aquesta tesi és analitzar com s'han de concebre les polítiques fiscals i monetàries en un context en què els polítics tenen problemes de credibilitat. Es desenvolupen metodologies i aplicacions per mostrar com diferents graus de credibilitat de les institucions polítiques afecten la determinació d'impostos, deute públic, instruments monetaris i, en general, els resultats econòmics. En el primer capítol - Loose commitment (Compromís Dèbil) -, s'introdueix una nova metodologia per resoldre problemes de política òptima tenint en compte que els polítics podrien no complir les seves promeses, i analitza els efectes de la credibilitat sobre la imposició sobre el capital i sobre el treball. El segon capítol - Political Disagreement Lack of Commitment and the Level of Debt (Desacord Polític, Falta de Compromís i el Nivell de Deute) - considera un cas en què la credibilitat es limitada per el fet d'haver-hi alternança entre polítics amb objectius diferents. En particular, es mostra com l'alternança política i la falta de compromís afecten el nivell de deute públic. Finalment, el tercer capítol - The Macroeconomic Effects of Unstable Monetary Policy Objectives (Els Efectes Macroeconòmics de la Inestabilitat dels Objectius de Política Monetària) - analitza com la possibilitat de canvis en els objectius influeixen en les decisions de política monetària. / El objetivo de esta tesis es analizar cómo se deben concebir las políticas fiscales y monetarias en un contexto en que los políticos tienen problemas de credibilidad. Se desarrollan metodologías y aplicaciones para mostrar cómo diferentes grados de credibilidad de las instituciones políticas afectan la determinación de impuestos, deuda pública, instrumentos monetarios y, en general, los resultados económicos. En el primer capítulo - Loose commitment (Compromiso Débil)-, se introduce una nueva metodología para resolver problemas de política óptima tomando en cuenta que los políticos podrían no cumplir con sus promesas, y analiza los efectos de la credibilidad sobre la imposición sobre el capital y el trabajo. El segundo capítulo - Political Disagreement Lack of Commitment and the Level of Debt (Desacuerdo Político, Falta de Compromiso y el Nivel de Deuda) - considera un caso en que la credibilidad está limitada por el hecho de que hay alternancia entre políticos con distintos objetivos. En particular, se muestra cómo la alternancia política y la falta de compromiso afectan el nivel de deuda pública. Por último, el tercer capítulo - The Macroeconomic Effects of Unstable Monetary Policy Objectives (Los Efectos Macroeconómicos de la Inestabilidad de los Objetivos de Política Monetaria) - analiza cómo la posibilidad de cambios en los objetivos influye en las decisiones de política monetaria. / The purpose of this thesis is to analyze how fiscal and monetary policies should be designed in a context where policymakers have credibility problems. Methodologies and applications are developed to show how different degrees of policymakers' credibility affect the determination of policy choices, such as taxes or monetary instruments, and more generally the economic outcomes.The first chapter - Loose Commitment -, introduces a new methodology to solve optimal policy problems taking into account that policymakers may not fulfill their promises, and analyzes the effects of policymakers' commitment on capital and labor taxation. The second chapter - Political Disagreement, Lack of Commitment and the Level of Debt - considers a case where commitment is limited by the fact that policymakers with different objectives alternate in office. In particular, it is shown how lack of commitment and political turnover affect the level of public debt. Finally, the third chapter - The Macroeconomic Effects of Unstable Monetary Policy Objectives - analyzes how the possibility of changes in policy objectives influences monetary policy choices.

The dissertation provides an analysis, evaluation, and comparison of selected areas of economic policy in the United States of America and Germany from 1933 to 1939 within the context of the 1920s, the Great Depression, and the Second World War. Based on a thorough analysis of the determined objectives, tools, the intended and unintended impacts of their fiscal policies, monetary policies, and foreign-trade policies, the dissertation thesis aims to verify the basic hypothesis that the United States and German economic policies were largely similar as responding to similar issues that both advanced economies had to face. During the verification process, the author relies mainly on the genuine processing and analysis of original statistical sources. In the individual chapters of the dissertation both identical, and also different features in selected types of economic policies are presented. On the basis of a comparison of the main economic-policies trends, despite some differences in the partial characteristics of chosen economic policy types, it can be concluded that economic policies of the central governments of Germany and the United States of America were similar in surprisingly many respects.

After many decades, macroeconomic effects of fiscal policy have returned to the centre of the economic policy debate. Both automatic fiscal stabilizers and discretionary fiscal stimuli have been used to support aggregate demand during the recent global economic crisis with a subsequent need for large-scale fiscal consolidations. In this context, a proper assessment of the size of automatic fiscal stabilizers and fiscal multipliers represents a key input for fiscal policymaking. This dissertation provides a quantitative analysis of the interactions between fiscal policy and real economy in the Czech Republic. The impact of real economy developments on public finances is assessed based on the methods of the OECD, the European Commission and the ESCB for the identification of general government structural balances, i.e. balances adjusted for effects of the economic cycle and net of one-off and other temporary transactions. I find that the underlying fiscal position, as approximated by the government structural balance, was mostly below the level stabilising the debt-to-GDP ratio since mid-1990s. An indistinct improvement in the structural balance can be identified in the period 2004--2007, which was subsequently reversed by the adverse structural impact of the world economic crisis. At the same time, dynamics of unadjusted fiscal balance was largely determined by one-off transactions in the past. The effects of fiscal policy on real economy are analysed using the structural VAR approach. I find that an increase in government spending has a temporary positive effect on output that peaks after one to two years with a multiplier of around 0.6. Tax multiplier appears to be small and, in contrast to standard Keynesian assumptions, positive. Government spending is supportive to private consumption, contradicting the hypothesis of Ricardian equivalence, but it crowds out private investment in the short run. The results should be interpreted with caution, as the analysis is complicated by rapidly changing economic environment in the period of the economic transition, relatively short available time series and a large number of one-off fiscal transactions.

The paper provides a comprehensive overview of public budgets in the Czech Republic, focusing on government budgets. The thesis compares the development of fiscal policies in distinct political cycles in the modern era of the Czech Republic. This allows for the analysis of the influence of the fiscal policies on the development of distinct macroeconomic indicators which then makes possible the evaluation of the success of different approaches to budget making. The preparation of public budgets is a periodical activity which happens at all levels of public governance. Therefore, the paper thoroughly analyzes preceding budgets and attempts to reveal the errors make by our governments. A deductive method is used with these analyses and their comparisons to make the foundation for general principles which can be used for the improvement of the budget planning in the Czech Republic.

Cette thèse s’intéresse d’une part aux effets macroéconomiques des régimes de change, et d’autre part, aux récentes évolutions sur la politique budgétaire et la décentralisation. La partie I met essentiellement l’accent sur l’interaction entre les régimes de change (RC) et la politique budgétaire, monétaire et fiscale. Tout d’abord, nous mettons en évidence que les RC peuvent avoir un effet stabilisateur sur la politique budgétaire (chapitre 1). Cependant, cet effet stabilisateur des RC n’est pas automatique mais dépendrait plutôt des conséquences d’une politique budgétaire laxiste. Le chapitre 2 s’intéresse quant à lui à la causalité entre RC et crises (bancaire/financière, de change et de dette) et remet en cause la vision bipolaire qui prétendait que les RC intermédiaires sont plus vulnérables aux crises que les solutions en coin (RC fixes/flexibles). Il ressort de notre analyse que les fondamentaux macroéconomiques (la volatilité du crédit au secteur privé, le financement du déficit, et le ratio dette sur PIB) jouent un rôle considérable. Le chapitre 3 met en évidence un lien entre les RC et la politique fiscale. Les pays à RC fixes montrent une plus grande dépendance aux recettes domestiques –telles que la TVA-, comparativement aux pays en change intermédiaires/flexibles pour compenser les pertes de recettes de seigneuriage (effet de substitution). De plus, ces pays avec RC fixes collectent plus de recettes domestiques en compensation de la perte de recettes douanières, suite à la libéralisation commerciale (effet de compétitivité). Dans les trois derniers chapitres (partie II), nous mettons le focus sur la politique budgétaire et les effets de la décentralisation. Le chapitre 4 révèle une relation non-linéaire entre la politique budgétaire et le cycle économique, qui dépend du niveau de la dette publique. Lorsque celle-ci dépasse un certain seuil (87%), la politique budgétaire perd toute propriété contra-cyclique. Nous montrons par ailleurs que l’effet disciplinaire ex-ante des règles budgétaires aide à restaurer la contra-cyclicité de la politique budgétaire. A travers le chapitre 5, nous montrons que la décentralisation budgétaire, dans un cadre politico-institutionnel sein et dépourvu de corruption, améliore l’offre de biens et services publics. Le chapitre 6 conclut que la décentralisation impacte positivement le solde structurel. Cependant une asymétrie entre la décentralisation des dépenses et celle des recettes accroit la dépendance des gouvernements locaux vis-à-vis du gouvernement central en termes de transferts, et amoindrirait considérablement à l’effet positif de la décentralisation. / This thesis explored, in two parts, the macroeconomic impacts of exchange rate regimes (ERR), as well as the recent developments in fiscal policy and fiscal decentralization. Part I has reconsidered the role of ERR and its interplay with fiscal, monetary and tax policy. The first result that emerges (Chapter 1) is that fixed ERR can serve as a credible policy tool for stabilizing fiscal policy. However, this stabilizing effect is conditional upon the inter-temporal distribution of the costs of loose fiscal policy. In assessing the linkage between ERR and crises (banking/financial, currency and debt), Chapter 2 evidenced that the bipolar view is no longer valid, and that, crisis proneness rather depends on the macroeconomic fundamentals (the volatility of private sector credit, the deficit-financing mechanism, and the debt-to-GDP ratio). In Chapter 3, we unveiled a strong relationship between ERR and tax policy. Countries with pegged regimes have greater reliance on domestic taxation -such as the VAT- to make up for the loss of seigniorage revenue (substitution effect). Moreover, peggers tend to collect more VAT revenue to offset the shortfall in cross border taxes following the trade liberalization reform (competitiveness effect). Part II discussed the cyclical response of fiscal policy in high debt periods, and focused on fiscal decentralization issues. In Chapter 4, we showed that the reaction of fiscal policy to the business cycle is non-linear and conditional to the level of public debt. When the debt-to-GDP ratio goes beyond a certain threshold (87%), fiscal policy loses its counter-cyclical properties. Further, we highlighted that carefully-designed fiscal rules help maintaining counter-cyclicality through an ex ante disciplinary effect. Chapters 5 and 6 analyzed the impact of fiscal decentralization on the efficiency of public service delivery and fiscal policy performance, respectively. Chapter 5 revealed that a sufficient level of expenditure decentralization, coupled with revenue decentralization, improves the efficiency of public service delivery. However, the political and institutional environment is critical for reaping decentralization-led benefits. Lastly, Chapter 6 concluded that fiscal decentralization has destabilizing effect by reducing the counter-cyclicality of fiscal policy. In addition, we found that decentralization strengthens the structural fiscal balance; however, vertical fiscal imbalances reduce the benefits of decentralization. It is therefore critical to limit asymmetries between expenditure and revenue decentralization, so as to reduce the transfer-dependency of local governments to the central level, and thus prevent decentralization from weakening the fiscal stance at the general government level.

La thèse est une collection de cinq articles académiques, chacun apportant une contribution originale à la connaissance et à la recherche scientifique dans le domaine de l’économie de l’imposition du capital et des sociétés. Les travaux empiriques de Gaëtan Nicodème se situent dans le contexte de la concurrence fiscale en Europe.<p><p>Le premier chapitre ‘Corporate Tax Competition and Coordination in the European Union: What do we know? Where do we stand? (Publié dans International Taxation Handbook) revisite la problématique de la concurrence fiscale dans l’Union Européenne, discute la littérature économique théorique et empirique sur la question et analyse les réponses politiques qui y sont apportées. Après avoir remis la problématique dans son contexte institutionnel, l’auteur compare les résultats provenant de la littérature avec les caractéristiques propres à l’Union Européenne, notamment en termes de l’étendue et des conséquences de la concurrence fiscale. Il passe ensuite en revue les questions théoriques et de mise en œuvre pratique que soulèvent une possible harmonisation et consolidation des bases fiscales de l’impôt des sociétés en Europe. Tout en gardant à l’esprit la diversité des solutions qui existent dans la mise en œuvre, il montre que l’harmonisation des bases fiscales est à même de générer des gains économiques. Le deuxième chapitre ‘Comparing Effective Corporate Tax Rates’ (à paraître dans Frontiers in Finance and Economics) passe en revue les méthodes de calcul de taux effectifs de l’impôt des sociétés. Le mérite de la contribution est non seulement d’offrir une typologie des ces taux mais également de montrer que leurs résultats sont très différents selon la méthode utilisée, que ce soit en niveau ou en classement des pays. L’auteur calcule également ces taux pour un échantillon de pays Européens avec une désagrégation sectorielle. Le troisième chapitre ‘Do Large Companies have Lower Effective Corporate Tax rates ?A European Survey’ utilise ces méthodes pour étudier s’il existe un lien entre les taux effectifs et la taille des entreprises. Utilisant de multiples méthodes d’estimation, l’auteur trouve un lien robuste et négatif entre le nombre d’employés et le taux effectif d’imposition des entreprises. Le quatrième chapitre ‘Foreign Ownership and Corporate Income Taxation :an Empirical Evaluation’ (co-auteur H. Huizinga et publié dans European Economic Review) constitue la première évaluation empirique pour l’Europe des théories d’exportation fiscale. Lorsque la mobilité du capital est imparfaite et que celui-ci est détenu par des actionnaires étrangers, les Etats ont un incitant à hausser la fiscalité pour exporter la charge fiscale sur ces actionnaires. L’étude empirique trouve une relation positive robuste entre le degré d’actionnariat étranger et la charge fiscale moyenne, validant ces théories. Le cinquième et dernier chapitre ‘Are International Deposits Tax Driven ?(Co-auteur H. Huizinga et publié dans Journal of Public Economics) analyse l’impact de l’imposition de l’épargne et de la fortune ainsi que de l’échange d’informations fiscales sur les dépôts bancaires internationaux. Utilisant des données bilatérales confidentielles de la BRI, l’étude montre que ces variables fiscales ont un impact sur ces dépôts, suggérant qu’ils sont en partie effectués pour éluder l’impôt.<p> / Doctorat en Sciences économiques et de gestion / info:eu-repo/semantics/nonPublished

The financial crisis of 2007/8 has triggered a profound debate about public budget finance sustainability, ever-increasing government expenditures and the efficiency of fiscal policy measures. Given this context, the following dissertation provides four contributions that analyze the long-run growth of government spending throughout economic development, discuss potential effects of fiscal policy measures on output, and provide new insights into the assessment of debt sustainability for a variety of industrialized countries. Since the breakout of the European debt crisis in 2009/2010, there has been a revival of interest in the long-term growth of government expenditures. In this context, the relationship between the size of the public sector and economic growth - often referred to as Wagner's law - has been in the focus of numerous studies, especially with regard to public policy and fiscal sustainability. Using historical data from the mid-19th century, the first chapter analyzes the validity of Wagner's law for five industrialized European countries and links the discussion to different stages of economic development. In line with Wagner's hypothesis, our findings show that the relationship between public spending and economic growth has weakened at an advanced stage of development. Furthermore, all countries under review support the notion that Wagner's law may have lost its economic relevance in recent decades. As a consequence of the 2007/8 financial crisis, there has been an increasing theoretical and empirical debate about the impact of fiscal policy measures on output. Accordingly, the Structural Vector Autoregression (SVAR) approach to estimating the fiscal multipliers developed by Blanchard and Perotti (2002) has been applied widely in the literature in recent years. In the second chapter, we point out that the fiscal multipliers derived from this approach include the predicted future path of the policy instruments as well as their dynamic interaction. We analyze a data set from the US and document that these interactions are economically and statistically significant. In a counterfactual simulation, we report fiscal multipliers that abstract from these dynamic responses. Furthermore, we use our estimates to analyze the recent fiscal stimulus of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA). The third chapter contributes to the existing empirical literature on fiscal multipliers by applying a five-variable SVAR approach to a uniform data set for Belgium, France, Germany, and the United Kingdom. Besides studying the effects of expenditure and tax increases on output, we additionally analyze their dynamic effects on inflation and interest rates as well as the dynamic interaction of both policy instruments. By conducting counterfactual simulations, which abstract from the dynamic response of key macroeconomic variables to the initial fiscal shocks, we study the importance of these channels for the transmission of fiscal policy on output. Overall, the results demonstrate that the effects of fiscal shocks are limited and rather different across countries. Further, it is shown that the inflation and interest rate channel are insignificant for the transmission of fiscal policy. In the field of public finances, governmental budgetary policies are among the most controversial and disputed areas of political and scientific controversy. The sustainability of public debt is often analyzed by testing stationarity conditions of government's budget deficits. The fourth chapter shows that this test can be implemented more effectively by means of an asymmetric unit root test. We argue that this approach increases the power of the test and reduces the likelihood of drawing false inferences. We illustrate this in an application to 14 countries of the European Monetary Union as well as in a Monte Carlo simulation. Distinguishing between positive and negative changes in deficits, we find consistency with the intertemporal budget constraint for more countries, i.e. lower persistence of positive changes in some countries, compared to the earlier literature.