Esta tese tem como objetivo central a análise da migração dos trabalhadores brasileiros e de seus efeitos sobre os diferencias salariais observados. Para isto, dois bancos de dados distintos foram construídos a partir de um longo painel de trabalhadores proveniente da RAIS-Migra (Ministério do Trabalho e Emprego) no período de 1995-2002. Com o primeiro banco, busca-se investigar o que ocorre com os diferenciais de salários entre os estados brasileiros, setores e ocupações após o controle pelas características não-observáveis, fixas no tempo, dos indivíduos. A idéia é examinar em que medida esses diferenciais ocorrem devido à concentração de trabalhadores com alta habilidade em alguns estados/setores/ocupações. Os principais resultados mostram que a magnitude dos diferenciais se torna até vinte vezes menor e que a significância estatística é substancialmente reduzida. Ocorre também uma reordenação entre as regiões e as indústrias. A variabilidade global diminui em até oito vezes, evidenciando a relevância da heterogeneidade individual não-observada ao explicar cerca de 70%, 83% e 88% dos diferenciais inter-regionais, inter-industriais e inter-ocupacionais, respectivamente. Com o segundo banco de dados, analisam-se os retornos à migração dos trabalhadores do estado de São Paulo, com ênfase na seleção e no ajustamento. Especificamente, busca-se estimar o salário relativo com o controle dos efeitos fixos individuais para capturar o viés decorrente da seleção positiva dos migrantes. Os principais resultados encontrados indicam a presença de viés de auto-seleção nas estimativas dos salários relativos por MQO, que apresentam coeficientes (positivos) bastante superiores aos coeficientes estimados por efeitos fixos (com sinal negativo). Há, portanto, perdas salariais para as pessoas que migram para São Paulo, que não possuem informação perfeita sobre o custo de vida. Na análise da assimilação do migrante em São Paulo, encontram-se evidências de ampliação dos ganhos salariais a taxas decrescentes, mas sem indicações de que os retornos dos migrantes superem o dos não-migrantes de modo permanente. Alguns grupos, porém, destacam-se na migração bem-sucedida. Os trabalhadores com o ensino superior encontram espaço no mercado de trabalho paulista, com ganhos em torno de 7% em relação aos não-migrantes. Outros ganhos decorrentes da migração também são registrados entre os trabalhadores dos setores de agropecuária e comércio, provenientes da região nordeste, pertencentes às ocupações de agricultura/florestais/pesca e científicas/técnicas/artísticas. Por fim, constata-se que os retornos à emigração, mesmo após a inclusão de efeitos fixos, são positivos. Em geral, os resultados são consistentes com a hipótese de que o elevado custo de vida em São Paulo pode não apenas trazer o migrante de volta para seu local de origem, mas também provocar uma emigração dos trabalhadores residentes em São Paulo para outras regiões do Brasil. / The aim of this thesis is the analysis of the Brazilian workers migration and of its effects on the observed wage differentials. This study uses two different data sets built from RAIS-Migra (Labor Ministry of Brazil), a long panel of workers for the years 1995 through 2002. The purpose of using the first data set is to investigate what occurs to the interstate, interindustry and inter-occupation differentials in wage, after the control by the unobservable characteristics of workers which are unchanged along the time. The main idea is to evaluate to what extent these differentials occur due to the concentration of high skilled workers in some states/sectors/occupations. The most important results show that, not only the sign of the differentials change, but also their magnitude drops by up to 20 times. As a result, there is a reorientation of wage differentials among regions and industries. Additionally, the overall variability drops by up to eight times, showing the importance of the non-observed individual heterogeneity by explaining about 70%, 83% and 88% of the inter-state, inter-industry and inter-occupation wage differentials. Using the second data set, this study evaluates the migration returns of workers in the São Paulo state, focusing selection and assimilation. Specifically, the goal is to estimate the relative wage with the control for the individual fixed effects. This method allows the observation of the bias from the positive selection of in-migrants. The results attest the evidence of selection bias in the relative wages estimated by OLS, since the coefficients of the fixed effects regression are lower (and with a negative signal) than the (positive) OLS coefficients. There are wage losses to the migrants in São Paulo, who are not aware of the high cost of living. Another important result is that the wage growth of migrants has been increasing slowly according to the local human capital they have acquired since their migration. However, there is no evidence that attest the permanent assimilation of migrants. It is important to highlight that some particular groups have a successful migration. Migrants with high levels of education have returns 7 percent higher than non-migrants. Other groups which also have gains after migration are workers from agriculture and trade, from Northeast region and from farming and scientific occupations. Finally, the out-migration gains are positive and significant, even after the inclusion of the fixed effect control. As a result, the cost of living is also an important factor to be considered in the São Paulo out-migration event.

Esta tese tem como objetivo central a análise da migração dos trabalhadores brasileiros e de seus efeitos sobre os diferencias salariais observados. Para isto, dois bancos de dados distintos foram construídos a partir de um longo painel de trabalhadores proveniente da RAIS-Migra (Ministério do Trabalho e Emprego) no período de 1995-2002. Com o primeiro banco, busca-se investigar o que ocorre com os diferenciais de salários entre os estados brasileiros, setores e ocupações após o controle pelas características não-observáveis, fixas no tempo, dos indivíduos. A idéia é examinar em que medida esses diferenciais ocorrem devido à concentração de trabalhadores com alta habilidade em alguns estados/setores/ocupações. Os principais resultados mostram que a magnitude dos diferenciais se torna até vinte vezes menor e que a significância estatística é substancialmente reduzida. Ocorre também uma reordenação entre as regiões e as indústrias. A variabilidade global diminui em até oito vezes, evidenciando a relevância da heterogeneidade individual não-observada ao explicar cerca de 70%, 83% e 88% dos diferenciais inter-regionais, inter-industriais e inter-ocupacionais, respectivamente. Com o segundo banco de dados, analisam-se os retornos à migração dos trabalhadores do estado de São Paulo, com ênfase na seleção e no ajustamento. Especificamente, busca-se estimar o salário relativo com o controle dos efeitos fixos individuais para capturar o viés decorrente da seleção positiva dos migrantes. Os principais resultados encontrados indicam a presença de viés de auto-seleção nas estimativas dos salários relativos por MQO, que apresentam coeficientes (positivos) bastante superiores aos coeficientes estimados por efeitos fixos (com sinal negativo). Há, portanto, perdas salariais para as pessoas que migram para São Paulo, que não possuem informação perfeita sobre o custo de vida. Na análise da assimilação do migrante em São Paulo, encontram-se evidências de ampliação dos ganhos salariais a taxas decrescentes, mas sem indicações de que os retornos dos migrantes superem o dos não-migrantes de modo permanente. Alguns grupos, porém, destacam-se na migração bem-sucedida. Os trabalhadores com o ensino superior encontram espaço no mercado de trabalho paulista, com ganhos em torno de 7% em relação aos não-migrantes. Outros ganhos decorrentes da migração também são registrados entre os trabalhadores dos setores de agropecuária e comércio, provenientes da região nordeste, pertencentes às ocupações de agricultura/florestais/pesca e científicas/técnicas/artísticas. Por fim, constata-se que os retornos à emigração, mesmo após a inclusão de efeitos fixos, são positivos. Em geral, os resultados são consistentes com a hipótese de que o elevado custo de vida em São Paulo pode não apenas trazer o migrante de volta para seu local de origem, mas também provocar uma emigração dos trabalhadores residentes em São Paulo para outras regiões do Brasil. / The aim of this thesis is the analysis of the Brazilian workers migration and of its effects on the observed wage differentials. This study uses two different data sets built from RAIS-Migra (Labor Ministry of Brazil), a long panel of workers for the years 1995 through 2002. The purpose of using the first data set is to investigate what occurs to the interstate, interindustry and inter-occupation differentials in wage, after the control by the unobservable characteristics of workers which are unchanged along the time. The main idea is to evaluate to what extent these differentials occur due to the concentration of high skilled workers in some states/sectors/occupations. The most important results show that, not only the sign of the differentials change, but also their magnitude drops by up to 20 times. As a result, there is a reorientation of wage differentials among regions and industries. Additionally, the overall variability drops by up to eight times, showing the importance of the non-observed individual heterogeneity by explaining about 70%, 83% and 88% of the inter-state, inter-industry and inter-occupation wage differentials. Using the second data set, this study evaluates the migration returns of workers in the São Paulo state, focusing selection and assimilation. Specifically, the goal is to estimate the relative wage with the control for the individual fixed effects. This method allows the observation of the bias from the positive selection of in-migrants. The results attest the evidence of selection bias in the relative wages estimated by OLS, since the coefficients of the fixed effects regression are lower (and with a negative signal) than the (positive) OLS coefficients. There are wage losses to the migrants in São Paulo, who are not aware of the high cost of living. Another important result is that the wage growth of migrants has been increasing slowly according to the local human capital they have acquired since their migration. However, there is no evidence that attest the permanent assimilation of migrants. It is important to highlight that some particular groups have a successful migration. Migrants with high levels of education have returns 7 percent higher than non-migrants. Other groups which also have gains after migration are workers from agriculture and trade, from Northeast region and from farming and scientific occupations. Finally, the out-migration gains are positive and significant, even after the inclusion of the fixed effect control. As a result, the cost of living is also an important factor to be considered in the São Paulo out-migration event.

Este trabalho visa identificar possíveis vantagens que as empresas obtêm ao contribuir com campanhas políticas. Para isso, foi utilizada uma extensa base de dados com informações de doações a candidatos aos cargos de deputado, senador e presidente nas eleições de 2006 e 2010. As variáveis de interesse analisadas foram o retorno anormal cumulativo à época da divulgação do resultado das eleições e o retorno sobre o patrimônio líquido no ano posterior a cada eleição. Foram estimadas regressões de dados em painel através de mínimos quadrados ordinários, e incluídos efeitos fixos de ano e setor das empresas. Os resultados indicam que não apenas o mercado antecipa benefícios futuros para as empresas que contribuíram com campanhas – o que se reflete em retornos anormais cumulativos positivos à época da eleição – mas também estas empresas apresentam retornos sobre o patrimônio líquido superiores aos daquelas que não participaram do processo político. Além disso, doações a candidatos vencedores geram retorno superior aos de doações a candidatos perdedores; o que vai ao encontro da hipótese de retribuição de favores. De forma similar, contribuições a candidatos filiados à coligação do presidente eleito também apresentaram impacto superior quando comparadas com doações a candidatos da oposição. / This paper aims to identify potential benefits that companies obtain by contributing to political campaigns. We used an extensive database with information on donations to House, Senate and Presidency candidates in the 2006 and 2010 elections. The variables of interest analyzed were the cumulative abnormal return by the time the results of each election became know and the return on equity in the year following the election. Panel regressions were estimated as ordinary least squares (OLS), and fixed effects of year and industry were included. The results indicate that not only the market anticipates future benefits for companies that contributed to campaigns - which is reflected in positive cumulative abnormal returns at the announcement of the election results - but these companies also have higher returns on equity than those that were not involved in the political process. In addition, donations to winning candidates generate higher returns than donations to losing candidates; which supports the return of favors hypothesis. Similarly, contributions to candidates affiliated to the president’s coalition's also had higher impact when compared to donations to the oposition candidates.

This thesis makes two main contributions to the literature. The first is to establish the existence of a capital supply channel, in particular a bank lending channel of monetary policy transmission in the UK using a clean measure of bank loan supply. In this study we exploit the revealed debt preferences of debt issuing firms by using the Becker and Ivashina (2014) fixed effects framework to isolate the impact of credit supply. By conditioning the sample on non-financial firms whose debt issuance is observed, we are able to eliminate the effects of credit demand and to isolate a clean measure for bank loan supply. In this thesis, we find that the tendency by unconstrained, non-financial firms to substitute corporate bonds for bank loans at different points of the financial cycle reflects changes in bank loan supply. We also find that the patterns of substitutability are consistent among more granular classifications of heterogeneous debt. Our results reveal that among unconstrained firms, the proportion of new bank loan issuance declines, while the proportions of corporate bonds and program debt issuance tend to increase, when faced with unfavourable credit market conditions. We then create a loan to bond substitution measure based on observed substitution behaviour of unconstrained firms. We find that this measure explains the out of sample bank loan issuance behaviour of constrained firms. As a result we conclude that the measure is able to cleanly capture changes in bank loan supply. We extend the study to examine the impact of bank loan supply on the financing, hiring and investment decisions of UK non-financial corporations. We find that bank loan supply disruptions significantly and disproportionately affect the hiring and inventory investment decisions of bank dependent firms relative to those of non-bank dependent firms. The propensity to invest or hire among bank dependent UK non-financial firms declines relative to non-bank dependent firms when bank loan supply deteriorates. Moreover, the fixed investment decisions of non-bank dependent firms tend to decline following adverse bank loan supply shocks. These results confirm the existence of a bank lending channel among UK non-financial firms, and the findings are in line with the narrow credit view of monetary policy transmission. Our second central contribution is to analyse the impact of orthogonal QE shocks, credit supply shocks, credit demand shocks, and monetary policy shocks on the aggregate debt issuance behaviour of UK non-financial firms. Using structural vector error correction models (SVECM), we show that QE shocks increase corporate bond issuance and compress term spreads, but have no effect on the policy rate. Moreover, we observe that unexpected increases in the monetary policy rate lead to a decline in corporate bonds in the short term. While credit supply shocks move aggregate bank lending and aggregate corporate bond issuance in the same direction, corporate bond issuance responds with a lag to fluctuation in credit supply. This implies that adverse credit supply shocks may produce amplified negative effects on capital supply as both corporate bonds and bank loan decline. We also establish a counterfactual for corporate bonds and bank loan issues based on our structural model. We find that the QE policies result in the Bank of England averting a decline in corporate bond issuance of between 3% and 10% during the QE period. Our findings in this thesis point towards the existence of a portfolio balance channel of QE that operates in the UK corporate bond markets during the QE period.

<p>This study aim at investigating whether income inequality ceteris paribus is a determinant of population health measured by infant mortality rate and average expected lifetime. Earlier research has found results pointing in different directions but the income inequality hypothesis suggests that income inequality alone is something bad for the population. The study uses data on income distribution from the Luxembourg Income Study (LIS) and the World Income Inequality Database (WIID). Data on economic development and health indicators comes from the OECD database. An econometric model which applies country fixed effects is specified and the results indicates no effect from income inequality on infant mortality rate but some indications of a negative effect on average expected lifetime.</p>

This study aim at investigating whether income inequality ceteris paribus is a determinant of population health measured by infant mortality rate and average expected lifetime. Earlier research has found results pointing in different directions but the income inequality hypothesis suggests that income inequality alone is something bad for the population. The study uses data on income distribution from the Luxembourg Income Study (LIS) and the World Income Inequality Database (WIID). Data on economic development and health indicators comes from the OECD database. An econometric model which applies country fixed effects is specified and the results indicates no effect from income inequality on infant mortality rate but some indications of a negative effect on average expected lifetime.

One of the most important objectives for any countries is to sustain high economic growth. Even though there are main factors that affect economic growth, the concern of this paper is only about inflation. The relationship between economic growth and inflation is debatable. The first objective of this study is to investigate the relationship between inflation and economic growth. This study uses panel data which includes 13 SSA countries from 1969 to 2009. To analyze the data the model is formed by taking economic growth as dependent variable and four variables (i.e. inflation, investment, population and initial GDP) as independent variables. The result indicates that there is a negative relationship between economic growth and inflation. This study is also examined the causality relationship between economic growth and inflation by using panel Granger causality test. Panel granger causality test shows that inflation can be used in order to predict growth for all countries in the sample, while the opposite it is only true for Congo, Dep. Rep and Zimbabwe.

This paper investigates what factors affect the destination choice for Jordanian to 8 countries (Oman, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Tunisia, Yemen, Egypt, Lebanon and Bahrain) using panel data analysis. Number of outbound tourists is represented as dependent variable, which is regressed over five explanatory variables using fixed effect model. The finding of this paper is that tourists from Jordan have weak demand for outbound tourism; Jordanian decision of traveling abroad is determined by the cost of traveling to different places and choosing the cheapest alternative.

Many studies suggest the ability of the NAIC Risk-Based Capital ratio (RBC ratio) to predict insurer insolvency. Based on the US life insurer (insurer) data for the period of 2005 to 2008, this study finds explanatory variables that have a statistically significant relationship with the RBC ratio. Advantages of panel data over cross-sectional and time series data analysis are exploited to make valid inference on coefficients of the explanatory variables. Testing for unobserved insurer and time effects and for dependence between these effects and the explanatory variables indicates the appropriateness of the fixed insurer and time effects model. Based on the ordinary least squares estimates, it is found that insurers' size, capital-to-asset ratio, and return on capital have a statistically significant relationship with the RBC ratio. Additionally, health product, annuity product, opportunity, and regulatory risks of insurers are related to the RBC ratio. Accounting for heteroscedasticity and autocorrelation for a given insurer yields the same coefficient estimates, but increased standard errors. / text

This dissertation contains two essays studying panel data econometric models. First, we consider the problem of estimating a nonparametric panel data models with fixed effects. We propose using the profile least squares method to concentrate out the fixed effects and then estimate the unknown function by the kernel method. We show that our proposed estimator is consistent and has an asymptotically normal distribution. Monte Carlo simulations show that our proposed estimator performs well compared with several existing estimators. Second, we study the effects of Hong Kong’s fixed exchange rate against U.S. dollar using a novel panel data method. After the 1997 Asian Financial Crisis, many of the Asia countries adopted flexible exchange rate policies while Hong Kong still keeps its fixed exchange rate. By comparing Hong Kong versus its major trading partners, we show that if, like other Asian countries, Hong Kong had adopted a float exchange rate policy in October 1998, Hong Kong’s (counterfactual) total value of exports would increase by 14.65 %. Similarly, Hong Kong’s total value of imports would increase about 31%. We conclude that Hong Kong dollar is overvalued by 9.34% due to its fixed exchange rate policy.