This paper examinesinflation in Singapore and Hong Kong between 2002 to 2021. The purpose is to investigate whether REITs can hedge against inflation. The inflation will be divided into expected inflation (EI) and unexpected inflation (UI). Furthermore, the empirical analysis will test the relationship between REIT price return (PI), dividend yield return (DY), and total return (TR) returns and inflation separately and attempt to find out what could be the possible sources of hedging against inflation. The Fama and Schwert (1977) model was applied to analyze the relationship between REIT returns and inflation. The ARIMA model (Baciu, 2015) was applied to measure the expected inflation. Regression results show that the Singapore REIT price returns and total returns positively correlated with unexpected inflation, while the dividend yield returns are negatively correlated with unexpected inflation. However, the Hong Kong REIT price and total returns negatively correlate with expected inflation. This research will provide knowledge about the inflation-hedging characteristics of Singapore and Hong Kong REITs and implications for portfolio management and inflation risk management. / I den här artikeln undersöks förhållandet mellan avkastningen från fastighetsinvesteringsbolag (REIT) och inflationen i Singapore och Hongkong mellan 2002 och 2021. Syftet är att undersöka om REITs kan skydda sig mot inflation. Inflationen kommer att delas upp i förväntad inflation (EI) och oväntad inflation (UI). Vidare kommer den empiriska analysen att testa förhållandet mellan REIT:s prisavkastning (PI), avkastning på utdelning (DY) och totalavkastning (TR) och inflationen separat och försöka ta reda på vilka källor som kan vara möjliga för att skydda sig mot inflationen. Fama och Schwerts (1977) modell användes för att analysera förhållandet mellan REIT-avkastning och inflation. ARIMA-modellen (Baciu, 2015) tillämpades för att mäta den förväntade inflationen. Regressionsresultaten visar att Singapores REIT-prisavkastning och totalavkastning korrelerar positivt med oväntad inflation, medan avkastningen på utdelningsavkastning korrelerar negativt med oväntad inflation. Hongkongs REIT-pris och totalavkastning korrelerar dock negativt med den förväntade inflationen. Denna forskning kommer att ge kunskap om inflationsskyddande egenskaper hos Singapores och Hongkongs REITs och ge konsekvenser för portföljförvaltning och hantering av inflationsrisker.

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The much-debated topic of the pension system together with the currently elevated levels of inflation give rise to the question of how well the pension system is equipped to deal with a prolonged period of inflation. The current system was introduced in the 1990s and since then it has been operating in a period of low and stable inflation. The purpose of this project is therefore to study the inflation sensitivity of the Swedish pension system and the purchasing power of Swedish pensioners. Since the Swedish pension system consists of different parts and each part has a different inflation sensitivity, this allows me to study the inflation sensitivity of some typical cases of pensioners who has their own unique mix of pension income. I measure inflation sensitivity through the concept of equality of consumption, where utility from consumption is derived primarily from the discretionary spending that exceeds necessary expenses for survival such as food and shelter. Through this, I analyse economic inequality as measured by the amount of discretionary spending and evaluate how inflation affects these amounts for different typical cases of pensioners. The data in this study is gathered from official sources such as Pensionsmyndigheten and Statistiska Centralbyrån. I find that the nominal inflation protection provided by the Swedish pension system is high for most theoretical cases. However, inflation erodes real purchasing power for Swedish pensioners, especially for those not eligible for the housing supplement and for those who lack an occupational pension. The basic protection adds inflation protection for pensioners with a relatively low income, while occupational pensions add inflation protection for pensioners with a relatively high income. The findings suggest that the median pensioner is more adversely affected by inflation when compared to other income levels, as measured through discretionary spending.

The effects of monetary policy on real economic variables have been debated for some time. This debate became more intense after the discovery of the Phillips curve which appeared to show a stable trade-off between inflation and unemployment. This curve in its original form has now been abandoned and debate has centered around the question of a short run trade-off. It is this question, do short-run trade-offs exist and if so, why, and what affects their length, that this dissertation addresses. Chapter II explores this question in a model where the Federal Reserve does not have full credibility among all the agents in the economy and where beliefs are endogenous. It is shown that when the Federal Reserve announces a new monetary policy rule, temporary nonneutrality of money can result if some agents are skeptical of the Fed's intentions to follow the announced rule or if some agents merely believe some other agents are skeptical whether or not they truly are. The magnitude of the trade-off depends on the proportion of agents who are skeptical and how different the old and new rules are. The length of time the trade-off exists depends on how skeptical the agents are. The more skeptical they are, the longer it takes the Fed to convince these agents that it is following and will continue to follow the announced rule. Chapter III develops an empirical model to determine if the evidence supports the existence of short-run trade-offs in general and the credibility implications in particular. A Bayesian Vector Autoregression is used for the estimations. It is shown that short-run trade-offs do exist and do vary in length and magnitude. These variations are related to the implications of the credibility theory. It is found the degree of skepticism and the proportion of agents who are skeptical could have caused these short-run trade-offs to vary in length and magnitude. / Ph. D. / incomplete_metadata

L'objectif de ce mémoire est de déterminer s'il est préférable d'utiliser l'inflation totale directement ou l'inflation désagrégée afin de prévoir l'inflation totale américaine. Pour parvenir à cette fin, deux horizons de prévision sont exploités : le court terme et le moyen terme et un seul niveau de désagrégation est utilisé, soit 28 indices de prix. Dans le cadre des prévisions de court terme, le modèle agrégé utilisé est représenté par la nouvelle courbe de Phillips de Stock et Watson (1999) et deux modèles désagrégés sont mis à contribution. Le premier modèle désagrégé est estimé par un processus autorégressif multivarié alors que le second modèle est estimé par un processus autorégressif univarié. Pour ce qui est des prévisions de moyen terme, les modèles à comparer sont tous deux des modèles monétaires. Les résultats obtenus par les prévisions hors échantillon sont fort intéressants. L'utilisation des 28 indices de prix n'améliore en rien les prévisions de court terme puisque les erreurs de prévision sont beaucoup plus élevées que celles issues de la courbe de Phillips. À moyen terme, toutefois, le modèle désagrégé utilisant l'agrégat monétaire Ml génère de bien meilleures prévisions que les autres modèles monétaires agrégés.

This thesis examines dynamic relationships between inflation and monetary policy in a sample of African economies using quarterly data over the period 1980:01 to 2012:04. The literature on inflation dynamics and monetary policy focuses on developed economies, with little attention devoted to the African economies, which is potentially explained by the fact that in the past monetary policy played second fiddle because of fiscal policy dominance following episodes of high inflation and stabilization policies that occurred in the 1980's. This thesis fills an important gap in assessing African's monetary policy. The thesis predominantly uses the Vector-Autoregression (VAR) framework to examine the monetary policy frameworks of the African economies. The thesis finds that an interest rate shock on average explain a more significant proportion of the variance in the output gap and inflation than the exchange rate, in terms of analysing the decomposition of shocks to the economy. This shows a shift in the monetary policy focus away from exchange rate management to interest rate targeting as the African economies have become more market oriented. The monetary policy reveal strong asymmetric responses with respect to the macroeconomic variables when inflation exceeds its threshold value. The analysis suggests that monetary policy in the African economies is regime-dependent, propagated through the inflation thresholds, such that the authorities strongly implement policy changes when inflation goes beyond a certain threshold. The thesis reveals that by taking into account the prior belief of the monetary authorities, it helps produce better estimates of the performance of the monetary policy transmission mechanism, as it combines prior information with the sampling information which is contained in the data. The overall novelty of the thesis is that some African economies are adopting inflation targeting policies instead of exchange rate management. It is imperative that the subsequent inflation targeting frameworks will achieve monetary policy objectives for the African economies and the use of interest rate management should be continued.

Submitted by André Furtado Braz (andre.braz@fgv.br) on 2012-05-11T18:14:39Z No. of bitstreams: 1 Versão Final_André Braz.pdf: 728822 bytes, checksum: eb3a9ee3323bce96ed76b7dbb7ed3a48 (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Vitor Souza (vitor.souza@fgv.br) on 2012-05-11T18:15:51Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 Versão Final_André Braz.pdf: 728822 bytes, checksum: eb3a9ee3323bce96ed76b7dbb7ed3a48 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2012-05-17T20:16:44Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Versão Final_André Braz.pdf: 728822 bytes, checksum: eb3a9ee3323bce96ed76b7dbb7ed3a48 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2011-12-16 / Desde a implantação do sistema de metas de inflação em julho de 1999, o Banco Central (BC) tem utilizado para monitorar a política monetária um número crescente de indicadores, dentre os quais, incluem-se as medidas de núcleo de inflação. O objetivo é obter uma informação mais precisa sobre o curso da inflação no país e, consequentemente, sobre o futuro da política monetária. Além do Banco Central, muitas instituições financeiras utilizam medidas de núcleo para orientar suas estimativas em relação ao comportamento da inflação no país. Deste modo, esta dissertação faz uma avaliação dos núcleos de inflação utilizando os principais testes estatísticos e econométricos sugeridos pela literatura econômica e propõe ainda novos indicadores para o Brasil. / Since the implementation of inflation targeting system in July 1999, the Central Bank (BC) is used to monitor the monetary policy of a growing number of indicators, among which include measures of core inflation. The goal is to obtain more precise information about the course of inflation in the country and hence on the future of monetary policy. In addition to the Central Bank, many financial institutions use core measures to guide their expectations regarding the behavior of inflation in the country. Thus, this paper makes an assessment of core inflation using the main statistical and econometric tests suggested in the literature and proposes new economic indicators for Brazil.

Submitted by PEDRO ALVES (pguedesalves@gmail.com) on 2013-09-17T14:48:59Z No. of bitstreams: 1 Dissertacao pedro guedes alves final.pdf: 359622 bytes, checksum: 4ea301abbbeba3d60296bea87411ee79 (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Vitor Souza (vitor.souza@fgv.br) on 2013-10-09T15:39:12Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 Dissertacao pedro guedes alves final.pdf: 359622 bytes, checksum: 4ea301abbbeba3d60296bea87411ee79 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2013-10-11T13:21:08Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Dissertacao pedro guedes alves final.pdf: 359622 bytes, checksum: 4ea301abbbeba3d60296bea87411ee79 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2012-05-31 / Este trabalho busca medir a credibilidade do Banco Central Brasileiro. Utiliza-se como medida da credibilidade, a variação do prêmio de risco de inflação em função de surpresas inflacionárias de curto prazo no índice IPCA. Primeiro evidencia-se que as expectativas inflacionárias de médio prazo são afetadas pelas surpresas inflacionárias, este efeito é causado por dois motivos, a indexação da economia e/ou a falta de credibilidade da autoridade monetária. Em seguida verifica-se que as surpresas inflacionárias também tem efeito sobre o premio de risco de inflação o que indica falta de credibilidade do banco central. / This paper seeks to measure the credibility of the Brazilian Central Bank. It uses as a measure of credibility, the change in the inflation risk premium in terms of short-term inflationary surprises in the IPCA index. At first, it is shown that the medium-term inflation expectations are affected by inflation surprises, this effect is caused by two reasons, the indexation of the economy and/or lack of credibility of the monetary authority. Then it is observed that the inflation surprises also have an effect on the inflation risk premium, which indicates a lack of credibility of the central bank.

The financial crisis of 2007-2009 led to a large increase in the government debt of all advanced economies. In the United States, the debt burden reached levels not seen since the Second World War. In Europe, high fiscal stress evolved into a sovereign debt crisis. My thesis focuses on debt dynamics in advanced economies and the design of policies that can stabilize their fiscal burden. In the first chapter, I provide new evidence and theory on US debt dynamics and their relation with long-term growth forecasts. In the second chapter, I document a novel dataset on the maturity structure of sovereign debt of Euro Area (EA) countries and study the effect of the maturity composition on debt dynamics. Finally, in the third chapter, I analyze empirically the role of debt management in stabilizing the fiscal burden of countries in the EA.<p><p>Chapter 1: Sovereign Debt in the US and Growth Expectations<p><p>This chapter studies the effect of changes in expectations of long-term GDP growth on US government debt and deficits. Long-term growth expectations are an essential determinant of expected future revenue growth and fiscal solvency. I present evidence that US government debt and deficits are positively correlated with long-term GDP (and revenue) growth forecasts from the Congressional Budget Office between 1984 and 2012. This is robust to controlling for current growth and to using à-la-Kalman estimated forecasts for a longer time span. This stylized fact is novel in the macroeconomics literature and I develop a new model of government behavior that explains it.<p>My model features endogenous (forward-looking) purchasing behavior for the government. This distinguishes my model from standard macro theories that assume exogenous government purchases, or ad-hoc backward looking policy rules for government purchases. It builds on the recent ‘long-run risks’ literature by assuming shocks to the trend growth rate of total factor productivity. The model matches the observed positive correlation between fiscal deficits and the trend growth rate, based on the government’s desire to smooth public consumption over periods of higher (or lower) long-run productivity growth. <p><p>Chapter 2: Government Debt Maturity and Debt Dynamics in EA Countries<p><p>This chapter presents a new comprehensive database on sovereign debt stocks and yields, at all maturities, for six EA countries: Belgium, Finland, France, Germany, Italy and Spain between 1991 and 2013. I constructed this database by combining information from different sources (treasuries, national central banks and statistical offices), on a security-by-security basis. A recent literature has shown the importance of debt maturity management in the US - e.g. Hall and Sargent (2011) - however, due to lack of data, this key issue remained unstudied for the EA. Thus, I use my database to study the effect of debt maturity management on the evolution of government debt in EA countries. <p>My main finding is that debt maturity also had an important effect in debt dynamics of the EA. The debt maturity structure affects debt dynamics because longer maturity shields the government budget from changes in interest rates. In general, interest rates in the EA have fallen since 1991 while treasuries in the region extended debt maturity. Thus, an increasing number of long-term bondholders experienced large capital gains. Counterfactual simulations show the impact of a different maturity structure on the evolution of debt and suggest that extending debt maturity in 2014 and 2015 would result in lower debt ratios by 2022. I also estimate the debt-to-GDP erosion induced by higher current and future inflation and find that inflation would lower the fiscal burden in EA countries much more than in the US.<p><p>Chapter 3: Quantifying the Role of Debt Management for Fiscal Self-Insurance in the EA<p><p>The last chapter provides evidence of debt management being an effective tool for protecting the government budget from fiscal spending shocks in the EA. In particular, I document that sovereign bonds of EA countries had a significantly lower real return in response to government spending shocks between 1991 and 2013. Importantly, longer bond maturity generally implied a larger drop in returns. This is in line with theories claiming that long-term debt provides fiscal self-insurance. However, my finding suggests that medium-term debt is more effective in hedging against spending shocks. <p>I identify government spending shocks in a Structural VAR model estimated with both aggregated quarterly fiscal data for the EA and stacked data from individual countries. I also use a simple FAVAR model to distinguish between common and idiosyncratic (country-specific) shocks and document that the former risk was hedged more effectively. The introduction of the Euro reduced the absorption of idiosyncratic shocks (relative to common shocks) by bond returns. However, the European debt crisis brought the degree of fiscal self-insurance against country-specific shocks back to pre-Euro levels. Finally, debt maturity seems to play a minor role in the absorption of country-specific shocks by the return on sovereign bonds. <p> / Doctorat en Sciences économiques et de gestion / info:eu-repo/semantics/nonPublished

In this thesis, I undertake an empirical search for the existence of price and exchange rate bubbles during the inter-war European hyperinflations of Germany, Hungary and Poland. Since the choice of an appropriate policy to control inflation depends upon the true nature of the underlying process generating the inflation, the existence or non-existence of inflationary bubbles has important policy implications. If bubbles do exist, positive action will be required to counter the public's self-fulfilling expectation of a price surge. Hyperinflationary episodes have been chosen as my case study because of the dominant role that such expectations play in price determination. In the literature, there are frequently expressed concerns about empirical research into bubbles. The existence of model misspecification and the nonlinear dynamics in the fundamentals under conditions of regime switching may lead to spurious conclusions concerning the existence of bubbles. Furthermore, some stochastic bubbles may display different collapsing properties and consequently appear to be linearly stationary. Thus, the evidence against the existence of bubbles may not be reliable. In my thesis, I attempt to tackle the above empirical problems of testing for the existence of bubbles using advances in testing procedures and methodologies. Since the number of bubble solutions is infinite in the rational expectations framework, I adopt indirect tests, rather than direct tests, for the empirical study. From the findings of my empirical research, the evidence for stationary specification errors and the nonlinearity of the data series cannot be rejected, but the evidence for the existence of price and exchange rate bubbles is rejected for all the countries under study. It leads to the conclusion that the control of the inter-war European hyperinflations was attributable to control of the fundamental processes, since the dynamics of prices and exchange rates for these countries might not be driven by self-fulfilling expectations.