Thesis advisor: Fabio Ghironi / This thesis studies the role of product and labor market frictions for the propagation of shocks in closed and open economy. The first chapters focuses on the consequences of relaxing product and labor regulation for macroeconomic outcomes. Specifically, we study long and short to medium run effects of deregulation by developing a Dynamic Stochastic General Equilibrium model featuring endogenous producer entry and search and matching frictions in the labor market. We calibrate the model to reproduce salient features of countries belonging to the Euro Area which are characterized by large barriers to entry, firing restrictions and unemployment benefits. We analyze the effects of single policy changes and a global reform in which product and labor market regulations are set at the current U.S. level. Three main results emerge. First, we show that deregulation -- either partial or global - would trigger adjustment costs in the short run, increasing unemployment and reducing consumption. Long run welfare gains would make up for short run costs. Second, reforms are interdependent as the effects of a policy change in one market depend upon the level of regulation prevailing in the other. Third, regulation has important consequences for the business cycle properties of the economy. After a full deregulation, the Euro Area would become more responsive to exogenous disturbances but the absorption of shocks would be quicker. Our findings suggest that concerns about the negative effect of strict regulation for the speed of recovery from downturns could be well placed. The second chapter studies how country-specific labor market frictions -- hiring and firing restrictions and protection of unemployed workers -- affect the consequences of trade integration. We address this question in a two-country model of trade and macroeconomic dynamics with heterogeneous firms, endogenous producer entry, and search and matching frictions in the labor market. We study the dynamic effects of trade integration on unemployment and economic activity and the business cycle implications of stronger trade linkages. The model introduces a novel source of amplification and propagation of domestic and international shocks, as fluctuations in job creation and destruction affect the profitability of producer entry into domestic and export markets. Structural differences in labor markets translate into asymmetric entry and export dynamics across countries. As trade barriers are reduced, unemployment initially rises (falls) in countries with more rigid (flexible) labor markets. In the long run, average productivity gains ensure positive employment effects in both countries. Trade is always beneficial for welfare, but the economy with a rigid labor market gains less. Integration has also important business cycle consequences. In contrast to benchmark international real business cycle models, but consistent with the data, the model predicts that trade integration leads to increased business cycle synchronization. Volatility increases in the country with a rigid labor market, but it falls for the flexible partner. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2010. / Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: Economics.

Several currencies have arisen as credible competitors for the dollar's primary reserve currency position in central banks around the globe, and many wonder how long the dollar can maintain its position. Reserve currency usage is dependent relative to the size of the home economy, openness to trade, and prosperous and stable growth, including an inertial bias. This paper utilizes econometric methods to examine the significance of macroeconomic indicators of the U.S. dollar’s reserve currency status. The dataset is gathered from the IMF's COFER database using a time period from 2000 to 2013 in order to capture the most relevant reserve levels post-euro adoption. The estimated coefficient values indicate a significant inertial bias. This result implies that we can expect the dollar to hold the primary reserve currency position for the near future.

This thesis asks the question, is there economic justification for two CARICOM countries forming a currency union? There is a theoretical component consisting of a dynamic stochastic general equilibrium (DSGE) model, and an empirical component utilizing vector autoregressions and cointegration analyses. More specifically, the reactions of two, small, open economies, to symmetric and asymmetric shocks, with and without a currency union, are investigated. Secondly, the demand and supply shocks between country pairs are examined to determine whether positive correlations exist. Thirdly, the thesis looks at the issue of economic convergence, especially given the coordinated efforts of CARICOM member states towards an environment conducive for a currency union. The theoretical results support the traditional view that countries with symmetric shocks are better candidates for a currency union, while those with asymmetric shocks are not. The empirical work supports the formation of currency unions for the following country pairs, Grenada-St. Kitts, Grenada-St. Vincent, Trinidad-Grenada, and Trinidad-St. Vincent. / Economics

This dissertation consists of three distinct essays on tax avoidance, monetary policy and international trade. The first chapter focuses on profit shifting. Multinational enterprises (MNEs) manipulate the prices that they use for intracompany transactions (known as transfer prices) to shift profits to countries with more favorable tax treatments. I improve upon the current practice to estimating this elasticity by constructing a measure of the stringency with which countries enforce their anti-tax avoidance rules and take into account their incentive to enforce them. I report evidence showing that the failure to account for the enforcement of anti-tax avoidance rules and the incentive to enforce them results not only in biased estimates of the semi-elasticity of reported profits with respect to CIT-rate but also results in a misspecified empirical model. I estimate the empirical model of reported profits using detailed annual data on more than 40,000 affiliates located in 28 countries during the period from 2008 to 2014. The second chapter I conduct an event study to first examine the role of macroeconomic news surprises on monetary policy expectations; second, I estimate the effect that changes in short and long-term monetary policy expectations have on financial markets on days of macroeconomic news announcements compared to days of federal open market committee (FOMC) announcements. Factor analysis is used to build a short and a long-term measure of monetary policy expectations using federal funds futures and Eurodollar futures. I conclude that the path and the target factors are both affected by several macroeconomic news surprises. Finally in the last chapter I use a stochastic general equilibrium, two-country model of trade and macroeconomic dynamics developed by Ghironi & Melitz (2005) to assess the effect of two exogenous shocks: a negative technology shock to China’s productivity and a trade policy shock that makes exporting to China less costly and importing from China more expensive (known as the border-adjustment tax). I find that a negative productivity shock in China results in a reduction of imports from China and an increase in the entry of firms in the United States. At the contrary, a trade policy shock in the United States leaves American (Chinese) consumers slightly worst (better) off.

Aggregate demand is influenced by the functional income distribution of an economy and that of its trading partners. This relationship between income distribution and output is analyzed in a short-run two-country Neo-Kaleckian model. The effects of devaluation and redistribution are discussed in detail. Trade and redistribution within one country interact and output increases or decreases with changes in either depending on the specific distributional and exchange rate movements. The Marshall-Lerner condition is shown to be equivalent to the assumption of expansionary devaluation. If devaluation increases output, national redistribution policy toward wage earners is also more likely to be expansionary. (author's abstract)

Esse estudo tem como objetivo analisar se o saldo em transações correntes japonês, durante os últimos trinta e cinco anos, pode ser explicada pelo modelo de suavização do consumo. O presente trabalho engloba desde derivações formais daqueles modelos mais tradicionais até a estimação do componente de suavização do consumo a ser expresso pelo saldo em transações correntes. De uma forma geral, o modelo intertemporal tem aderência com os dados observados para a economia japonesa, com o resultado obtido principalmente por meio de uma análise de cointegração de Johansen e pela estimação de um VAR bivariado. / This work has as objective to analyze if the Japanese current account in the last 35 years can be explained by the consumption suavization movements. The research deals with the formal derivation and estimates a model for Japanese data. Regarding some hypothesis, the current account model from consumption suavization fits the Japanese data sastifactory. During the period which the research took, was particular in the Japanese economic history, mainly because it was the period of Japanese Miracle had begun but also the most and severe recession in that country. A major recession combined with the most important period of fast economic growth gave a good scenario to exam the shocks suavization movements in the Japanese economy.

Aggregate demand is influenced by the functional income distribution of an economy and that of its trading partners. This relationship between income distribution and output is analyzed in a short-run two-country Neo-Kaleckian model. The effects of devaluation and redistribution are discussed in detail. Trade and redistribution within one country interact and output increases or decreases with changes in either depending on the specific distributional and exchange rate movements. The Marshall-Lerner condition is shown to be equivalent to the assumption of expansionary devaluation. If devaluation increases output, national redistribution policy toward wage earners is also more likely to be expansionary. (author's abstract) / Series: Ecological Economic Papers

Esse estudo tem como objetivo analisar se o saldo em transações correntes japonês, durante os últimos trinta e cinco anos, pode ser explicada pelo modelo de suavização do consumo. O presente trabalho engloba desde derivações formais daqueles modelos mais tradicionais até a estimação do componente de suavização do consumo a ser expresso pelo saldo em transações correntes. De uma forma geral, o modelo intertemporal tem aderência com os dados observados para a economia japonesa, com o resultado obtido principalmente por meio de uma análise de cointegração de Johansen e pela estimação de um VAR bivariado. / This work has as objective to analyze if the Japanese current account in the last 35 years can be explained by the consumption suavization movements. The research deals with the formal derivation and estimates a model for Japanese data. Regarding some hypothesis, the current account model from consumption suavization fits the Japanese data sastifactory. During the period which the research took, was particular in the Japanese economic history, mainly because it was the period of Japanese Miracle had begun but also the most and severe recession in that country. A major recession combined with the most important period of fast economic growth gave a good scenario to exam the shocks suavization movements in the Japanese economy.

Diese Dissertation analysiert reale Wechselkursdynamiken und die Rolle von Fiskalpolitik in einer Währungsunion, die sich aus zwei Regionen zusammensetzt. Drei Forschungsfragen werden adressiert: Welche politischen Regime führen in Abwesenheit von Handel zu determinierten Gleichgewichten? Welche Rolle spielt Arbeitsmobilität über Produktionssektoren hinweg innerhalb einer Volkswirtschaft für die Dynamik des realen Wechselkurses? Und sollte nationale Fiskalpolitik auf diese Änderungen des realen Wechselkurses, d.h. auf Inflationsdifferenziale, reagieren, um den inländischen Wohlstand zu erhöhen? Das erste Essay stellt fest, dass bei autarken Mitgliedsländern eine Geldpolitik nach Taylor-Prinzip nicht ausreicht, um ein Gleichgewicht zu determinieren, wenn sie nicht mit einer "aktiven" Fiskalpolitik gekoppelt ist. Das Modell zeigt, dass fiskalische Schocks aus der Volkswirtschaft mit einer aktiven Fiskalpolitik die Inlandsinflation beeinflussen, sich aber auch auf die Volkswirtschaft auswirken, deren fiskalische Haltung passiv ist. Das zweite Essay zeigt, dass die Annahme von perfekter Arbeitsmobilität über Produktionssektoren hinweg die Fähigkeit des Modells erheblich beeinträchtigt, ausgiebige Dynamiken des realen Wechselkurses nach sektorspezifischen Schocks zu generieren. In einer empirischen Anwendung zerlege ich die Treiber der spanischen realen Wechselkursvariabilität und zeige, dass die Schätzung der Arbeitsmobilität die Modellanpassung an die Daten erheblich verbessert. Der dritte Aufsatz erwägt reale Wechselkursschwankungen als Zielvariable für nationale Fiskalpolitiken in einer Währungsunion. Eine Wohlfahrtsanalyse, die Konsumäquivalente berechnet, quantifiziert die Vorteile von Steuerregeln, die auf das inländische Inflationsdifferenzial reagieren. Sie findet großen Spielraum für wohlfahrtsfördernde, fiskalische Interventionen im Rahmen von budgetneutralen Regeln für Konsum- und Lohnertragssteuern. / This dissertation analyses real exchange rate dynamics and the role of fiscal policy within the setting of a monetary union consisting of two regions. It seeks to address three research questions: What are the policy regimes that yield determinate equilibria in the absence of trade? What is the role of labour mobility across production sectors within an economy in real exchange rate dynamics? And should a national fiscal authority respond to these changes in the real exchange rate, i.e. the domestic inflation differential, to improve domestic welfare? The first essay finds that with autarkic member countries, a monetary authority following the Taylor principle is insufficient to render an equilibrium determinate if it is not coupled with exactly one `active' fiscal policy. The model shows that fiscal shocks originating in the economy with an active fiscal stance affect domestic inflation but also spill over into the economy whose fiscal policy stance is passive. The second essay shows that assuming perfect labour mobility across production sectors significantly hampers the model's ability to generate rich real exchange rate dynamics following sector-specific shocks. In an empirical application, I decompose the drivers of Spanish real exchange rate variability and show that estimating the degree of labour mobility considerably improves the model's fit to the data. The third essay considers real exchange rate variability as a fiscal target for national fiscal authorities in a monetary union. A welfare analysis that calculates consumption equivalents quantifies the benefits of fiscal rules that are responsive to the domestic inflation differential. It finds a large scope for welfare-enhancing fiscal intervention in the set of budget-neutral rules which rely on consumption and labour income taxes.

La prévision macroéconomique à court terme est un exercice aussi complexe qu’essentiel pour la définition de la politique économique et monétaire. Les crises financières récentes ainsi que les récessions qu’ont endurées et qu’endurent aujourd’hui encore, en ce début d’année 2014, nombre de pays parmi les plus riches, témoignent de la difficulté d’anticiper les fluctuations économiques, même à des horizons proches. Les recherches effectuées dans le cadre de la thèse de doctorat qui est présentée dans ce manuscrit se sont attachées à étudier, analyser et développer des modélisations pour la prévision de croissance économique. L’ensemble d’informations à partir duquel construire une méthodologie prédictive est vaste mais également hétérogène. Celle-ci doit en effet concilier le mélange des fréquences d’échantillonnage des données et la parcimonie nécessaire à son estimation. Nous évoquons à cet effet dans un premier chapitre les éléments économétriques fondamentaux de la modélisation multi-fréquentielle. Le deuxième chapitre illustre l’apport prédictif macroéconomique que constitue l’utilisation de la volatilité des variables financières en période de retournement conjoncturel. Le troisième chapitre s’étend ensuite sur l’inférence bayésienne et nous présentons par ce biais un travail empirique issu de l’adjonction d’une volatilité stochastique à notre modèle. Enfin, le quatrième chapitre propose une étude des techniques de sélection de variables à fréquence multiple dans l’optique d’améliorer la capacité prédictive de nos modélisations. Diverses méthodologies sont à cet égard développées, leurs aptitudes empiriques sont comparées, et certains faits stylisés sont esquissés. / Economic downturn and recession that many countries experienced in the wake of the global financial crisis demonstrate how important but difficult it is to forecast macroeconomic fluctuations, especially within a short time horizon. The doctoral dissertation studies, analyses and develops models for economic growth forecasting. The set of information coming from economic activity is vast and disparate. In fact, time series coming from real and financial economy do not have the same characteristics, both in terms of sampling frequency and predictive power. Therefore short-term forecasting models should both allow the use of mixed-frequency data and parsimony. The first chapter is dedicated to time series econometrics within a mixed-frequency framework. The second chapter contains two empirical works that sheds light on macro-financial linkages by assessing the leading role of the daily financial volatility in macroeconomic prediction during the Great Recession. The third chapter extends mixed-frequency model into a Bayesian framework and presents an empirical study using a stochastic volatility augmented mixed data sampling model. The fourth chapter focuses on variable selection techniques in mixed-frequency models for short-term forecasting. We address the selection issue by developing mixed-frequency-based dimension reduction techniques in a cross-validation procedure that allows automatic in-sample selection based on recent forecasting performances. Our model succeeds in constructing an objective variable selection with broad applicability.