This work aims to explain the performance of the Brazilian economy throughout the period of the Great Depression. We propose a general equilibrium, open economy model in which the Brazilian government can improve the terms of trade by taking advantage of Brazil\'s monopolistic position in international coffee markets. It burns a share of coffee production in order to influence international prices, thus containing the impact of the Great Depression on the domestic economy\'s supply of foreign consumption and investment goods. We find that our coffee burning mechanism is capable of improving the performance of the economy for some of our assumptions about the share of coffee that is destroyed. Our models also fits with different degrees of success the data on international coffee prices. / Este trabalho objetiva explicar a performance da economia brasileira durante o período da Grande Depressão. Nós propomos um modelo de equilíbrio geral com economia aberta no qual o governo brasileiro consegue melhorar os termos de troca ao se aproveitar da posição monopolística do Brasil nos mercados internacionais de café. Ele queima uma parcela da produção de café para influenciar os preços internacionais, assim contendo o impacto da Grande Depressão sobre a oferta de bens de consumo e investimento importados da economia doméstica. Nós descobrimos que o mecanismo de queima do café é capaz de melhorar a performance da economia sob algumas de nossas hipóteses sobre a parcela de café que é destruída. Nossos modelos também se ajustam com diferentes graus de sucesso aos dados sobre os preços internacionais do café.

<p>Since the implementation of NAFTA in 1994 there has been an incentive to create free trade agreement with all the American countries. The next step to reach a free trade agreement like this has been the CAFTA, where also the Central American countries are involved in an agreement with the U.S. El Salvador is part of this agreement. The project has both been criticized and praised. Due to these different opinions the thesis wants to give answers to how CAFTA will affect different sectors in the economy in El Salvador and how the agreement will affect the people working in these sectors. The studied sectors are the agriculture, the assembly industry and the micro, small, and medium businesses in the informal sector. With the help of theories about free trade, specialization, factor mobility and growth, together with information about the experiences from Mexico and interviews from El Salvador, the answers are given to the problem. El Salvador will have comparative advantages in some products in the agriculture sector. The assembly industry will be able to compete if they can stand against the competition with China. The micro, small, and medium businesses are more orientated to the local market and will not be affected. In all sectors the lack of support from the government is a problem. The FDI is expected to increase but there will not be any technological transfer. Workers in the farm sector will move to the cities where they will find jobs in the assemblies or in the informal sector. Those who do not find jobs will emigrate to the U.S.</p>

Since the implementation of NAFTA in 1994 there has been an incentive to create free trade agreement with all the American countries. The next step to reach a free trade agreement like this has been the CAFTA, where also the Central American countries are involved in an agreement with the U.S. El Salvador is part of this agreement. The project has both been criticized and praised. Due to these different opinions the thesis wants to give answers to how CAFTA will affect different sectors in the economy in El Salvador and how the agreement will affect the people working in these sectors. The studied sectors are the agriculture, the assembly industry and the micro, small, and medium businesses in the informal sector. With the help of theories about free trade, specialization, factor mobility and growth, together with information about the experiences from Mexico and interviews from El Salvador, the answers are given to the problem. El Salvador will have comparative advantages in some products in the agriculture sector. The assembly industry will be able to compete if they can stand against the competition with China. The micro, small, and medium businesses are more orientated to the local market and will not be affected. In all sectors the lack of support from the government is a problem. The FDI is expected to increase but there will not be any technological transfer. Workers in the farm sector will move to the cities where they will find jobs in the assemblies or in the informal sector. Those who do not find jobs will emigrate to the U.S.

This thesis provides an integrated overview on the historical and contemporary literature dedicated to the study of within-country income inequality in Latin America. The central hypothesis of this report is that there are underlying factors that drive the persistent levels of high within-country inequality experienced by Latin American countries. We study two countries, Brazil and Bolivia, through the process of reform and growth, and note the effects on the labor markets. Using all available statistics and the wealth of knowledge compiled since the early 1980s, this study identifies those trends, and the factors that cause them to reappear in numerous cases across South America. Focusing on periods of recession and post-stabilization growth in countries with rising or consistently unequal distributions of wealth, this report identifies viable trends in unemployment, linking them to external events and the social climate of Latin America. Employing case-study methodology (see Chapters 6 and 7) this thesis builds a framework with which to study national and regional inequality, then applies it to two cases: Brazil and Bolivia. This thesis’ main findings are that the political and economic reforms and restructurings during the crisis in the 1980s, and the post-1980 era of stabilization and growth, generally perpetuated or worsened the levels of income inequality for countries in Latin America. Further analysis concludes that unsustainable external debt, boom-and-bust cycles, more deeper-seated cultural factors cannot be overlooked. Low government spending on social and educational development is the unfortunate consequence of copious external debt and public interest payments in Latin America; instead of promoting long-term growth, Latin American regimes are instead forced to focus on high interest rates and protecting wildly volatile currencies. Ethnic composition, entrenched class-structure, and cultural norms each play significant roles in income disparity, the extent of which varies by case. The limitations of this research are firstly, that regression analysis is inconclusive; no strong correlation between growth and inequality can be observed, even within the highly unequal region of Latin America.. Further, tax data, which provides the basis for measurements of income inequality, varies from country to country, making cross-country statistical meta-analysis difficult. Lastly, data was not collectible until the early 1980s, and has missing observations, further complicating the task of statistical analysis. Thus, this study bases its findings on empirical evidence, data, and basic economic theory, in explaining the factors and causes of inequality.

This paper investigates the primacy of foreign direct investment inflows in liberalizing China’s economy and whether the long-term gains from economic openness will justify its inefficient energy uses and growing regional income disparities. By examining the history of FDI inflows in China, it becomes evident that FDI inflows were an instrumental part in institutional and technological development in China. I extend the argument to take into account how these developed infrastructures react to China’s growing energy demand in light of a shrinking world supply. Lastly, I perform a meta-analysis on the Environmental Kuznets Curve theory and the Pollution Haven Hypothesis, to examine if there are negative environmental outcomes from FDI inflows. I find that the technological effect of FDI inflows tend to result in long-run improvements under most circumstances.

The membership of the Group of 20 was selected without any official criteria. This paper investigates whether group membership can be explained through the consideration of several different factors that coincide with the mission of the organization. I found strong evidence that membership in the Group of 20 was based on some combination of land mass and economic output. The results demonstrate that these factors are highly predictive of group membership.

Esta tesis consiste en tres ensayos independientes. Aunque unidos bajo un título, varían en los temas considerados y método escogido. El primer ensayo presenta un modelo de ciclos reales internacionales con rigideces reales que hoy constituyen una parte considerable de teoría RBC de economía cerrada con mercados completos. En general, estas rigideces tienen menos éxito al resolver problemas de correlaciones internacionales. Encontramos que los costes de ajuste del capital, junto con hábitos de consumo, ayudan a explicar sólo correlación positivo de inversión - en combinación con costes principales de ajuste, hábitos de consumo proporcionan un canal por el que los costes principales de ajuste llegan a ser más grandes que los costes de oportunidad de no invertir en un país más productivo. Además, se demuestra que las rigideces en el mercado de trabajo no ayudan a explicar correlaciones de factores, como por ejemplo el problema de empleo e inversión. Además, mientras tanto los costes de ajuste de trabajo como los hábitos de ocio ambos aumentan la correlación de produccion, sólo los efectos de esto representan fuerzas llevan a la solucion del problema de consumo. En el segundo ensayo se presenta un instrumento útil para banqueros centrales de los países dolarizados en el análisis de adecuación de las reservas internacionales. Una expresión analítica de reservas óptimas es derivada y calibrada para Croacia, con el proposito de evaluar la adecuación de las reservas internacionales croatas. Mostramos que la demanda preventiva para reservas es consecuente con una fuerte tendencia de acumulación de reservas internacionales en los últimos 10 años. Si esta tendencia fue demasiado fuerte o si las reservas fueron más bajas que las reservas óptimas depende de la reacción posible de los bancos matrices durante una crisis. Mostramos que para valores plausibles de los parámetros, el Banco Nacional de Croacia tiene reservas suficientes para luchar contra una posible crisis con la misma magnitud que la de 1998/1999, caracterizada por una crisis bancaria con sudden stop. También mostramos que la utilización de los dos indicadores estándar de reservas "óptimas", la regla Greenspan-Guidotti y la regla de tres meses de importación, puede llevar a una evaluación poco realista de la "optimalidad" de las reservas internacionales en el caso de Croacia. El tercer ensayo explora el impacto de la tasa de cambio de USD/EUR en la inflación en los países de Europa central y oriental (PECO). En particular, analizamos cuál porción de la variación en la inflación en el PECO puede ser atribuida a la tasa de cambio del USD /EUR como un golpe externo. Además, estudiamos hasta qué punto los golpes de la tasa de cambio de USD /EUR influyen en la inflación en el PECO. Un modelo de VAR con restricciones de exogeneidad en bloque es empleado para trazar el impacto de las fluctuaciones de la tasa de cambio de USD /EUR en la inflación en cada etapa por la cadena de distribución. Encontramos que la tasa de cambio de USD /EUR tiene impacto diferente en la inflación en los PECO con regímenes diferentes de tasa de cambio. Nuestro ejercicio empírico muestra que la tasa de cambio de USD /EUR explica la gran parte de la inestabilidad de la inflación en los PECO con tasas de cambio fijas de la moneda doméstica contra el euro. Además, el grado de influencia de la tasa de cambio de USD /EUR en la inflación en el PECO es el más alto en las economías con regímenes de tasa de cambio fijos. Estos resultados pueden ser importantes en el contexto del requisito de estabilidad de precios de los Criterios de Maastricht: además del reto interno de mantener la inflación baja y enfrentarse con las dificultades del proceso de convergencia de precios, los países solicitantes podrían enfrentarse con problemas fuera de su alcance. / This thesis consists of three self-contained essays. Although united under one title they differ in both the topics considered and approaches chosen. The first essay presents an international real business cycles model with real rigidities which today constitute a large part of closed economy RBC theory in a complete markets setting. Overall, these rigidities have less success in resolving international comovement puzzles. We find that capital adjustment costs together with consumption habits help explain positive investment comovement only - in combination with capital adjustment costs, consumption habits provide a channel through which capital adjustment costs become larger than the opportunity costs of not investing in a more productive country. In addition, I find that rigidities in labor market do not help to explain factor comovements such as the employment and investment puzzle. Furthermore, while both labor adjustment costs and leisure habits increase the output correlation, only the effects of the latter present forces toward resolving the consumption cross-correlation puzzle. The second essay offers a useful tool for central bankers in dollarized countries for analyzing foreign reserves adequacy. An analytical expression of optimal reserves is derived and calibrated for Croatia in order to evaluate the adequacy of the Croatian National Bank foreign reserves. We show that the precautionary demand for reserves is consistent with the trend of strong accumulation of foreign reserves over the last 10 years. Whether this trend was too strong or whether the actual reserves were lower than the optimal reserves depends on the possible reaction of the parent banks during a crisis. We show that for plausible values of parameters, the Croatian National Bank has enough reserves to fight a possible crisis of magnitude of the1998/1999 sudden stop with banking crisis episode. We also show how using the two standard indicators of "optimal" reserves, the Greenspan-Guidotti and the 3-months-of-imports rules, might lead to an unrealistic assessment of the foreign reserves optimality in the case of Croatia. The third essay explores the impact of the USD/EUR exchange rate on inflation in the Central and East European countries (CEEC). In particular, we analyze which portion of the variation in inflation in the CEEC can be attributed to the USD/EUR exchange rate, as an external shock. In addition, we study to what extent USD/EUR exchange rate shocks influence inflation in the CEEC. A VAR model with block exogeneity restrictions is employed to trace the impact of the USD/EUR exchange rate fluctuations on inflation at each stage along the distribution chain. We find that the USD/EUR exchange rate has different impact on inflation among the CEEC with different exchange rate regimes. Our empirical exercise shows that the USD/EUR exchange rate accounts for the largest share of inflation volatility in the CEEC with stable exchange rates of the domestic currency against the euro. Furthermore, the extent of the USD/EUR exchange rate influence on inflation in the CEEC is the largest in the economies with stable exchange rate regimes. These results might be important in the context of the price stability requirement of the Maastricht Criteria: in addition to the internal challenge of keeping low inflation and dealing with the difficulties of the price convergence process, the applicant countries could face problems beyond their influence.

It is generally accepted that the less developed nations have suffered a long run deterioration of their terms of trade, which represents an indirect transfer of income to the developed nations.1 If true, the gains from international trade are being unequally distributed and the less developed nations have a legitimate complaint. They are very concerned about their terms of trade on the international scene because their trade gains provide for skills required for modernization. Raul Prebisch2 cited the Latin American nations as a classic example in the deterioration of the terms of trade. Most of these nations export heavily in "primary commodities" and spend a large percent of their monies on imports. If these nations maintain a quasi-monopoly position in the marketing of the above items, then the writeer questions whether or not an unfavorable trade relationship does exist.

This thesis explores the effects of NAFTA on Mexico’s economy. In 1994, when Mexico first signed the agreement, it expected to boost its economy substantially by increasing trade with two world powers. Mexico stood to benefit the most with a convergence of economies which set high expectations for NAFTA. Twenty years later it is evident that not all goals were met. The success of NAFTA has sparked a debate in which opposing sides tend to project extremists arguments. However, this study reflects that NAFTA has not been a complete success or an absolute failure for Mexico. Rather, it looks at NAFTA as a project with room for improvement given the current results. This conclusion is reached by answering the following questions: In what ways has Mexico’s economy improved since 1994? Can these improvements be attributed to NAFTA? Twenty years later, which expectations have not been met? How does Mexico’s economic growth compare to that of other Latin American countries? And lastly, in what ways can the agreement or Mexican policy be modified to improve results?

This work aims to explain the performance of the Brazilian economy throughout the period of the Great Depression. We propose a general equilibrium, open economy model in which the Brazilian government can improve the terms of trade by taking advantage of Brazil\'s monopolistic position in international coffee markets. It burns a share of coffee production in order to influence international prices, thus containing the impact of the Great Depression on the domestic economy\'s supply of foreign consumption and investment goods. We find that our coffee burning mechanism is capable of improving the performance of the economy for some of our assumptions about the share of coffee that is destroyed. Our models also fits with different degrees of success the data on international coffee prices. / Este trabalho objetiva explicar a performance da economia brasileira durante o período da Grande Depressão. Nós propomos um modelo de equilíbrio geral com economia aberta no qual o governo brasileiro consegue melhorar os termos de troca ao se aproveitar da posição monopolística do Brasil nos mercados internacionais de café. Ele queima uma parcela da produção de café para influenciar os preços internacionais, assim contendo o impacto da Grande Depressão sobre a oferta de bens de consumo e investimento importados da economia doméstica. Nós descobrimos que o mecanismo de queima do café é capaz de melhorar a performance da economia sob algumas de nossas hipóteses sobre a parcela de café que é destruída. Nossos modelos também se ajustam com diferentes graus de sucesso aos dados sobre os preços internacionais do café.