Esta dissertação tem como objetivo medir os efeitos do Mercosul em termos de criação, desvio de comércio e desvio de exportação, usando uma base de dados abrangente e o que há de mais moderno na literatura de gravidade. Nos últimos anos, houve um grande avanço tanto na teoria quanto na estimação de equações de gravidade, o que ajudou na microfundamentação destes modelos e na obtenção de resultados consistentes. As estimações feitas mostram que o bloco possibilitou uma criação de comércio, o que ocorre quando tanto o comércio realizado intra bloco quanto com o resto do mundo aumentam. Além do mais, foram estimados modelos com a finalidade de verificar como os efeitos do Mercosul sobre comércio evoluíram ao longo dos anos, mostrando que o efeito maior do bloco se deu nos anos 90. Outra importante questão analisada foi o impacto do Mercosul sobre dois setores econômicos: agricultura e indústria. Nestes setores também houve indícios de criação de comércio, no entanto a indústria presenciou desvio de exportações em direção ao bloco. Por fim, foram construídos alguns grupos contrafactuais, que indicam que na ausência deste acordo o comércio teria sido menor, apesar dos efeitos serem heterogêneos entre os anos e os países. / This dissertation aims to measure the effects of Mercosur in terms of trade creation and diversion and export diversion, using a comprehensive database and the most modern instruments in gravity literature. In recent years, there has been a great advancement in theory and estimation of gravity equations, which helped the microfoundation of these models and the obtainment of consistent results. Our estimates show that Mercosur resulted in trade creation, which occurs when both the intra regional trade and trade with the rest of the world increase. Moreover, we estimated some models in order to see how the effects of Mercosur on trade has evolved over the years, showing that the greatest effects occurred in the 90\'s. Another important issue discussed was the impact of Mercosur on two economic sectors: agriculture and industry. In these sectors there was also evidence of trade creation, however industry has suffered exports diversion towards the block. Finally, we constructed some contrafactual groups, which indicate that in the absence of Mercosur trade would be smaller, although the effects are heterogeneous across years and countries.

O objetivo deste trabalho é realizar um teste empírico da teoria de precificação de ativos em um conjunto de países. Em geral, a literatura utiliza testes para o modelo CAPM a partir de uma cross-section de ativos, encontrando evidências que vão tanto ao seu encontro como o refutam. No presente trabalho, entretanto, utiliza-se um teste de mudanças no nível de exposição ao risco sistemático, de maneira similar a Chari e Henry (2004). O experimento natural será a concessão (ou perda) de grau de investimento das principais agências de risco. A hipótese é que ativos sujeitos a novo nível de risco sistemático devem ter seu retorno alterado de acordo com as respectivas magnitudes individuais das diferenças no nível de exposição ao risco sistemático. Os resultados confirmam o que se espera ao examinar-se a teoria. / The objective of this dissertation is to perform an empirical test of the asset pricing theory in a set of countries. The literature usually tests CAPM from a cross-section, finding evidence that both confirm and refute theory predictions. In the present dissertation change in levels are used to test CAPM, similar to Chari and Henry (2004). The natural experiment is the countries\' rate upgrade to investment grade or downgrade to speculative grade by major ratings agencies. The hypothesis is that return of assets subject to a change in levels of systematic risk should be amended in accordance with their respective magnitudes of individual differences in exposure to systematic risk. The results confirm theory predictions.

Orientador: André Martins Biancareli / Dissertação (mestrado) - Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Instituto de Economia / Made available in DSpace on 2018-08-22T23:41:37Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Almeida_RodrigoBonecinide_M.pdf: 2336327 bytes, checksum: 77cd380b031cc0c0197b47fbb893310b (MD5) Previous issue date: 2013 / Resumo: A partir dos anos 1980 medidas de liberalização da economia foram amplamente disseminadas para os países periféricos, principalmente pelas instituições multilaterais de Bretton Woods. Desde então os países da periferia não adotaram de maneira homogênea este conjunto de reformas econômicas e reorientações de políticas econômicas. Num primeiro momento a dissertação enfatiza como Filipinas, Tailândia, Malásia, Indonésia (Asean-4) e Coréia do Sul seguiram alguns dos preceitos de liberalização econômica, dentre as quais se sobressaíram à abertura das contas financeiras do balanço de pagamentos e a desregulação de diversos mercados domésticos, inclusive o financeiro. Em seguida, aponta-se como a execução destas e de outras medidas tiveram como consequência o surgimento da crise asiática na segunda metade da década de 1990, interrompendo por alguns anos o processo de desenvolvimento dos países afetados. Na década subsequente não ocorreu semelhante episódio. Parte-se da hipótese de que a estes países, para evitarem novas crises e manterem suas economias em trajetórias sustentáveis de desenvolvimento, reviram de forma exitosa suas políticas macroeconômicas no início do século XXI, adequando-as a um contexto de integração produtiva regional na Ásia e de expansão internacional da demanda agregada. Nesse sentido, o objetivo da dissertação é compreender como, neste contexto regional e internacional, a desvalorização do câmbio e sua estabilização por meio de intervenção governamental via acumulação de reservas, taxas de juros cadentes e maior ativação da política fiscal destes países na pós-crise permitiram menor instabilidade em meio a uma trajetória de forte crescimento / Abstract: Liberalization measures were widely spread in the periphery of capitalism throughout the 1980s and 1990s, especially by the World Bank and the IMF. Since then, many countries have adopted those propelled economic reforms and economic policy reorientation. Although with national nuances, the Philippines, Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia (Asean-4) and South Korea have followed some of the economic liberalization prescriptions. In which stands out the opening of capital accounts of the balance of payments and the deregulation of many domestic markets, including the financial markets. The application of these and other measures have brought, as consequence, the rise of the Asian crisis in the second half of the 1990s, curtailing in some years the economic development of affected countries. The hypothesis sustained is that these countries, in order to avoid new crises and keep their economies in a path of sustainable development, revised their macroeconomic policies in the wake of the XXI century. Thus, the purpose of this dissertation is to understand how post-crisis exchange rate depreciation and stabilization - brought about by government intervention in exchange markets via reserve accumulation -, falling interest rates and active fiscal policy in these countries helped lessen economic instability, without the threat of a crisis like the one started in 1997 / Mestrado / Desenvolvimento Econômico / Mestre em Ciências Econômicas

While the Impossible Trinity Theory (also known as the trilemma) has been widely recognized, due to its descriptive nature, very little has been done to test its validity empirically. This paper starts by comparing several recent constructions with regard to this matter and, after making some adjustments to the trilemma index invented by Aizenman et al. (2008), proves the validity of the Impossible Trinity Theory for developing countries. This paper then studies the empirical relationship between a country’s deviation from the average trilemma index and its economic performance. Empirical results find that while the overall deviation does not affect a country’s economic performance, individual deviations as well as regional factors are significant in determining unemployment and the real GDP growth rate.

Standard economic theory suggests that capital should flow from rich countries to poor countries. However, capital has predominantly flowed to rich countries. The three essays in this dissertation attempt to explain this phenomenon. The first two essays suggest theoretical explanations for why capital has not flowed to the poor countries. The third essay empirically tests the theoretical explanations. The first essay examines the effects of increasing returns to scale on international lending and borrowing with moral hazard. Introducing increasing returns in a two-country general equilibrium model yields possible multiple equilibria and helps explain the possibility of capital flows from a poor to a rich country. I find that a borrowing country may need to borrow sufficient amounts internationally to reach a minimum investment threshold in order to invest domestically. The second essay examines how a poor country may invest in sectors with low productivity because of sovereign risk, and how collateral differences across sectors may exacerbate the problem. I model sovereign borrowing with a two-sector economy: one sector with increasing returns to scale (IRS) and one sector with diminishing returns to scale (DRS). Countries with incomes below a threshold will only invest in the DRS sector, and countries with incomes above a threshold will invest mostly in the IRS sector. The results help explain the existence of a bimodal world income distribution. The third essay empirically tests the explanations for why capital has not flowed from the rich to the poor countries, with a focus on institutions and initial capital. I find that institutional variables are a very important factor, but in contrast to other studies, I show that institutions do not account for the Lucas Paradox. Evidence of increasing returns still exists, even when controlling for institutions and other variables. In addition, I find that the determinants of capital flows may depend on whether a country is rich or poor.

This study examines the relationship between state-wise development expenditures and observed levels of development under the umbrella of the Reserve Bank of India’s implicit guarantee of state bonds. By analyzing the correlation between certain variables outside of each state’s control and levels of development, this thesis aims to determine which Indian states outperform or underperform their predicted levels of development. Moreover, it will aim to identify patterns of development expenditure that led to outperformance or underperformance. States that underperform predicted levels of development while spending above the state-wise average on relevant development sectors can be said to have squandered development expenditures, while those that outperform predicted levels while spending below the state-wise mean likely spend more efficiently. Both of these observations have implications for the central bank’s implicit guarantee policy.

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This paper considers internal and external determinants of Foreign Direct Investment in South America. Internal determinants are those which are unique to each country in question, and external determinants are common among all countries in question. An empirical analysis was conducted using data from twelve countries in South America: Argentina, Brazil, Bolivia, Chile, Columbia, Ecuador, Guyana, Paraguay, Peru, Suriname, Uruguay, Venezuela. The dataset spans from 1990 to 2020. A fixed effects multivariate linear regression was conducted on one internal variable and three external variables. Evidence suggests that external factors and internal factors both have bearing over FDI net inflows but may have differing degrees.

This dissertation consists of four related, sole-authored chapters. It considers the microeconomic mechanisms for gains from trade in the presence of quality investments by firms. It shows within the framework of a quality-augmented heterogeneous firms model that the quality dimension matters for welfare gains from trade. It also provides novel empirical evidence on adjustment mechanisms of aggregate quality as a consequence of globalization. To the best of my knowledge, this is the first contribution to provide a comprehensive analysis of the role of endogenous product quality in the determination of gains from trade. I first offer an explanation for observed industry heterogeneity in trade-induced productivity gains and show that results depend on whether or not firms have the option to invest in quality. I then take a broader view of welfare gains from trade, looking beyond productivity improvements. I find that globalization can imply a quality-variety trade-off when consumer quality preference is strong - a finding which holds under firm heterogeneity and symmetry. Nevertheless, overall gains from trade are positive. With quality being itself an important channel for gains from trade, I also investigate the detailed mechanisms by which aggregate quality changes as a consequence of globalization. This is done within the same theoretical heterogeneous firms framework as well as empirically using firm-level export data matched with firm-level quality ratings. I argue that firm heterogeneity matters for gains from trade by giving rise to an additional welfare channel in the presence of variable elasticity of demand preferences: high quality firms expand sales disproportionately in a larger market, thereby raising aggregate quality. This theoretical prediction is confirmed by the data. Furthermore, I study the mechanisms for gains from trade in a symmetric firms version of the baseline model. This allows me to isolate the role of firm heterogeneity in driving earlier results. In addition, I analyse the efficiency properties of the market equilibrium for the symmetric firms case.

This doctorate explores key aspects of the economics of housing by examining Ireland's housing market bubble of the early 2000s. For earlier chapters, the main source material is a previously unused dataset of almost two million property listings, covering the entire country from 2006 until 2012, maintained by property website daft.ie. An initial chapter outlines stylised facts of Ireland's housing market 2007-2012, including a greater spread of prices over property size in the crash but a narrower spread of rents. In contrast, the geographical spread of prices and rents was largely unchanged. The spread of rents was constrained relative to the spread of prices, suggesting either renter search thresholds or buyer "lock-in" effects. To examine which was at work, the daft.ie dataset is combined with information on a range of amenities, including landscape, transport, education, social capital and market depth. Overall, there is clear evidence that the rent effects of a range of amenities are smaller than the price effects. There is limited evidence of procyclical amenity pricing, which would indicate "lock-in" effects, with the analysis suggesting instead countercyclical pricing, or "property ladder" effects during the bubble. Results from these analyses are based on listed price and rents, rather than transaction prices. The relationship between the two is examined in a separate chapter, using an additional Central Bank of Ireland dataset on mortgages. The spread between list and sale prices gap that exists between the two is decomposed into four parts, a selection spread, a matching spread, a counteroffer spread and a drawdown spread. A selection spread of up to 10% emerged in the Irish housing market after 2009, while the counteroffer spread was positive before 2009 but negative for much of the period 2009-2011. The final chapter uses both inverted-demand and price-rent ratio methods to examine the long-run determinants of house prices in Ireland from 1980 on. In addition to careful treatment of standard fundamentals, it includes a measure of credit conditions as well as the ratio of persons to households, both contributions to the literature. The resulting inverted demand error-correction model shows a clear and stable long-run relationship, which is largely preserved when cointegration between series is explored. Similarly, a model of the price-rent ratio from 2000 shows clear error-correction properties. Together, they suggest that while a range of factors drove Irish house prices 1995-2001, credit conditions were largely responsible for the subsequent increase.