Many studies approach the housing-income relationship by calculating the income elasticity of demand for housing. This study employs this approach in order to (1) test the implications of the permanent income hypothesis by using data which provide both biased and unbiased elasticity coefficients and (2) test the effects which the explanatory variable, family composition, may have on the elasticity coefficients. The methodology involves regressing the log of housing expenditure on the log of disposable income for seven different family compositions in order to obtain the income elasticity coefficients. This approach is applied to data (cross section 1960-61 BLS consumer surveys) which are disaggregated into urban and rural samples. The data are then classified into income classes and occupational groupings. The income class data are referred to as biased data because they represent current measured income which contains transitory components. The occupations are referred to as unbiased data because they provide a measure of the group average or permanent income, since transitory effects are presumed to cancel out. There are three major hypotheses concerning the calculated elasticity coefficients (1) the biased coefficients should be significantly smaller than the unbiased coefficients in the individual groupings (2) the biased group coefficients should be smaller than the unbiased group coefficients and (3) the coefficients should differ across the differing family compositions within the biased and unbiased data if family composition is a significant determinant of the income elasticity of demand for housing. Hypotheses (1) and (2) are implications of Friedman’s PIH, the first one being the more important in this analysis. The third hypothesis is the major hypothesis of this analysis and is based on the assumption that families with younger children will have higher income elasticities of demand for housing than families with older children. Analysis of variance is the statistical test which is used to determine if there are significant differences in the elasticity coefficients and, if so, whether these differences are due to the first hypothesis, is biased-unbiased effects or the third hypothesis, family composition. The results were as follows: (1) The rural, data, in the main, are not supportive of either the Friedman hypothesis, that the use of measured income rather than permanent income tends to cause a downward bias in the coefficients of the income elasticity of demand for housing, or our major hypothesis, that family composition is significant determinant of the elasticity coefficient. (2) The urban data, in the main, are supportive of the Friedman hypothesis and our hypothesis regarding housing expenditures and family composition. (3) It appears that the overall group elasticities for the urban and rural data support the Friedman hypothesis because the biased coefficients are smaller than the unbiased coefficients.

Labor market indicators such as unemployment and labor force participation show a significant amount of heterogeneity across demographic groups, which is often not incorporated in monetary policy analysis. This dissertation is composed of three essays that explore the effect of labor market heterogeneity on the design and conduct of monetary policy. The first chapter, <b>Effect of Monetary Policy Shocks on Labor Market Outcomes</b>, studies this question empirically by looking at dynamics of macroeconomic outcomes to a monetary policy shock. I construct a measure of monetary policy shock using narrative methods that represent the unanticipatory changes in policy. Impulse response of unemployment rates for high and low-skill workers show low-skill workers bear a greater burden of contractionary monetary policy shock. Their unemployment rates increase by almost four times that of the high-skill group. Even though we see differences in dynamic response of unemployment rates, the empirical analysis shows some puzzling results where effects of contractionary shock are expansionary in nature. Moreover, these results are plagued by the “recursiveness assumption” that the shock does not affect current output and prices, which is at odds with theoretical models in the New Keynesian literature. In the second chapter, <b>Skill Heterogeneity in an Estimated DSGE Model</b>, I use a structural model to better identify these shocks and study dynamic responses of outcomes to economic shocks. I build a dynamic stochastic general equilibrium model, which captures skill heterogeneity in the U.S. labor market. I use Bayesian estimation techniques with data on unemployment and wages to obtain distribution of key parameters of the model. Low-skilled workers have a higher elasticity of labor supply and labor demand, contributing to the flatness of the wage Phillips curve estimated using aggregate data. A contractionary monetary policy shock has immediate effects on output and prices, lowering both output and inflation. Moreover, it increases unemployment rates for both high and low-skill groups, the magnitude being larger for the latter group. The presence of labor market heterogeneity will have new implications for the design of monetary policy, that I study in the third chapter, <b>Optimal Monetary Policy with Skill Heterogeneity</b>. I design an optimal policy for the central bank where policymakers respond to the different inflation-unemployment trade-off between high and low-skill workers. The monetary authority must strike a balance between stabilization of inflation, GDP and outcomes of high and low-skill workers separately. This optimal policy can be implemented by a simple interest rate rule with unemployment rates for high and low-skill workers and this policy is welfare improving.

A research report submitted to the Faculty of Commerce, Law and Management, University of the Witwatersrand, in fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Management in Finance and Investment. June 2017 / This research report explores how various macroeconomic surprises impact on individual stock returns in South Africa. The focus of the study is on the individual constituent stocks of the FTSE/JSE Top 40 Index listed during the period January 2005 to December 2015. This report employs an event study and Bayesian Vector Autoregressive (BVAR) analysis approach to provide comprehensive insights into the relationship between the macroeconomic surprises and the individual stock returns in South Africa. This study closely mirrors a previous study conducted by Gupta and Reid (2013) which explored the impact of five macroeconomic surprises on general stock market indices (ALSI and JSE Top 40) and industry-specific stock returns in South Africa. However, in the interests of completeness and robustness, there are a few material differences and additional innovations introduced in this report. The event study results show that individual stock returns in South Africa are highly sensitive to GDP growth and CA surprises. Upon immediate impact, the GDP growth shocks cause negative stock returns indicating that initially market participants have a general dislike for the surprise element in GDP growth surprise announcements. However, post immediate impact, the stock returns increase and remain positive in line with widely hypothesized economic theory. In addition to GDP growth and CA surprises, the BVAR analysis indicates that USFed shocks have significant dynamic effects on individual stock returns in South Africa. The study finds that individual banking stocks and resource stocks are significantly sensitive to REPO surprises, whilst individual retail, property and consumer goods stocks are very responsive to GDP growth shocks. / MT2017

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.

Esta Tese é composta por dois ensaios sobre Política Monetária. O primeiro ensaio trata da demanda por recursos intradiários e over. Com base no comportamento intradiário, são realizadas simulações para estimar a distribuição do saldo em reservas bancárias ao final do dia. A hipótese principal é de que o saldo em reservas ao longo do dia é um Processo de Levy composto por três componentes: um movimento browniano, um processo de Poisson composto com intensidade negativa e outro com intensidade positiva. Para determinar os parâmetros das simulações foram consideradas as situações em que processo é apenas um movimento browniano, ou apenas um processo de Poisson composto, ou ambos. Os parâmetros foram estimados pelos métodos convencionais e pelo modelo Tweedie, sendo feitas algumas ressalvas com relação às correlações entre defasagens. Além dos procedimentos de simulação tradicionais, foi utilizado o Bootstrap e sugerida uma forma alternativa. O modelo que apresentou melhor desempenho foi o que considera que o processo é um processo de Poisson composto. O segundo ensaio tem como tema a taxa natural de juros. Foram implementados três modelos e duas formas de estimá-los (Filtro de Kalman e estimação bayesiana). O modelo com melhor desempenho foi o modelo sugerido em Kirker (2008) estimado por procedimentos bayesianos. Como resultado, a taxa natural de juros está menor do que a taxa de juros real de curto prazo desde junho de 2009, o que sugere uma política monetária contracionista / This Thesis is composed of two essays on Monetary Policy. The first is about intraday and over reserve balances demand. Based on reserves intraday behavior, simulations are made to estimate reseve balances distribution at the end of the day. The main hypothesis is that reserve balaces along the day are Levy processes, with three components: a Brownian motion and two compound Poisson processes, one with negative and the other with a positive intensity. To determine simulation parameters, the process was alternatively considered a brownian motion, a compound Poisson process, or both. The parameters were estimeted by conventional methods and by the Tweedie model, when there is no autocorrelation. After these procedures of traditional simulation, a Bootstrap was used and an alternative procedure was proposed. The model with the best performance is the compound Poisson Process. The second essay is about natural interest rate. Three models are implementated and estimated by two methods (Kalman Filter e bayesian estimation). The best performance was obtained by the model based on Kirker (2008) and estimated through Kalman Filter. As a result, the natural interest rate was found to be above short run real interest rate since June 2009, sugesting expansionary Monetary Policy.

Este trabalho procura avaliar a importância de fricções financeiras para a economia brasileira através da estimação de um modelo Dinâmico e Estocástico de Equilíbrio Geral que incorpora um setor bancário e de crédito para a economia brasileira. São feitas análises dos choques estruturais introduzidos no modelo especificado, permitindo saber a influência de cada variável nas flutuações do produto da economia brasileira, bem como o papel desempenhado pelo setor bancário nos ciclos. Desse modo conseguimos concluir que a redução das fricções a empréstimos para empreendedores teria um impacto positivo no aumento do investimento, consumo e produto. E que as fricções financeiras por um lado permitem a manutenção de spreads bancários elevados, impactando positivamente nos lucros dos bancos, mas por outro ajudam a conter os níveis de preços face a choques na economia brasileira. / This study tries to evaluates the importance of financial frictions for the Brazilian economy through the estimation of a Dynamic and Stochastic General Equilibrium model which incorporates a banking and credit sectors. We study the influence of different structural shocks on several variables of the Brazilian economy, as well as the role of the banking sector in the business cycles. In this regard, we conclude that the reduction of financial frictions for loans to the entrepreneurs would have a positive impact on investment, consumption and output of the Brazilian economy. And if, in one hand, financial frictions allow the maintenance of higher banking spreads, increasing banks\' profits, on the other hand, it helps in the contention of inflation when the Brazilian economy respond to different shocks.

De acordo com León-Ledesma and Thirlwall (2002), o presente trabalho se propõe a testar a endogeneidade da taxa natural de crescimento para um conjunto amplo de países, no sentido do crescimento de longo prazo ser determinado pela demanda. Econometricamente, a principal hipótese a ser testada é a presença de não linearidade na Lei de Okun, que implica na existência de duas taxas naturais, cada uma correspondendo a um regime de crescimento. Utilizando dados anuais para o período de 1980 a 2007 e dados trimestrais para o intervalo entre 1980 e 2011, os resultados corroboram a hipótese de endogeneidade quando aplicada a metodologia proposta por LLT. Esta evidência se repete ao definir exogenamente os regimes de crescimento pelos métodos de Markov-Switching e threshold autoregressive regression (TAR) para os dados anuais, no entanto, para os dados trimestrais há indicações de endogeneidade e exogeneidade da taxa natural de crescimento. / Following León-Ledesma and Thirlwall (2002), this master\'s thesis aims to examine the sensitivity of the natural growth rate to the actual growth rate for a broad set of countries, based on demand-led growth theory. The main hypothesis being tested is the presence of non-linearities in Okun\'s Law, which means the existence of two natural growth rates, each corresponding to a growth regime. Using annual data over the period 1980-2007 and quarterly data over the period 1980-2011, the results support the idea that natural growth rate is dependent of the actual growth rate when applying LLT\'s methodology. This evidence repeats when establishing exogenously the regimes of growth by using Markov-Switching and threshold autoregressive regression (TAR) for the annual data, however for quarterly data this is less straightforward, having indication of endogenous and exogenous natural growth rate.

Thesis advisor: Peter Ireland / A significant theoretical literature suggests that the effects of open market operations and large scale asset purchases are limited when short-term interest rates are constrained by the zero-lower-bound (ZLB). This view is supported by a growing body of empirical evidence that points to the tepid response of the U.S. economy to extraordinary policy measures implemented by the Federal Reserve (Fed) during the past several years. In the first essay, Effective Monetary Policy at the Zero-Lower-Bound, I show that permanent open market operations (POMOs), defined as financial market interventions that permanently increase the supply of money, remain relevant at the ZLB and can increase output and inflation. Consequently, I argue that the limited success of Fed policy in recent years may be due in part to the fact that it failed to generate sufficient money creation to support economic recovery following the Great Recession. I then demonstrate that conducting POMOs at the ZLB may improve welfare when compared to a broad range of policy regimes, and conclude by conducting a robustness exercise to illustrate that money creation remains relevant at the ZLB when it is not necessarily permanent. With these results in hand, I explore the consequences of Fed QE more directly in a framework asset purchases are an independent instrument of monetary policy. In the second essay, Effective Quantitative Easing at the Zero-Lower-Bound, I show that the observed lack of transmission between U.S. monetary policy and output economic activity a consequence of the fact the Fed engaged in what I define as sterilized QE: temporary asset purchases that have a limited effect on the money supply. Conversely, I show that asset purchase programs geared towards generating sustained increases in the money supply may significantly attenuate output and inflation losses associated with adverse economic shocks and the ZLB constraint. Furthermore, these equilibrium outcomes may be achieved with a smaller volume of asset purchases. My results imply that Fed asset purchase programs designed to offset the observed declines in the U.S. money supply could have been a more effective and efficient means of providing economic stimulus during the recovery from the Great Recession. The third essay—which is joint work with Apollon Fragkiskos, Harold Spilker, and Russ Wermers— titled Buyout Gold: MIDAS Estimators and Private Equity, we develop a new approach to study private equity returns using a data set first introduced in Fragkiskos et al. (2017). Our innovation is that we adopt a mixed data sampling (MIDAS) framework and model quarterly private equity returns as a function of high frequency factor prices. This approach allows us to endogenize time aggregation and use within-period information that may be relevant to pricing private equity returns in a single, parsimonious framework. We find that our MIDAS framework offers superior performance in terms of generating economically meaningful factor loadings and in-sample and out-of-sample fit using index and vintage-level returns when compared with other methods from the literature. Results using fund-level data are mixed, but MIDAS does display a slight edge. Concerning appropriate time-aggregation, we show that there is significant heterogeneity at the vintage level. This implies highly aggregated private equity data may not properly reflect underlying performance in the cross section.

Thesis advisor: Fabio Ghironi / My dissertation develops a set of tools for introducing heterogeneity into economic models in an analytically tractable way. Many models use the representative agent framework, which greatly simplifies macroeconomic aggregation but abstracts from the heterogeneity we see in the real world. In my research, I move away from the representative agent framework in two key ways. First, my work in international macroeconomics incorporates heterogeneity via idiosyncratic shocks across countries. Second, my work on financial frictions employs asymmetric information between lenders and borrowers. In both of these areas, my goal is to examine the implications of heterogeneity in the most tractable way possible. Crucially, these insights can be incorporated into the models currently used by academics and central banks for policy analysis. The first chapter of my dissertation, "Price Stability in Small Open Economies," joint work with Mikhail Dmitriev, studies the conduct of optimal monetary policy in a continuum of small open economies. We obtain a novel closed-form solution that does not restrict the elasticity of substitution between home and foreign goods to one. Using this global closed-form solution, we give an exact characterization of optimal monetary policy and welfare with and without international policy cooperation. We consider the cases of internationally complete asset markets and financial autarky, producer currency pricing and local currency pricing. Under producer currency pricing, it is always optimal to mimic the flexible-price equilibrium through a policy of price stability. Under local currency pricing, policy should fix the exchange rate. Even though countries have monopoly power, the continuum of small open economies implies that policymakers cannot affect world income. This inability to influence world income removes the incentive to deviate from price stability under producer currency pricing or a fixed exchange rate under local currency pricing, and prevents gains from international monetary cooperation in all cases examined. Our results contrast with those for large open economies, where interactions between home policy and world income drive optimal policy away from price stability or fixed exchange rates, and gains from cooperation are present. The second chapter of my dissertation, "The Optimal Design of a Fiscal Union'', joint work with Mikhail Dmitriev, examines the role of fiscal policy cooperation and financial market integration in an open economy setting, motivated by the recent crisis in the euro area. I show that the optimal design of a fiscal union is governed by the degree of substitutability between the export goods of different countries. When countries produce goods that are imperfect substitutes they should harmonize their income taxes to prevent large terms of trade externalities. On the other hand, when countries produce goods that are close substitutes, they should organize a contingent fiscal transfer scheme to insure against idiosyncratic shocks. The welfare gains from the optimal fiscal union are as high as 5\% of permanent consumption when countries are able to trade safe government bonds, and approach 20\% of permanent consumption when countries lose access to international financial markets. These gains are especially large for countries like Greece that produce highly substitutable export goods and who cannot raise funds on international financial markets to insure against downside risk. The results illustrate why federal currency unions such as the U.S., Canada and Australia, with income tax harmonization and built-in fiscal transfer arrangements, withstand asymmetric shocks across regions much better than the euro area, which lacks these ingredients at the moment. The third chapter of my dissertation, joint work with Mikhail Dmitriev, studies macro-financial linkages and the impact of financial frictions on real economic activity in some of my other work. Beginning with the Bernanke-Gertler-Gilchrist (1999) financial accelerator model, a large literature has shown that financial frictions amplify business cycles. Using this framework, Christiano, Motto and Rostagno (AER, 2013) show that shocks to financial frictions can explain business cycle fluctuations quite well. However, this literature relies on two ad hoc assumptions. When these assumptions are relaxed and agents have access to a broader set of lending contracts, the financial accelerator disappears, and shocks to financial frictions have little to no impact on the economy. In addition, under the ad hoc lending contract inflation targeting eliminates the financial accelerator. These results provide guidance for monetary policymakers and present a puzzle for macroeconomic theory. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2014. / Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: Economics.

Thesis advisor: Peter Ireland / Thesis advisor: Christopher Baum / In this dissertation, I focus on macroeconomic and macroprudential policies. In Chapter 1, I study the effectiveness of macroprudential policy tools on bank risk. The findings show that although macroprudential policy tools can stabilize the financial system, under certain conditions, they might have perverse effects. In Chapter 2, I examine monetary aggregates, and show that once measured correctly, they can be useful in gauging the stance of monetary policy. In Chapter 3, by studying the deter- minants of sovereign debt crises, I aim at improving our understanding of sovereign debt distress, and also strengthening the toolkit for crisis prevention. Chapter 1: Following the 2007-2009 financial crisis, there has been an increase in the use of macroprudential policy tools – such as loan-to-value ratio caps and interbank exposure limits – to achieve financial stability. Existing research on the effectiveness of macroprudential policy has focused on country-level variables such as total credit growth and house price inflation. In “The Effectiveness of Macropruden- tial Policy on Bank Risk,” I study how the effectiveness of macroprudential policy varies across banks and policy tools. Using system GMM on bank-level data from 30 European countries for the time period between 2000 and 2014, I document that stricter regulation in the form of exposure limitations tends to decrease banks’ risk levels whereas capital-based tools tend to induce higher risk-taking. After a policy tightening, loan loss provisions and non-performing loans ratios of banks suffering losses can increase substantially, up to five percentage points, while they are likely to decrease for profitable banks. Constraining activities by stricter regulation can lead to a search for yield. Therefore, policy designers should pay particular attention to the increase in risk-taking following policy tightening, especially by banks suffering losses. Chapter 2: It is crucial for policymakers to successfully gauge the stance of mon- etary policy and understand the mechanisms through which it affects the economy. Conventional models focus on interest rates alone, and omit monetary aggregates from policy discussions. In “Do Monetary Aggregates Belong in a Monetary Model? Evidence from the UK,” I examine whether augmenting the measure of monetary policy with monetary aggregates helps in drawing more robust links between policy and economic fluctuations. After constructing the Divisia money index for the United Kingdom, I employ structural vector autoregression to identify two different episodes of UK monetary policy regimes. Inclusion of this (correct) measure of the quantity of money and disentangling money supply from money demand remedy the price and liquidity puzzles which frequently appear in the vector autoregression literature. The results point to the informational content embedded in monetary aggregates, and suggest that monetary aggregates should be taken into account while evaluating monetary policy. Chapter 3: In assessing debt sustainability for advanced and emerging markets, the IMF’s Market Access Countries’ Debt Sustainability Analysis (MAC DSA) com- pares the levels of debt and gross financing needs (GFNs) against benchmarks sepa- rately derived from the noise-to-signal approach. In “Determinants of Sovereign Debt Crises,” I identify the main factors that contribute to sovereign debt crises. I take into account a broad range of debt distress drivers, including debt levels and gross fi- nancing needs, but also debt composition, macroeconomic fundamentals, and country characteristics such as whether the country is a small state or member of a currency union. By using the estimation results, I first derive an indicative cutoff probability of debt distress level. Then, I calculate the corresponding thresholds for debt variables, above which countries are predicted to experience an episode of debt distress. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2018. / Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: Economics.