Hyman Minsky’s Financial Instability Hypothesis is used to construct two different indices for financial instability: a long-term index (Long Term Financial Instability) and a short-term index (Short Term Financial Instability). The former focuses on the underlying fragility of financial structures of units in the economy while the latter focuses on more immediate developments and manages to follow turmoil – “a financial crisis” – in the economy. The interplay of the indices with each other, with economic growth and with Foreign Direct Investment, both in general and in the financial industry, is probed. In short, we find that long term financial stability, i.e. secure financial structures in the economy or a low level of Long Term Financial Instability, is sacrificed for maintaining short term financial stability. However, more Long Term Financial Instability is associated, as Minsky expected, with more fluctuations in Short Term Financial Instability: market turmoil is more common the more fragile underlying financial structures of units in the economy are. This signals that markets are ruled by short-termism. Economic growth is harmed by Short Term Financial Instability but the effects of Long Term Financial Instability are weaker. The common expectation that FDI activities strengthen financial stability is not confirmed. The relationship found hints rather in the opposite direction: FDI activities seem to cause financial instability. Based on the those investigations and a further empirical work using data from Iceland, Leigh Harkness’s Optimum Exchange Rate System (OERS) is developed further with the intention of solving “The Policy Problem” as described by Minsky. Insights from control theory are used. The OERS, along with public debt management as carried out by Keynes, is argued to have the ability to keep economic activity in the state of a permanent “quasi-boom”. The policy implications are that the OERS should be considered as a monetary policy as it permits a free flow of capital, thereby allowing economies to reap the possible positive benefits of foreign direct investment, while still conserving financial stability.

Dynamic stochastic general equilibrium (DSGE) models are the common workhorse of modern macroeconomic theory. Whereas story-telling and policy analysis were in the forefront of applications since its inception, the forecasting perspective of DSGE models is only recently topical. In this study, we perform a post-mortem analysis of the predictive power of DSGE models in the case of Austria's Great Recession in 2009. For this purpose, eight DSGE models with different characteristics (small and large models; closed and open economy models; one and two-country models) were used. The initial hypothesis was that DSGE models are inferior in ex-ante forecasting a crisis. Surprisingly however, it turned out that not all but those models which implemented features of the causes of the global financial crisis (like financial frictions or interbank credit flows) could not only detect the turning point of the Austrian business cycle early in 2008 but they also succeeded in forecasting the following severe recession in 2009. In comparison, non-DSGE methods like the ex-ante forecast with the Global Economic (Macro) Model of Oxford Economics and WIFO's expert forecasts performed comparable or better than most DSGE models in the crisis.

Dans cette thèse, l'objectif de mes recherches, s'inscrivant dans la lignée de la littérature qui donne un rôle prééminent aux intermédiaires financiers dans les modèles macroéconomiques,consiste à comprendre les mécanismes qui ont permis à l'intermédiation financière imparfaite et parfaite d'affecter la dynamique de l'économie et la transmission de la politique monétaire, et de fournir une nouvelle formulation théorique pour l'évaluation de la politique monétaire non conventionnelle. Pour ce faire, j'ai d'abord considéré l'impact de l'intermédiation financière sur l'analyse des effets de la transparence de la banque centrale (chapitre 2). Dans le chapitre 3, je me suis concentré sur le rôle joué par l'intermédiation financière imparfaite et les frictions financières dans la transmission des chocs : par quels mécanismes, la présence d'intermédiaires financiers contraints par leur bilan affecte l'effet des chocs sur la macroéconomie? Enfin, dans le quatrième chapitre, je construis un modèle théorique pour analyser une question importante : le mécanisme de transmission des effets de l'achat à grande échelle de la banque centrale de titres adossés, qui n'a pas été effectué dans la littérature existante. / In this dissertation, my research aims at dwelling on the questions, at understanding and explaining -- as a follow of current strand of literature on financial frictions -- the mechanisms that allowed the imperfect and perfect credit intermediation to affect the dynamics of economy and the transmission of monetary policy, and providing a new theoretical formulation for evaluating the unconventional monetary policy. To do this, I first considered the impact of financial intermediation on the analysis of central bank transparency issue (Chapter 2). ln Chapter 3, I focused on the role played by the imperfect financial intermediation/financial frictions in the transmission of shocks : through which mechanisms, do the presence of balance-sheet constraint financial intermediaries affect the effect of shocks on the macroeconomy? Finally, in Chapter 4, 1 construct an theoreticalmodel to analyze an important issue which have net been carried out in existing literature: the transmission mechanism of the central bank's large-scale purchase of mortgage-backed securities. ln this chapter, I first simulated a financial crisis to see if the model is able to replicate some of the most important stylized facts of the Great Recession. Then, basing on the simulated crisis, I examine the efficacy and transmission mechanism of large scale purchases of MBS through comparing these purchases to the purchases of corporate bonds. This experiment is conducted in two credit market configurations, i.e., a partially and a totally segmented credit market. The latter case of market condition is considered by many economists as main obstacle that impedes the nominal functioning of the financial markets. ln this work, we have obtained rich and important findings for guiding the use of unconventional monetary policy. The following parts briefly present the findinqs of the thesis.

This Ph.D. thesis deals with questions related to the housing market, and answers the questions: "Does it matter if housing markets are underpriced?" and "How do the legal system and the loan contract affect those who default on their mortgage payments? "When selling a home, a popular marketing strategy is to set the list price far below market value. The idea is that a low list price will attract loads of buyers, who will push up the sale price. This thesis finds that a voluntary reform can reduce underpricing in the short run. Further, underpriced housing markets do indeed require more attention from potential buyers during all stages — online, at open houses, and during the bidding. This extra search effort is costly to society. However, underpricing is found not to affect the sale price, the time to sell, who the buyers are, or how hard the real estate agent works. The household's choice to default on a mortgage depends on the cost of the default (the legal system) and the mortgage contract. By studying a heterogeneous agent consumption/savings lifecycle model, this thesis finds that households prefer "lender friendly" laws that are costly for the homeowners upon default. This is because costly defaults yield fewer defaulters and thus lower interest rates, and thus are cheaper for non-defaulters. Households always prefer non-amortizing mortgages except when defaults do not have any cost associated with them, and they prefer adjustable rates over fixed rates. The benefits of costly defaults are particularly large for non-amortizing mortgages. The thesis concludes with the development of a new mathematical method to solve a particular class of dynamic programming problems, using stochastic simulated grids and nearest-neighbour interpolation.​

Understanding the Equity Risk Premium (ERP) and the factors affecting it is cardinal to financial economics, particularly to equity research analysts, domestic and international institutional investors and financial economist. Since the seminal work of Mehra and Prescott (1985) there has been an exponential rise in the research explaining the reasons for ERP puzzle. This review, systematically, investigates the literature related to ERP in four key dimensions. The first dimension is regarding the issues related to different techniques of estimating the ERP. The second dimension is regarding the studies that explain the reasons of existence of the ERP puzzle by making modifications to the preference structures. The third is regarding the macroeconomic variables that help in predicting ERP and the fourth deals with studies that are conducted in the international context. In addition to this, this review meticulously captures some important limitations of the existing literature regarding the estimation of ERP and identifies the domestic and international determinants of ERP, in particular the UK ERP and proposes novel future directions of research. These future research directions have two important implications for my PhD. The first is the academic contribution that predominantly comes from methodological contribution of estimating the ERP. The second is the practical contribution that comes mainly from identifying the unique set of variables (UK domestic and international), which are of prime importance to the domestic and foreign institutional investors because of the financial crisis of 2008-2009 and which should affect the UK ERP.

The purpose of this paper was to evaluate if the macroeconomic change that has occurred in the South African economy since the 1980s has been significant enough to justify a re-examination of the actuaries’ capitalisation rate, due to its formulation processes dependence on the macroeconomic situation. The need for the reexamination arises from the use of the capitalisation in the calculation of lump sum awards where even a small change in the rate can have a significant impact on the value of the final award. In order to address the issue an examination of how Keynesian expectations are formulated and an examination of the Government’s macroeconomic policy was conducted to provide the foundation. On this foundation, a trend analysis of the major groups of financial instruments, as well as the current outlooks for the South African economy, was conducted to determine if there was any indication of a significant change in the macroeconomic conditions. The results of the analysis provided a compelling case for the urgent need for the actuaries’ capitalisation rate to be recalculated to account for the changed economic situation.

Après avoir montré les particularités de la vulnérabilité bancaire, cette thèse examine empiriquement la vulnérabilité des banques européennes et canadiennes aux chocs macroéconomiques ainsi que l'effet de la diversification sur cette vulnérabilité. A partir des données individuelles consolidées portant sur les banques européennes au cours de la période 1992 à 2004, nous montrons que les banques européennes sont sensibles à la variation des taux courts, à la déformation de la courbe des taux d'intérêt et à une modification de la conjoncture économique. Ensuite, la diversification des activités permet d'accroître la rentabilité des banques européennes tout en réduisant leur probabilité de défaillance. En revanche, la diversification géographique accroît à la fois la rentabilité et le risque de défaillance des banques. Enfin, les restrictions réglementaires sur l'activité bancaire nuisent à la performance des grandes banques européennes. Une étude similaire est menée sur les six grandes banques canadiennes sur la période allant de 1996 à 2006. Les résultats obtenus révèlent que les six grandes banques canadiennes sont sensibles au risque de taux d'intérêt de court terme et à une baisse de l'activité économique. De plus, nos résultats suggèrent qu'en dépit de l'impact négatif des revenus autres que d'intérêt sur les rentabilités bancaires, les six banques canadiennes peuvent exploiter des économies d'échelle et d'envergure en augmentant leur taille, ce qui leur permettrait de résister aux chocs macroéconomiques. La dispersion géographique des prêts accroît leur risque de défaillance tandis que les restrictions réglementaires sur l'activité bancaire contribuent à réduire ce risque. L'ensemble de nos résultats confirment l'idée selon laquelle la diversification permet aux banques de résister aux chocs macroéconomiques. Nos conclusions plaident en faveur du modèle de banque universelle. / After showing the particularity of bank vulnerability, this thesis empirically examines the vulnerability of European and Canadian banks to macroeconomies shocks and the effect of diversification on this vulnerability. Using a broad data set of individual consolidated data of European banks over the period 1992-2004, we show that European banks are sensitive to changes in short term interest rates, the yield curve of interest rates and a change in economie conditions. Then, diversification activities can increase the profitability of European banks, while reducing their probability of failure. However, geographie diversification increases both the profitability and risk of failure of banks. Finally, regulatory restrictions on banking activities affect the performance of large European banks. A similar study is conducted on the six larges! Canadian banks over the period from 1996 to 2006. The results obtained show that the six larges! Canadian banks are sensitive to interest rate risk and to the decline in economie activity. Furthermore, our findings suggest that despite the negative impact of non interest income on bank profitability, the six Canadian banks can exploit economies of scale and scope by increasing their size, enabling them to withstand macroeconomies shocks. Geographical dispersion of loans increases their risk of failure while regulatory restrictions on banking activities contribute to reducing this risk. Ali our results support the view that diversification activities allow banks to withstand macroeconomies shocks. Our findings argue in favor of universal banking model.

The role of monetary policy on the cyclical behavior of the labor share and capacity utilization in the US economy is studied empirically. Previous estimation results remain robust; the inclusion of the rate of interest does not alter the underlying specification of the distributive demand regime. Next, the role of monetary policy on net borrowing flows for four institutional sectors are analyzed. Interest rate effects appear most important for households. Based on this finding, implications for countercyclical stabilization policy are spelled out. (author's abstract)

My dissertation investigated business cycle effects on US sectoral stock returns. The first chapter examined the relationship between the business cycle and sectoral stock returns. First, I calculated constant correlation coefficients between the business cycle and sectoral stock returns. Then, I employed the DCC GARCH model to estimate time-varying correlation coefficients for each pair of the business cycle and sectoral stock returns. Finally, I ran regression of sectoral returns on dummy variables designed to capture the four stages of the business cycle. I found that though sectoral stock returns were closely related to the business cycle, they did not share some of its main characteristics. The second chapter developed two models in order to discuss possible asymmetric business cycle effects on US sectoral stock returns. One was a GARCH model with asymmetric explanatory variables and the other one was an ARCH-M model with asymmetric external regressors. In the second model, square root of conditional variance of the business cycle proxy was characterized as positive or negative risk, depending on the algebraic sign of past innovations driving the business cycle proxy. I found that some sectors changed their cyclicities from expansions to recessions. Negative shocks to business cycles had most power to influence sectoral volatilities. Positive and negative parts of business cycle risk had same effects on some sectors but had opposite effects on other sectors. A general conclusion of both models was that business cycle had stronger effects than own sectoral effects in driving sectoral returns. The third chapter discussed Chinese business cycle effects on US sectoral stock returns at two horizons. At a monthly horizon, the third lag of Chinese IP growth rate had positive effects on most sectors. The second lag of US IP growth rate had positive effects on almost all sectors. At a quarterly horizon, besides the extensive positive effects of the first lag of Chinese IP growth rate, the third and fourth lags also had effects on some sectors. The US IP growth rate had the same pattern, namely positive first and fourth lag effects and negative third lag effects. Using a 5-year rolling fixed window, I found that these business cycle effects were time-varying. The major changes in parameters resulted from the elimination of quota on textiles by WTO, the terrorist attacks on the US, and the 2007 financial crisis.

This dissertation analyzes both the economics of the defense contracting process and the impact of total dollar obligations on the economies of U.S. states. Using various econometric techniques, I will estimate relationships across individual contracts, state level output, and income inequality. I will achieve this primarily through the use of a dataset on individual contract obligations. The first essay will catalog the distribution of contracts and isolate aspects of the process that contribute to contract dollar obligations. Accordingly, this study describes several characteristics about individual defense contracts, from 1966-2006: (i) the distribution of contract dollar obligations is extremely rightward skewed, (ii) contracts are unevenly distributed in a geographic sense across the United States, (iii) increased duration of a contract by 10 percent is associated with an increase in costs by 4 percent, (iv) competition does not seem to affect dollar obligations in a substantial way, (v) contract pre-payment financing increases the obligation of contracts from anywhere from 62 to 380 percent over non-financed contracts. The second essay will turn to an aggregate focus, and look the impact of defense spending on state economic output. The analysis in chapter two attempts to estimate the state level fiscal multiplier, deploying Difference-in-Differences estimation as an attempt to filter out potential endogeneity bias. Interstate variation in procurement spending facilitates utilization of a natural experiment scenario, focusing on the spike in relative spending in 1982. The state level relative multiplier estimate here is 1.19, and captures the short run, impact effect of the 1982 spending spike. Finally I will look at the relationship between defense contracting and income inequality. Military spending has typically been observed to have a negative relationship with income inequality. The third chapter examines the existence of this relationship, combining data on defense procurement with data on income inequality at the state level, in a longitudinal analysis across the United States. While the estimates do not suggest a significant relationship exists for the income share of the top ten percent of households, there is a significant positive relationship for the income share of top one percent households for an increase in defense procurement.