A large theoretical and empirical literature has studied the response in prices to changes in demands and costs. Three of the essays in this thesis are empirical studies of price-setting. The most important reason for studying the properties of price adjustments is the possible link between pricing and the business cycle. One family of models deals with price rigidities. If prices adjust slowly to changes in costs or demand, it will magnify fluctuations in output. A second family of models examines price changes due to changes in intensity of competition. Many of these models build on the idea that changes in demand affect the possibility of maintaining implicit collusion. Cyclical changes in the intensity of competition may cause a cyclical pricing pattern that magnifies fluctuations in output. Another line of research models the effects of liquidity constraints on the business cycle. One possible effect is that prices in markets where consumers have switching costs may increase, if the firms are hit by increased liquidity constraints. As increased liquidity constraints are common in recessions, prices will get a counter-cyclical tendency, which magnifies fluctuations in output. Another reason for studying price-setting patterns is that they can give an indication of the form of interaction between competing firms, which are of importance for competition policy. The fourth essay models sex discrimination formally. It shows that it is possible that sex discrimination in the labor market might be due to self-fulfilling sex stereotypes on the distribution of time out for child care between men and women. Both an even and an uneven distribution of time out for child care are possible equilibria in the model. The four essays can be read separatelyEssay 1 Price Responses to Seasonal Demand Changes in the Swedish Gasoline MarketA common idea in a number of papers on cyclical pricing is that implicit price collusion may be affected by changes in demand. In these models, tacit collusion is modeled as a game where agents balance gains from deviating from the collusive price, thereby gaining a short-run profit, against the gains from maintaining collusion in future periods. If demand fluctuates, the gains from deviating is high in periods of high demand; collusion may still be sustainable, however, if the collusive price is allowed to vary with demand. A lower price in high demand states reduces the gains from deviating, since it reduces the gain from each unit sold in these demand states. Hence, in order to equalize the profit from deviating and the profit from sticking to the implicit agreement, the price must move in the opposite direction to demand. Changes in demand can, naturally, be correlated with other factors affecting the price, such as cost changes. Thus, prices do not necessarily fall when demand increases in the data. According to the theory the, however, increase in demand should add a tendency to lower prices in order to make implicit collusion sustainable. The basic idea that changes in demand should affect prices if firms are engaged in implicit collusion has been employed in a number of papers, with different models for different assumptions on the pattern of demand changes. The demand for gasoline in Sweden follows a seasonal cycle, with demand being 42 percent higher in July than in January. Haltiwanger and Harrington provide a theory for implicit collusion over deterministic cycles, such as the seasonal cycle. Borenstein and Shepard (1996) tested Haltiwanger and Harrington’s model on the American gasoline retail market and found support for the theory. In this essay the model is tested for Swedish data, but no support for this theory is found. It is also investigated whether the effects on margins of the demand fluctuations induced by tax increases are compatible with theories of implicit collusion, but this is found not to be the case.Essay 2 Price Adjustments by a Gasoline Retail ChainEssay 2 is joint with Marcus Asplund and Richard Friberg. Stickiness of prices is an important building block in many business cycle models. This has spurred an empirical literature on price adjustments. Different types of price rigidities have different policy implications. Price setting can be state dependent, e.g. prices are adjusted when costs have changed by at least some minimal amount since the last price adjustment, or time-dependent e.g. adjusted once a week or once a year. Another issue is whether prices are equally rigid downwards as upwards. The second essay examines price responses in the Swedish gasoline retail market to changes in the Rotterdam spot price of gasoline, exchange rates and taxes. The main results are that cost changes are not fully passed through in the short run, but gradually moves towards the long-run equilibrium. Prices are stickier downwards than upwards. There is a minimum absolute size of price changes. Only very limited evidence of time-dependent price setting is found.Essay 3 Prices, Margins and Liquidity Constraints: Swedish Newspapers 1990-1996Essay 3 is written with Marcus Asplund and Niklas Strand. Chevalier and Scharfstein (1996) provide a model where consumer switching costs in combination with liquidity constraints give rise to a counter-cyclical tendency in prices. Customer stocks can be viewed as an investment, when consumers have switching costs when changing suppliers. Firms can exploit captured customers by setting a high price to raise short-run profits. However, a high price will induce consumers to search for alternatives, and customers once lost are costly to win back. Liquidity constraints, for instance in recessions, may force firms to sacrifice long-run profits for short-run gains. In this case, firms may have to cut back on investments in customer stocks by raising prices. Using firm level data from the Swedish daily newspaper industry, we test the effects of liquidity constraints on prices in markets with consumer switching costs. The newspaper industry is of particular interest, since firms set prices in two markets, the subscription market, where switching costs are high, and the advertising market, where switching costs are low. With accounting data from newspaper firms we can, by solvency, broadly categorize them as being more or less liquidity constrained. When Sweden enters a recession at the beginning of the nineties, we find a relative increase in subscription prices and margins for liquidity constrained firms. This is not the case for advertising prices, however. The results support the theory.Essay 4 Statistical Discrimination and Sex Stereotypes in the Labor MarketTime out for child care is unevenly distributed between the sexes. Parental leave benefits are usually exclusively given to the mother or distributed to both parents according to their choice. In Sweden, one month is reserved for each parent, however. One reason for this is to give the child better contact with both parents, but increased equality between the sexes in the labor market has also been put forward as an argument. This argument implicitly rests on the idea that sex stereotypes create sex discrimination, and that sex discrimination affects the distribution of time out for child care between the sexes. Essay 4 investigates if the uneven distribution of time out for child care can be explained by self-fulfilling sex stereotypes. It provides a model of distribution of time out for child care based on statistical discrimination and human capital investments. The model has three equilibria. In one equilibrium, time out for child care is evenly distributed between the sexes. In the second equilibrium, there is full specialization. The third equilibrium is an intermediate case, where time out for child care is unevenly distributed without full specialization There are no differences in ability or variance of ability between the sexes, the only differences between the equilibria are the self-fulfilling expectations of firms and workers. / Diss. (sammanfattning) Stockholm : Handelshögsk., 2001

Submitted by Gustavo Lôpo Andrade (gustavo.lopo@gmail.com) on 2017-07-18T22:57:10Z No. of bitstreams: 1 Dissertação - Gustavo Lôpo Andrade.pdf: 938243 bytes, checksum: db6777e4df90285643a4ac5de9fb14fa (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by GILSON ROCHA MIRANDA (gilson.miranda@fgv.br) on 2017-07-21T14:26:04Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 Dissertação - Gustavo Lôpo Andrade.pdf: 938243 bytes, checksum: db6777e4df90285643a4ac5de9fb14fa (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2017-07-27T12:40:59Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Dissertação - Gustavo Lôpo Andrade.pdf: 938243 bytes, checksum: db6777e4df90285643a4ac5de9fb14fa (MD5) Previous issue date: 2017-05-30 / In several markets, cost hikes are passed through to consumers to a larger extent than cost reductions. This is a widely document phenomenon in the literature, yet under-explored in Brazil. Collusion is one of the theoretical explanations for that. This study examines pass-through asymmetry in the Brazilian beer market where in 2013 four major brewing companies held over 98% of the market. Our results indicate asymmetry insofar as cost hikes are passed through but cost reductions don’t seem to affect prices. Moreover, supermarkets pass-through cost hikes more strongly than bars and restaurants. / Aumentos de custo são repassados ao consumidor em maior proporção do que reduções de custos em diversos mercados. Esse fenômeno é largamente documentado na literatura, mas ainda é um tema pouco explorado no Brasil. Colusão é uma das explicações teóricas para esse fenômeno. Este estudo objetiva examinar a assimetria na transmissão de preços no mercado de cerveja brasileiro onde, em 2013, quatro grupos de cervejarias detinham mais de 98% do mercado. Os resultados apontam assimetria na medida em que, no curto prazo, aumentos de custo são repassados e reduções de custo parecem não ter efeitos. Além disso, mercados repassam aumentos mais fortemente que bares e restaurantes.

Afin de répondre au questionnement général de cette thèse qui traite de la viabilité de l'union monétaire européenne, ce travail est divisé en trois parties. Dans la première, nous analysons notre objet d'étude à un niveau méta. Nous montrons ainsi que l'architecture institutionnelle de la zone euro est axée sur la stabilité monétaire sans proposer formellement des mécanismes d'ajustement aux chocs. La deuxième partie s'intéresse à la question de la synchronisation des économies européennes par l'intermédiaire de deux essais. Nous montrons que d'importantes hétérogénéités demeurent. La troisième partie analyse des questions relatives à la transmission de la politique monétaire. Cela se réalise avec deux essais qui montrent d'une part que la transmission de la politique monétaire dans la zone euro a été fortement perturbée par la crise des subprimes et, d'autre part, que l'influence de la BCE sur les actions des marchés européens est faible. Cette thèse insiste par conséquent sur le caractère incomplet du processus d'intégration économique et monétaire européen et sur sa nécessaire réforme. / The main objective of this thesis is to investigate the problematic of the viability of the European monetary union. This work is divided in three parts. In the first one, we analyse our object of research in order to precise several research axes to study in priority. We show that the European monetary union in mainly focused on the monetary stability without any formal adjustments mechanisms. The second part is focused on the question of the European members' economies synchronisation. We show that large heterogeneities remain. Two essays on the monetary policy pass-through compose the third part. We demonstrate that the interest rate pass-through was affected by the subprimes crisis and that the ECB's influence over the European stock markets is weak. This thesis insists on the fact that the European monetary and economic process of integration is incomplete and should be reinforced.

Submitted by isabela.moljf@hotmail.com (isabela.moljf@hotmail.com) on 2017-06-20T13:47:47Z No. of bitstreams: 1 jeanviniciusmarçal.pdf: 2941702 bytes, checksum: 46f4a5b14de034715ce1e2488e4bd957 (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Adriana Oliveira (adriana.oliveira@ufjf.edu.br) on 2017-06-29T12:39:39Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 jeanviniciusmarçal.pdf: 2941702 bytes, checksum: 46f4a5b14de034715ce1e2488e4bd957 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2017-06-29T12:39:39Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 jeanviniciusmarçal.pdf: 2941702 bytes, checksum: 46f4a5b14de034715ce1e2488e4bd957 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2017-02-16 / Esta dissertação objetivou analisar o mecanismo de transmissão da política monetária para a taxa de juros de varejo na economia brasileira em uma abordagem não linear. O período principal de análise foi de março de 2011 a março de 2016. A estratégia empírica consistiu no emprego da abordagem de política monetária para o repasse e do uso do modelo de cointegração não linear NARDL. Os principais resultados encontrados são que para as taxas de empréstimos analisadas encontrou-se evidência da assimetria de curto e longo prazo no repasse da taxa SELIC. Conclui-se ainda que a transmissão da taxa de juros no Brasil é caracterizada por apresentar o predomínio do sobre repasse. Por fim, ao comparar o período principal com um período anterior, delimitado de janeiro de 2000 a dezembro de 2012, verificou-se a mudança no sinal da assimetria, passando de negativa para positiva no período atual. / This dissertation aims to analyze interest rate pass-through mechanism from SELIC to retail interest rate in the Brazilian economy in a nonlinear framework. The main review period was from March 2011 to March 2016. The empirical strategy consists in the use of monetary policy approach to interest rate pass-through and use of nonlinear cointegration model NARDL. The main results are that exist evidence of short as well as long-term asymmetry in the interest rate pass-through. We can also conclude that the interest rate pass-through is characterized by the predominance of the more complete pass-through. Finally, when comparing the main period with an earlier period, delimited from January 2000 to December 2012, there was a change in the sign of asymmetry, from negative to positive in the current period.

This dissertation is composed of three essays at the intersection of international trade and finance. In the first chapter, I measure exchange rate pass-through (ERPT) for value-added exports, where intermediate input requires sharing among countries in a back-and-forth manner for producing a single final product. I derive an estimating equation for ERPT and value-added trade following a partial equilibrium model, which also leads to decomposition of the trade elasticity into the own price effect and the price index effects. From the empirical estimation, I find that ignoring the value-added trade will cause a systematic upward bias in the estimation of ERPT. I also find that there exists substantial heterogeneity in pass-through rates across sectors: sectors with high-integration into global markets functions with a lower rate of exchange in comparison to sectors with less integration. The second essay focuses on a specific market, where I examine the relationship between product attributes and ERPT. This paper estimates the ERPT by using good-level daily data on wholesale prices of imported agricultural products, where the identification is achieved by using daily data on the domestic inflation rate. The results of standard empirical analyses are in line with existing studies that employ lower frequencies of data by showing evidence for incomplete daily ERPT of about 5 percent. The key innovation is achieved when nonlinearities in ERPT are considered, where ERPT is doubled to about 10 percent when daily nominal exchange rate changes are above 0.55 percent, daily frequencies of price change are above 3.12 percent, the storage life of a product is above 10 weeks, and for the non-zero price changes, the ERPT is complete. In the final essay, I focus on the firms’ export pricing strategy: pricing-to-market strategy. To achieve this, I introduce a partial equilibrium model of firm’s pricing strategy, where the market share of a firm plays an important role in the determination of markup. The empirical estimation is that markup ranges from 1.25 to 1.5 across years and 1.25 to 51.23 across firms. I also find that markups come back to their average level within 30 to 60 days of the initial date.

The paper examines the hypothesis that the devaluation of the domestic currency leads to the higher exchange rate pass-through at the zero lower bound since the interest rate channel cannot offset effects of the depreciation in that situation. Time-varying vector autoregression with stochastic volatility is used to identify the development of the pass-through. The hypothesis is tested on the Czech dataset because the Czech Republic is considered as the prototypical small open economy with inflation targeting. The assumption of higher pass-through to consumer prices at the zero lower bound is rejected. Obtained results confirm that the deprecation stimulates output growth slightly more when the interest rate is close to zero. Our estimations imply that the exchange rate commitment of the Czech National Bank increased the price level by 0.116 % and contributed to the output growth by 0.781 %.

Thesis (M.A. Commerce (Economics)) -- University of Limpopo, 2019 / South Africa had targeted the oil and gas sector for investment through the industrial action plan as a special economic zone. However, certain economic fundamentals might negate the anticipated sector financial development. This study investigate how economic risk exposure influence oil & gas sector stock market returns from 2007 to 2015 on a monthly basis. The four macroeconomic variables used to measure economic risk exposure are Brent crude oil prices, the USD/ZAR exchange rate, broad money supply and gold prices. The adopted techniques include the GARCH model to incorporate volatility, the Johansen cointegration and Granger causality techniques. The results of the study found that change in Brent crude oil prices and broad money supply had a positive and significant impact on changes in oil & gas sector stock returns. Changes in exchange rate and gold prices had a negative and significant impact on the sector returns. The long-run relationship established one cointegrating equation in the series. Only Brent crude oil prices indicated a bi-directional Granger causality on the sector returns. Based on the findings, it is recommended that government may use exchange rate as a policy tool to attract interest in the sector. Regarding money supply, the reserve bank should further preserve its effective regulatory infrastructure including the laws, regulations and standards towards the achievement and maintenance of a stable financial system. Portfolio managers, risk managers and investors should monitor the gold price to mitigate losses due to its strength as a safe haven asset.

[pt] Esta tese é composta por três artigos empíricos que utilizam dados de venda de uma cadeia de lojas de produtos eletroeletrônicos e de características de seus clientes. O primeiro investiga o efeito de características, como gênero, idade, escolaridade e renda, na probabilidade do cliente de receber desconto. Ele tem o objetivo de averiguar se a autoridade de decisão de preço final dada aos vendedores está sendo bem usada. Quando há discriminação de preços, clientes com renda mais alta devem ter menor probabilidade de receber descontos. Por outro lado, descontos podem ser dados por outros motivos, diferentes daquele desejado pela firma. Uma vez que o cliente percebe que o vendedor tem poder de decisão sobre o preço final, ele pode desejar começar um processo de barganha para reduzir o preço que pagará. O resultado deste processo pode também depender das características do cliente, se estas afetarem a habilidade de barganhar. Neste caso, quanto maior a habilidade do cliente de barganhar pelo desconto, maior este será. Como encontramos que a probabilidade de receber descontos aumenta com a renda e escolaridade do cliente, e o valor do desconto também é maior para pessoas com mais alta renda e mais educadas, concluímos que o desconto não está sendo dado como resultado de discriminação de preços, mas como o resultado de uma barganha. O segundo artigo estima o efeito de informação assimétrica sobre o financiamento da compra de produtos, usando o plano de pagamento escolhido e as características não observadas do cliente. Decompomos o efeito em seleção adversa e um componente causal, usando técnica similar à usada por Adams, Eivan and Levin (2009). Encontramos um efeito marginal significante e concluímos que o efeito causal da escolha do plano de pagamento é maior que aquele causado pela seleção adversa. Um aspecto chave da estratégia de identificação é a escolha da variável exógena. Usamos uma variável binária que é um quando a compra é feita num mês de saldão, meses estes quando há um plano especial: onze parcelas sem juros. A variável usada claramente influencia a escolha do plano de pagamento, mas o repagamento não depende diretamente dela, uma vez que nosso instrumento não está associado ao valor do colateral do empréstimo. O terceiro artigo estuda o repasse para os preços da primeira redução de IPI de 2009. A redução ocorreu para quatro diferentes produtos: refrigeradores, fogões, máquinas de lavar e tanquinhos. Observamos o efeito do IPI nos preços e nas características dos clientes. Encontramos que a ocorrência da redução do IPI gera uma redução de 5,97 porcento no preço, quando usamos um modelo linear simples e uma redução de 2,98 porcento no preço, quando usamos um efeito fixo de produto. Gênero, idade, renda e escolaridade dos clientes que compram eletrodomésticos não mudam significativamente com a redução do IPI. / [en] This dissertation is composed of three independent empirical articles that use data on home and kitchen appliances and image equipment sales of one specific chain store and their clients characteristics. The first one investigates the effect of the client s characteristics, such as gender, age, education and income, on the probability of receiving a discount. It intends to investigate if the pricing authority that is delegated to the salespeople is being well used. If the effect of delegation were to implement price discrimination, clients with higher income would have a lower probability of getting a discount. On the other hand, discounts can be given for a different reason than the one desired by the firm. Once the customer recognizes that the salesperson has some discretion over the prices, she may wish to engage in bargaining to decrease the final price. The outcome of this process may also depend on the customer s characteristics if they affect the customer s skill in bargaining. In this case, the greater the client s ability, the bigger the discount. Since we find that the probability of receiving a discount is increasing in the client s income and education, and the value of the discount is also bigger for people with higher income and better education, we conclude that the discount giving is not a result of price discrimination, but a result of a bargaining process. The second article estimates the effect of asymmetric information on consumer loans, using the payment plan chosen by the client and his observable characteristics. We decompose the effect into an adverse selection and a causal component using a technique similar to Adams, Einav and Levin (2009). We find significant marginal effects for both components and that the causal effect of the payment plan choice is greater than the one caused by the adverse selection. A key aspect of the identification strategy is the choice of the exogenous variable. We use a dummy variable that is one when the month of the purchase is one of the saldão months, that is, when one special payment plan is also available: eleven monthly payments, with zero interest rate. The variable used clearly influences the payment plan choice but the repayment behavior does not depend directly on it, since it is not directly related to the value of the debt collateral. The third article studies the retail market effects of the first tax stimulus episode of 2009, when the government reduced the IPI (Industrialized Products Tax) of certain categories of kitchen and home appliances. Tax rates vary depending on the product. The reduction occurred to four different products: refrigerators, stoves, washing machines and non automatic washing machines. We estimate the effect of the IPI reduction on prices and the composition of demand. We find that the IPI reduction lead to a 5.97 percent reduction on price, when we use a simple linear model and a 2.98 percent reduction, when we control for product fixed effects. The characteristics of consumers who acquire the appliances do not change significantly with the reduction.

The political economy of the exchange rate explains different approaches within the integration process of the European monetary union. The changing character of exchange rate pass-through into the foreign trade prices changes not only the international economy paradigm, but also the attitude to the exchange rate political economy. The study solves the incentives to the different exchange rate arrangement choice during the transformation and integration period in the Central and East European countries. It follows with the analysis of the industry structure in these economies. It discusses the existence of its direct and indirect channel of influencing the exchange rate politics. Article solves the hypothesis of interest group formation in regard to the exchange rate policy (the euro adoption) and the intergovernmental bargaining as well as the bargaining within the economy. The industry analysis results confirm the set hypothesis, in which the heterogenity of industry structure explains the heterogeneous approach to the exchange rate politics during the transformation process in monitored economies. The redistributive change of Hungarian exchange rate policy is discussed in connection with the change of subsidies flow within the political cycle. We discuss the impact of current account adjustment on the tradable and nontradable sector in member countries of currency union -- Euro zone. The current account adjustment associated with the adjustment of the net export's deficit caused by the drop in the domestic absorption evokes the increase in the relative price of the nontradable sector. The paper discusses this hypothesis within framework of the Portuguese current account adjustment, which is the result of European financial integration in catching-up countries. The common monetary policy and common currency cannot offset the negative impact of nontradable price increase within the internal expenditure switching effect and also can not support exporters within the external expenditure effect.. The Portuguese current account adjustment was not followed by the currency depreciation and the tradable price increase. The cost of the currency asymmetric response were born by the tradable mark-up decrease, the falling decrease in nontradable wages and employment and finally by the nontradable mark-up and employment decrease.

Made available in DSpace on 2016-04-26T20:48:54Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 James Hiroshi Habe.pdf: 273240 bytes, checksum: 03be8572f00ddd04542e1cc1675edede (MD5) Previous issue date: 2009-04-27 / Price stability brought to the Brazilian economy a new reality. What was the relationship between price and exchange rate necessary to achieve the new scenario? The exchange rate anchor was the instrument used to reach the price stability. In 1995 managed exchanged rates biased the prices. In 1999 the regime of exchange rate anchor changed to inflation target. The modification in regimes could have altered the relationship between exchange rates and prices. Econometric tests, using monthly exchange rate data, provided evidence of a connection among exchange rates and prices. From 1999 forward, the relations among consumer prices (IPCA) happen through wholesale prices (IPA). The separation of the IPCA in two groups allowed the verification of major influence in monitored prices then in market prices, increasing the IPCA and affecting the monetary policy decision / A estabilidade nos preços trouxe um novo cenário a economia brasileira e qual foi a relação entre preços e câmbio para atingir a estabilidade? A âncora cambial foi o instrumento para a estabilidade nos preços. A adoção do regime de câmbio administrado, em 1995, manteve os preços atrelados ao câmbio. Em 1999, houve a mudança da âncora cambial para as metas de inflação. A mudança de regime cambial poderia ter alterado a relação entre câmbio e preços no atacado e ao consumidor. Os testes econométricos, utilizando dados de variação cambial mensal, comprovaram a existência da relação entre câmbio e os preços. E, a partir de 1999, a relação existente entre os preços ao consumidor (IPCA) ocorreu através dos preços no atacado (IPA). A separação do IPCA em dois grupos permitiu verificar uma maior influência cambial sobre os preços monitorados do que os preços livres, elevando o valor do IPCA e afetando a decisão da política monetária