This paper provides an empirical assessment of whether the world economy has become smaller in terms of economic distance over the last decades. We adopt a cross-sectional spatial econometric approach, relating domestic output volatility to (distance-weighted averages of) other countries' output volatility, using a sample of 135 countries and rolling 10-year time windows over the period 1955 to 2006. Using descriptive measures, test statistics, and spatial econometric estimates, we find that cross-country interdependence was virtually insignificant in the early post-war period but has increased strongly from the mid-1960s to the mid-1980s and remained at a high level since then. Results for the most recent period suggest that common shocks to output volatility have a magnified impact and roughly quadruplicate through international spillover effects, which are transmitted through both trade and financial openness.

We analyze the interaction between monetary policy in the US and the global economy proposing a new class of Bayesian global vector autoregressive models that accounts for time-varying parameters and stochastic volatility (TVP-SV-GVAR). Our results suggest that US monetary policy responds to shocks to the global economy, in particular to global aggregate demand and monetary policy shocks. On the other hand, US-based contractionary monetary policy shocks lead to persistent international output contractions and a drop in global inflation rates, coupled with rising interest rates in advanced economies and a real depreciation of currencies with respect to the US dollar. We find considerable evidence for heterogeneity in the spillovers across countries, as well for changes in the transmission of monetary policy shocks over time. (authors' abstract) / Series: Department of Economics Working Paper Series

Cette thèse est une collection de travaux théoriques sur les effets concurrentiels des stratégies de croissance externe (opérations de fusions-acquisitions) et interne (activités de R&D). Il s’agit de déterminer l’impact de ces deux modes possibles d’expansion sur le comportement des firmes, leur profitabilité et le bien-être social. La thèse est divisée en deux parties principales. Partie I (effets concurrentiels des stratégies de croissance externe) : On considère que les fusions horizontales génèrent un choc sur le coût des entreprises.Celui-ci se traduit soit par une incertitude sur le coût de production expost de l’entité fusionnée (chapitre 1), soit par un mécanisme de transfert technologiquedans une perspective internationale (chapitre 2). Dans le chapitre 1, nous étudions l’impact de l’incertitude sur la profitabilité des stratégies de fusionsacquisitionsen considérant un oligopole de Stackelberg. Dans le chapitre 2, nous vérifions si l’option d’entrée par fusions-acquisitions est plus efficace par rapport à d’autres modes d’entrée sur des marchés étrangers, tels que l’Investissement Direct Etranger ou l’exportation.Partie II (effects concurrentiels de stratégies de croissance interne):Les efforts R&D ou le bénéfice d’effets de spillovers contribuent `a une réductiondu coût (chapitre 3) mais aussi `a une amélioration de la qualité (chapitre 4). Endistinguant les décisions de long-terme (choix en R&D) et des décisions de court terme (choix en prix ou en quantité), nous étudions l’effet de régimes complets etpartiels de collusion dans le chapitre 3. Nous considérons l’impact des choix en R&D sur l’incitation à adopter un régime de délégation partielle ou totale, dans le chapitre 4. / This thesis is a collection of theoretical essays in the area of horizontal M&As and R&D with spillovers. As we know, organizations consider horizontal M&As as the external mode of expansion, and regard R&D as one of the most efficient internal expansion modes, to achieve and maintain sustainable growth. This thesis pursues the firm growth’s tactic to trace the impact of two aforementioned expansion modes on firm’s performance and profitability. The dissertation is divided into two parts, which respectively focus on the following issues:Part I: (competitive effects of external growth strategies)Horizontal M&As generate cost variation via uncertainty (Chapter 1) or via technological transfer (Chapter 2). We aim to study different types of horizontal M&A and find out which one is the most profitable from the national perspective, and to verify whether the M&A entry option is more efficient compared to others, such as Greenfield FDI and exporting, from the international perspective.Part II: (competitive effects of internal growth strategies)R&D effort contributes to cost reduction (Chapter 3) or to quality enhancement (Chapter 4), and it can be beneficial to other firms at no cost due to spillover effect. By considering the long-run R&D decision and the short-run price (or quantity) decision, we attempt to distinguish between full and partial regimes in terms of collusion (Ch.3) or delegation (Ch.4), and to illustrate whether firms have incentive to adopt partial regime.

This work investigates the international spillover effects and transmission channels of Unconventional Monetary Policy (UMP) of major central banks from United States, United Kingdom, Japan and Europe to Latin-American countries. A Global VAR model is estimated to analyze the impact on output, inflation, credit, equity prices and money growth on the selected countries. Results suggest that indeed, there are international spillovers to the region with money growth, stock prices and international reserves as the main transmission channels. In addition, outcomes are different between countries and variables implying not only that transmission channels are not same across the region but also that the effects of the monetary policy are not distributed equally. Furthermore, it is found evidence that for some countries transmission channels may have transformed due to the crisis. Finally, effects of UMP during the crisis were in general positive with exception of Japan indicating that policies from this country brought more costs than benefits to the region. Keywords Zero Lower Bound, Unconventional Monetary Policy, International Spillovers, Global VAR, GVAR.

This work deals with the problem of indirect effects (spillovers) of foreign direct investment. The aim is to examine these spillovers in Czech, Slovak and Hungarian manufacture industry on the basis of econometric models. As the most appropriate approach of estimation of spillover effects of foreign direct investments was selected method of American economists Levinsohn and Petrin, who developed econometric approach of Olley and Pakes. Statistical data from database Amadeus are processed using this method and econometric models are created for Czech, Slovak and Hungarian republic. The results of estimation are then compared with studies of other authors.

We analyse the effects of the Priority Municipalities List, that indicates the primary targets of environmental police monitoring, on deforestation of municipalities in the neighbourhood of the listed. We argue that being a neighbour to a priority municipality causes an exogenous variation in environmental authorities\' presence, and use a difference-in-differences estimator to determine the impact of such presence on deforestation. As an innovative feature, we introduce a spatial version of this estimator to correct spatial dependence. Our results show that the net effect of treatment is a decrease in deforestation of 19% to 23%. Estimates also indicate that effects get weaker the greater the distance to the priority municipality / Este trabalho avalia os efeitos da Lista de Municípios Prioritários, que indica os principais alvos de fiscalização da autoridade ambiental, sobre o desmatamento dos municípios na vizinhança dos listados. Argumenta-se que ter um vizinho listado causa uma variação exógena na presença das autoridades ambientais, e um estimador de diferença-em-diferenças é usado para determinar o impacto dessa presença sobre o desmatamento. Uma contribuição deste trabalho é acrescentar uma versão espacial do estimador para corrigir a dependência espacial na variável dependente. Nossos resultados mostram que o efeito líquido do tratamento é reduzir o desmatamento entre 19% e 23%, e que esse efeito enfraquece à medida que a distância até o município prioritário aumenta.

Esta dissertação tem por objetivos revisar alguns estudos quantitativos de transbordamentos de conhecimento e testar suas ferramentas num aglomerado brasileiro. Estes métodos são amplamente utilizados na literatura internacional e, após esta revisão, foi executada uma pesquisa no Sistema Local de Produção (SLP) de Tecnologia da Informação e Comunicação (TIC) de Campinas. A discussão sobre as características, qualidades e limitações destes cinco tipos de estudos (função produção de conhecimento, citação de patentes, mobilidade de trabalhadores qualificados, comércio de novos produtos e contatos informais) levou a opção de aplicar uma pesquisa baseada principalmente no método dos contatos informais e, de modo exploratório, numa variante da citação de patentes que usa as citações de artigos científicos como indicador primordial. O questionário foi respondido por profissionais da região que atuam em atividades de TIC. Entre os resultados da pesquisa alguns se sobressaem. Primeiro, há uma expressiva presença de transbordamentos de conhecimento na região de Campinas e esta é uma importante forma de obtenção de conhecimento por parte dos funcionários das empresas do ramo de TIC. Segundo, os funcionários com maiores capacitações e com maior experiência no setor tendem a obter conhecimento mais valioso de seus colegas. Terceiro, os funcionários de empresas multinacionais obtém menos conhecimento de seus contatos informais, pois têm acesso a outros meios para resolução de problemas dentro da própria firma, enquanto isso, os funcionários de empresas brasileiras tendem a recorrer a seus colegas para a resolução de problemas. Por fim, pela análise das citações de artigos científicos, foi possível evidenciar que o conhecimento está realmente concentrado uma vez que a grande maioria das citações são para trabalhos de autores vinculados a instituições de Campinas. / This dissertation goals are review some quantitative studies of knowledge spillovers and test its tools in a brazilian case. These methods are largely adopted in international literature and, after the review, two of theses methods have been applied to the Campinas Information and Communication Technology (ICT) Local System. The discussion about characteristics, qualities and limitations of five types of studies (knowledge production function, patent citation, mobility of skilled worker, commerce of new products and informal contacts) induced to adopt the informal contact method as the main tool of analysis and a variant of patent citation that uses scientific articles citations as the primordial indicator. The questionnaire was responded by professionals engaged in ICT activities in several Campinass firms. Among the results, some are more expressive. First, there is a great presence of knowledge spillovers at Campinas region and it is an important way that ICT firms workers gain access to knowledge. Second, more skilled employees and that with more experience tend to obtain more valorous knowledge from theirs colleagues. Third, the multinationals workers gain less knowledge from theirs informal contacts because they has access to other forms inside the firm to solve problems, otherwise, the brazilian firms employees tend to use their colleagues to solve problems. Finally, with the analysis of scientific articles citations, it is possible to see some evidence that the knowledge is really locally concentrated because the great majority of citations are to works with authors linked to Campinas institutions.

In this thesis we analyse the impact of uncertainty shocks in the Scandinavian banking sector. We apply the spillover approach developed by Diebold and Yilmaz (2009; 2012; 2014), followed by network analysis. Furthermore, the dynamics of uncertainty shocks are examined by applying a quantile regression approach. We study the effects of financial uncertainty, economic policy uncertainty, geopolitical risk and housing market uncertainty on the seven banks Swedbank, Nordea, SEB, Svenska Handelsbanken, DNB, Danske Bank and Jyske Bank. We study these uncertainties on global, regional and local level between 2005 and 2018. We find that the Swedish banks are greater emitters of contagion, compared to the Norwegian and Danish banks, where SEB and Nordea are the banks emitting and receiving the most spillovers. Moreover, the connectedness within the banking sector tend to increase in times of heightened uncertainty, such as during the Global Financial Crisis and the European Sovereign Debt Crisis. Global financial uncertainty is shown to affect the Scandinavian banks the most, followed by regional and local financial uncertainty. The same pattern can be seen for economic policy uncertainty, although at lower levels of spillovers. Reversely, housing market uncertainty is seen to increase going from global, regional to local, where the impact of local housing market uncertainty has a considerable amount of spillovers to the Scandinavian banks. Geopolitical risk is shown to have limited spillovers to the Scandinavian banks. The result of the quantile regressions suggests that financial uncertainty is affecting the banks’ returns negatively during bearish market conditions, whilst the relationship is positive during bullish market conditions. Moreover, we find that financial uncertainty is a quicker transmitter of spillovers than housing market uncertainty. Finally, we conclude that uncertainty shocks affecting the Scandinavian banks negatively tend to take effect instantaneously, while the effects of positive shocks are delayed.

Technological upgrading, as the key engine of Chinese economic development, does not take place in isolation, but is largely dependent on access to external knowledge sources. FDI has long been regarded as an external knowledge source because of its intra- and intercity technological spillovers. Meanwhile, both foreign expansion time-based characteristics and industrial structures could affect technological upgrading, but there is a heated debate about whether they enhance FDI spillovers in host cities. In this PhD thesis, I integrate these two streams of literature into a theoretical framework, and hope to investigate how foreign expansion time-based characteristics and industrial structures moderate both intra- and intercity relationships between inward FDI and technological upgrading in Chinese cities. Moreover, I link cluster theory to FDI spillovers, and establish a theoretical model in which government and market orientations can affect knowledge transfers and disseminations between domestic and foreign firms. Overall, this research aims to extend the existing literature by bridging literature of FDI spillovers, foreign expansion process, and industrial structures from a contingency perspective. It deepens our understandings about both intra- and intercity dimensions of FDI technological spillovers in explaining host city technological upgrading. Based on specific panel datasets from the Chinese Urban Statistical Yearbooks and the Annual Industrial Survey Database, I adopt Pooled OLS and Spatial Durbin Model to explore intra- and intercity externalities of foreign expansion process and industrial structures in FDI spillovers. My results indicate that FDI spillovers contribute to both intra- and inter-city technological upgrading in China. Irregular foreign expansion process diminishes FDI spillovers within a given city, but facilitates intercity knowledge dissemination. Cities with a high degree of related variety can reap benefits from FDI technological spillovers. However, such empirical results may change between different urban groups, Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei and Shanghai-Yangtze River Delta respectively. Therefore, the findings of this PhD thesis not only provide convincing evidence for the debate regarding the relationship between FDI and host city technological upgrading, but also highlight government and market orientations to assist with policy making in the future.

Volatility spillovers in stock markets have become an important phenomenon, especially in times of crises. Mechanisms of shock transmission from one mar- ket to another are important for the international portfolio diversification. Our thesis examines impulse responses and variance decomposition of main stock in- dices in emerging Central European markets (Czech Republic, Poland, Slovakia and Hungary) in the period of January 2007 to August 2009. Two models are used: A vector autoregression (VAR) model with constant variance of resid- uals and a time varying parameter vector autoregression (TVP-VAR) model with a stochastic volatility. Opposingly of other comparable studies, Bayesian methods are used in both models. Our results confirm the presence of volatility spillovers among all markets. Interestingly, we find significant opposite trans- mission of shocks from Czech Republic to Poland and Hungary, suggesting that investors see the Central European exchanges as separate markets. Bibliographic Record Janhuba, R. (2012): Volatility Spillovers in New Member States: A Bayesian Model. Master thesis, Charles University in Prague, Faculty of Social Sciences, Institute of Economic Studies. Supervisor: doc. Roman Horváth Ph.D. JEL Classification C11, C32, C58, G01, G11, G14 Keywords Volatility spillovers,...