This thesis argues that the financial sector played a positive, but limited role in British economic growth from 1850 to 1913. It examines empirically the role played by different types of financial institutions: commercial banks, stock markets and merchant banks. To this end, the thesis uses recently developed time series and dynamic panel methods for the econometric analysis, alongside new data on different parts of the financial system. The results suggest that at a national level, the growth of commercial banks had a limited impact on British economic development over the long run, and stock markets had no impact. However, changes in bank lending influenced economic growth to a significant extent in the short term. Growing conservatism in bank lending practices did not significantly increase credit constraints, as had been previously suspected. Findings from new geographically disaggregated data indicate that the spread of bank offices improved the economic performance of English and Welsh counties. Increased concentration of the banking industry did not hinder economic growth, a result that challenges widespread suggestions in the relevant literature. Moreover, the development of provincial stock exchanges – exchanges outside London - did not influence county-level economic growth, contrary to the view that they were important for the expansion of local industry. Finally, this thesis is the first to assess econometrically the role of merchant banks. It demonstrates that their trade financing activities were beneficial not only for the growth of British international trade, but also for that of the domestic economy.

This thesis applies time-varying parameter vector autoregression (TVP-VAR) model with stochastic volatility to assess the effectiveness of quantitative easing in time for the Bank of Japan, the European Central Bank, the Bank of England and the Federal Reserve System between the global financial crisis and COVID-19 pandemic. We find pronounced and statistically significant response of GDP and level of implied stock market volatility to a QE shock whereas the response of CPI is feeble and statistically insignificant. We argue that this does not necessarily imply that there is no effect of QE on CPI but rather that our model was not able to detect it. We believe that this may be due to inflation expectations channel which our model did not account for. This can be reassessed with a TVP-FAVAR model which is more suitable for such an analysis as it can encompass a larger set of variables. Moreover, apart from the US, we report increasing effectiveness of QE in time. This is opposed by the researchers who believe that QE has rather decreasing effectiveness in time because it is more efficient during economic distress and then its efficiency tends to decrease during normal times. We explain this deviation by citing other unconventional monetary tools such as credit easing, forward guidance or negative...

Depuis l’article séminal de Baks et Kramer (1999), le concept de la liquidité globale est souvent revenu au cœur de l’actualité, car les facteurs de son développement ont été considérés comme ayant indirectement participé aux développements des déséquilibres précédents la crise financière de 2008. Face à ces enjeux, la littérature s’est largement concentrée sur l’approche de la stabilité financière dans les pays émetteurs. Contrairement à cette approche, les recherches développées dans cette thèse se concentrent la perspective des pays destinataires de la liquidité globale, en particulier les pays émergents. Ainsi pour répondre à la problématique principale de l’identification des effets de reports de la liquidité globale, cette thèse propose une analyse en trois chapitres du phénomène. Premièrement, à travers une généralisation de l’analyse de la problématique de la stabilité financière dans les pays émergents. Deuxièmement, en analysant comment le comportement d’accumulation des pays destinataires affecte les conditions de la liquidité globale dans les pays émetteurs. Troisièmement, en analysant au niveau national le comportement des autorités monétaires pour prémunir leurs économies des effets de l’expansion de la liquidité globale. / Since the seminal paper by Baks and Kramer (1999), the concept of global liquidity catch once again the attention because the factors of its expansion are considered in the literature as having contributed to the development of vulnerabilities prior to the global financial crisis. Given the importance of global liquidity issues, the literature has largely focused on the financial stability approach in the issuing countries. Contrary to this approach, the research developed in this Ph.D. thesis relies principally on the receiving countries perspective, particularly the emerging countries. Accordingly, in order to answer our main problematic regarding the identification of global liquidity spillovers into the receiving countries, this thesis proposes a three chapters analysis of the phenomenon. First, we focus on a generalization of the financial stability concerns into the emerging countries. Second, we analyze how the reserve accumulation behavior in the receiving countries affects the global liquidity conditions in the main issuing country. Third, we center on the monetary authorities behavior in order to isolate their economies from the effects of the global liquidity expansion.

La tesi di dottorato, composta da tre capitoli, si concentra sulla valutazione delle dinamiche di inflazione in Georgia e sulla previsione dei tassi di cambio nominali per i Paesi della European Eastern Partnership attraverso l’utilizzo di moderne tecniche econometriche. Nel primo capitolo, abbiamo svolto un’indagine sui modelli di previsione dei tassi di cambio e dell’inflazione. Questa indagine rivela che i modelli “factor-based and time-varying parameter” generano migliori previsioni rispetto ad altri modelli. Nel secondo capitolo, abbiamo approfondito le dinamiche di inflazione in Georgia utilizzando la New Keynesian Phillips Curve ibrida, inserita all’interno di un quadro di un modello “time-varying parameter (TVP)”. Una stima del modello TVP con volatilità stocastica mostra la persistenza di un’inflazione bassa durante il periodo 1996-2012. Un’analisi più approfondita dal 2003 mostra una volatilità crescente dell’inflazione. Inoltre, le stime del parametro evidenziano che la componente forward-looking del modello è importante a seguito dell’adozione di inflation targeting da parte della NBG a partire dal 2009. Nel terzo capitolo, abbiamo costruito dei modelli fattoriali, “Factor Vector Autoregressive” per prevedere i tassi di cambio nominali per i Paesi dell’European Eastern Partnership. Questi modelli prevedono meglio i tassi di cambio nominali rispetto ad un processo naïve come il random walk. / The Ph.D. thesis consist of three chapters on evaluating inflation dynamics in Georgia and modeling and forecasting nominal exchange rates for the European Eastern Partnership (EaP) countries using modern applied econometric techniques. In the first chapter, we survey of models those produce high predictive powers for forecasting exchange rates and inflation. This survey reveals that the factor-based and time-varying parameter (TVP) models generate superior forecasts relative to all other models. In the second chapter, we study inflation dynamics in Georgia using a hybrid New Keynesian Phillips Curve (NKPC) nested within a time-varying parameter (TVP) framework. Estimation of a TVP model with stochastic volatility shows low inflation persistence over the entire time span (1996-2012), while revealing increasing volatility of inflation shocks since 2003. Moreover, parameter estimates point to the forward-looking component of the model gaining importance following the National Bank of Georgia (NBG) adoption of inflation targeting in 2009. In the third chapter, we construct Factor Vector Autoregressive (FVAR) models to forecast nominal exchange rates for the EaP countries. This study provides better forecasts of nominal exchange rates than those produced by the random walk process.

This thesis deals with the comparison of Polish and Czech public television system, the amendment to the media law designed by the Polish government's Law and Justice party in the years 2015 and 2016 and how this amendment reflected on the current state of Polish public television. In the comparison was used the Compliance method and four independent variables were defined: the definition of objectives and missions of public service media in Poland and the Czech Republic, the control bodies of Polish Television and Czech Television, the funding of Polish Television and Czech Television and the program offer of both televisions. Expert interviews conducted with Polish media experts personally or by telephone and media laws in both countries served as the main sources of the research. The main aim of this diploma thesis is to determine to what extent the media systems of public service televisions differ in both countries and how they are similar. The thesis focuses mainly on the relationship of political power and the media, answers the question of how political power in both countries seeks to enter into the financing and control of public media.