Our dissertation tried to gain insight on the possible implications of the euro behavior and the EMU economic activity on the economies of typical Sub-Saharan African countries in a bipolar international monetary system. Chapter 1 has built a three country model in which an interdependent monetary policy game between two big economies, especially that of the United States and the EMU, has an impact on outcomes of a small country monetary policy. It was found that cooperation between big country monetary policymakers is beneficial for the small country whenever the shocks affecting big country economies imply changes in the euro-dollar exchange rate. Chapter 2 has dealt with the issue of the sustainability of pegging an African currency to the euro as EMU monetary authorities pursue a ``low inflation' policy and asymmetric shocks affect the anchor and the pegging country. Our model indicated that the key factor of this longevity is the virtual convertibility granted by the French Treasury to the CFA franc. Moreover, it appears that structural asymmetries are likely to make the currency peg to the euro more restraining. In Chapter 3, the relationships between EMU and Sub-Saharan Africa's countries are empirically investigated. This chapter showed that despite the appealing theoretical relations suggested by trade flows, the EMU business cycle and the European product prices have a limited impact on African country economies. But in the monetary area, the European Central Bank monetary policy leads significantly that of African countries according to the available data. African inflation performances follow that of EMU after some lags. This result confirms the ``operation account' mechanism effect which allows African countries to momentarily have a worse inflation performance without any devaluation. Chapter 4 empirically tackles the possible impact of euro-dollar exchange rate variations on Sub-Saharan Africa's country trade balances. After providing a theoretical model of a typical Sub-Saharan African country trade balance that suggests an inverted J-curve--like effect, it is found that only the trade balance of Benin among ten countries is affected by the movements of the euro-dollar exchange rate. The result also suggests that the inverted J-curve effect works at least partially for this country. / Notre recherche a essayé d'appréhender les possibles implications des variations de la valeur de l'euro et de l'activité économique au sein de la zone euro pour les pays de l'Afrique Sub-Saharienne. Ces implications sont considérées dans le contexte d'un système monétaire international bipolaire. Dans le premier chapitre, nous avons construit un modèle à trois pays dans lequel l'interdépendance des politiques monétaires des deux grandes économies, désignant celle de l'Union Monétaire Européenne (UME) et celle des Etats-Unis, a un impact sur la mise en œuvre de la politique monétaire d'un petit pays. Nous avons montré que la coopération entre les deux grandes économies est bénéfique pour le petit pays si les chocs auxquels les grandes économies sont confrontées entraînent des variations du taux de change de l'euro par rapport au dollar. Le deuxième chapitre a traité du caractère soutenable de l'ancrage d'une monnaie africaine à l'euro dans la mesure où, d'une part les autorités monétaires de l'UME poursuivent une politique très restrictive et, d'autre part, des asymétries structurelles affectent le pays ancre et les pays africains. Notre modèle a expliqué la longévité de la zone CFA essentiellement par la convertibilité virtuelle du franc CFA que confère le Trésor Français. Par ailleurs, il en est ressorti que sans le mécanisme du « compte d'opérations », le processus de désinflation qui a accompagné la formation de l'UME est susceptible d'avoir accru le niveau des contraintes de l'ancrage d'une monnaie à l'euro. Il est également apparu que l'environnement politique et économique défavorable en Afrique est un facteur de renforcement des contraintes liées à l'ancrage à l'euro. Une étude empirique des relations économiques entre l'UME et les pays de l'Afrique Sub-Saharienne a été menée dans le troisième chapitre. On y a découvert que, malgré les substantielles relations commerciales qui existent, le cycle économique de l'UME et les prix de gros européens n'ont qu'un impact limité sur les économies africaines. Néanmoins, sur le plan monétaire, la politique de la Banque Centrale Européenne influence significativement les politiques monétaires africaines. Le temps d'adaptation qui est constaté, avant que les performances en matière d'inflation ne se mettent au niveau des performances européennes, suggère que l'effet du compte des opérations est bien réel pour les pays de la zone CFA. Le quatrième chapitre a étudié l'éventuel impact des variations du taux de change de l'euro par rapport au dollar sur les balances commerciales des pays de l'Afrique Sub-Saharienne. Après avoir mis en exergue le cadre théorique suggérant un mécanisme similaire à celui d'une courbe en J inversée, l'étude trouve que seul la balance commerciale du Benin, parmi les dix pays de l'échantillon, est affectée par les mouvements du taux de change de l'euro par rapport au dollar. Selon ces résultats, l'effet de la courbe en J inversée fonctionne au moins partiellement pour ce pays.

This thesis contains four essays, which studies the macroeconomic effects of fiscal and monetary policy quantitatively. The first essay investigates whether Swedish postwar business cycles have been generated by domestic or foreign shocks and finds that they are about equally important. In the second essay, the effects of government budget deficits on interest rates in Sweden are studied in a small open economy framework. The empirical results, which have high power due to very large swings in deficits and interest rates, provide support that larger deficits produce higher interest rates and thus give support against the ricardian view. The third essay seeks to identify optimal social insurance and redistribution levels in Sweden and the U.S. with respect to temporary and permanent idiosyncratic productivity risks. The results indicate that Sweden should reduce the social security level while the U.S. should approximately maintain the current level. In the last essay, the small sample properties of a well-known statistical test for the Lucas critique - the super exogeneity test - is studied in a general equilibrium environment. The results indicate that the super exogeneity test do not have sufficient power in small samples. / Diss. Stockholm : Handelshögsk.

This dissertation has two main objectives. The first one is to construct historical macroeconomic series for Sweden using a consistent method throughout the relevant periods, and which rely on modern methods of national accounting. The second objective is to investigate patterns of economic growth, accumulation and crisis in Sweden 1800-2000, based on the constructed data series. New annual data series of Gross Domestic Product and its division into activities (type of production) and expenditures (consumption, investment and foreign trade), Net Domestic Product, stocks of produced assets and consumption of fixed assets are constructed for the period 1800-2000; series of employment, wages, imputed labour income of self employed and surplus for the period 1850-2000; and series of worked hours for the period 1950-2000. Summary tables of the main aggregate variables are presented at the end of the dissertation. The intent is to make the data material available online (also at a more disaggregated level) at: http://www.historia.se. Although the present study criticises the somewhat deterministic vision of many long cycle theories, it also demonstrates that the concept of long cycle can be applied when studying long-term fluctuations in GDP per capita, provided that the notion of a fixed periodicity of long cycles is abandoned. Long-term economic fluctuations are irregular, but so is also the short-term business cycle. Different historical tendencies and trends are investigated. The decline of the relative size of industrial activities in the last half of 20th century was not as dramatic, if unpaid household labour is considered and that many services are industry-related. The Marxist theory of a Tendency for the Rate of Profit to Fall is partly confirmed as a secular process up to the 1970s, but profitability has rebounded in the last two decades of the 20th century. During the 1990s, the investment ratio declined to historically low levels and the volume value of the net stock of buildings and structures fell for the first time since the 1830s. A comparison is also made of depressions in Sweden since 1850. During the 19th century, depressions were largely induced by the agricultural sector, and during the 20th century by industrial activities. However, the transition to the modern business cycle was not sudden but rather protracted. Another finding is that the 1990s depression was somewhat deeper than the 1930s depression in terms of GDP contraction.

The experience of unemployment puts individuals at risk of long-term negative scarring and the longer the unemployment spell, the greater the risk of negative scarring. In Sweden, labour market policies aim at reducing such risks in the form of unemployment benefits, active matching and active labour market policy programmes (ALMPs). However, there is frequent discussion regarding the extent to which these kinds of policies actually reduce the risk of negative scarring. It is often argued that the programmes are of poor quality, particularly during economic downturns, and participants are often not motivated for the task. Likewise, it is claimed that unemployment insurance tends to counteract a quick return to the regular labour market. One problem related to labour market policies is that it has been difficult to examine the impact of such policies. Studies often present results that appear scattered due to differences in what is actually being measured and methodological problems. The uniqueness of this thesis is that it is based on a large-scale longitudinal register of data that has provided important empirical information regarding the long-term effects of labour market policy investments. The quality of data has also enabled the use of evaluation techniques which largely can help to reduce the uncertainty of the findings. More precisely, the research questions examine (1) in what way the level of unemployment benefit functions as protection against unemployment scarring, (2) in what way the ALMPs protect long-term unemployed people from long-term unemployment scarring, (3) at what point in a business cycle the ALMPs are efficient and finally, (4) for whom do the ALMPs function to reduce the risk of negative scarring. In this thesis, scarring effects are measured as the risk of labour market exit, the risk of labour market instability and the risk of future negative wage trajectories. The methods used in most studies are Cox regressions in combination with instrumental variable analysis (the Heckman two-step procedure). The empirical findings indicate that ALMPs worked well to reduce such negative effects both in times of booms (1999) and recessions (1993) and particularly among the youngest and oldest actors on the labour market. They also function particularly well for people with a low level of education. However, it is important not to exclude unemployed people who have a high level of education, in the belief that ALMPs have nothing to offer them, since such people are particularly helped by ALMPs as regards reducing the risk of future labour market instability. It was also found that generous unemployment benefit helped to reduce the risk of future negative wage scarring. In addition to these findings, some mechanisms were identified which proved to be important tools for transforming policies into valuable resources for the unemployed. In this thesis, the value of the findings of these mechanisms is discussed from the perspective of the capability approach. Even if the same investments were made in all unemployed persons, the participants would respond differently to the investment. Some reasons for the inequality in outcomes were found within the programmes and were due to heterogeneity in the unemployment group but some reasons can actually be explained by the converters (mechanisms) that were identified in the studies. Thus, the results emphasise the importance of investing in labour market policies, particularly during economic downturns. This is the time when cuts in unemployment benefit do not help the unemployed back to the labour market since there are very few available jobs to apply for. It is also the time when the long-term unemployed should participate in ALMP-training in order to be prepared for new challenges when the labour market improves again. As a matter of fact, the results show that skills from ALMP-training have a bridging effect which indicates that these skills will be valuable on the labour market for at least another five years after the year of investment. The findings in this thesis are controversial since they differ from most research findings from the beginning of the 1990s which point to poor micro level outcomes. However, the long-term approach of this thesis is the main explanation for these new and different results.  It is argued here that a long-term approach is needed to find out the long-term effects because ALMP participation, particularly ALMP-training, is meant to be a long-term investment in human capital. A long period of time needs to pass between ALMP-investment and evaluation before the effects can show. Reported effects from ALMP investments at the beginning of the 1990s have often been measured on a short-term basis. It is not suggested that short-term effects should be ignored but it is argued that a short-term analysis provides only a fragmental description of reality, and long-term effects should be given greater priority than is usually the case since they affect the labour market prospects of the individuals over a long period of time. This thesis dispels the “myth” about the negative effects generated from ALMPs during the 1990s.

Syftet är att evaluera Baselramverkets riskreglering i en konjunkturcykel med hänsyn till Östersjöregionens storbankers systemviktiga funktion. Studien antar främst en kvantitativ ansats i de två första delarna, nyckeltalsanalysen och buffertsimuleringen men även en kvalitativ ansats antas i den tredje delen, intervjuer.  Studien utgår från teorierna om Basel I och Basel II, nyckeltalsteori samt från tidigare forskning. Resultatet i studien består av nyckeltalanalys och simulering av åtta, i Östersjöregionen verksamma, bankers nyckeltal och buffert under 21 år samt sex djupintervjuer med representanter för såväl banker som regulatorer.  Slutsatser Att det inte finns något samband mellan Baselregleringens kapitaltäckning och bankernas risk eller konjunktur, att riskvägningen tenderar till att vara godtycklig och har större påverkan på buffert än Baselregleringens kapitaltäckning samt att mer transparens behövs i bankerna tyder på att Baselregleringens kapitaltäckningskrav i mycket liten utsträckning visar Östersjöregionens storbankers faktiska risk. / The purpose is to evaluate the Basel framework risk regulation in an economic cycle, in account to the systemic function of the large banks in the Baltic Sea region. The study mainly adopts a quantitative approach in the two first parts, the key ratio analysis and the buffer simulation. A qualitative element is also implemented in the third part, interviews. In a theoretical perspective the study is based on the Basel I and Basel II framework, key ratio theories and previously conducted research.  The result consists of key ratios analysis and buffer simulation for eight banks in the Baltic Sea region for a period of 21 years and interviews with six representatives of banks and regulatory institutions.  Conclusion                                   The absence of correlation between the Basel regulation capital adequacy and the bank risk nor economic cycle, that risk weighting tends to be arbitrary and have greater impact on bank buffer than capital adequacy regulation has, and that more transparency is needed in banking; suggests that the Basel capital adequacy to a small extent reflect actual risk.

鄉鎮市公所是我國政治體制最基層之地方自治團體，與民眾第一線接觸之政府層級。其所擁有之財政預算權是重要權力之一，但隨著民主政治的邁進，形成以選票為導向之地方自治。行政首長背負著選票與連任壓力，為實現其選舉支票或取悅選民，或許會產生以有限之資源實現其無限之願景，漠視其財政責任。 本文以台北縣之29個鄉鎮市公所，取用自89年至97年之預算資料，以單變數檢定之實證分析加以探討地方選舉對地方政府預算分配的影響，作為地方政府治理之參考依據。 實證結果顯示，台北縣29個鄉鎮市公所的預算分配於選舉年時整體預算規模並未大幅增加，但某些政事別支出卻明顯高於非選舉年。表示為刺激選情、替選舉加温，會有以加重某些政事別支出而排擠某些資本門建設經費之政策操作。 當只考慮政黨因素時，分立政府之總歲出較一致政府明顯偏高，顯示在分立政府之府會關係下，為化解僵局、使政策推動順遂，在雙方妥協、談判下，有不斷增加各部門預算的現象。 當選舉因素與政黨因素同時考量時，分立政府與一致政府之預算分配並無太明顯差異，在總預算規模不擴增情況下，以調動資本門經費用以增加可刺激選情之經常門經費，並以增加交通支出之資本門經費以突顯其建設地方、促進經濟發展之政績。 關鍵詞：預算分配、分配理論、政治景氣循環 / This paper analyzes the impact of election and government structure factors on municipal budget behavior. For the purpose of empirical analysis, we have obtained 29 townships of Taipei County during a nine-year period from 2000 to 2009, with Univariate tests for each selective budget expenditure variable affect by selective political factor. Empirical evidence is found no significant influence in the local budget to manipulate the economy at election year. When consider the political party factor, the divided government is significantly higher total expenditure than unified government. When consider both election and political party factor, budget distribution has no significant difference between divided government and unified government. The total budget scale does not increase but transfer capital expenditure to general expenditure and increase the capital expenditure of traffic topic for stand out political achievements to construct the place and promote the economic development. Keyword：Budget Distribution, Distribution Theories, Political Business Cycle

Calif., Univ., Dep. of Economics, Diss.--Stanford, 2003. / Kopie, ersch. im Verl. UMI, Ann Arbor, Mich. - Enth. 3 Beitr.

Zugl.: Frankfurt (Main), Univ., Diss., 2009

Esta tese é composta de três ensaios. No primeiro ensaio, nós examinamos se os efeitos reais das ações de política monetária no Brasil são assimétricos. Para isto, estimamos modelos Markov-switching que permitem que os choques monetários positivos e negativos afetem a taxa de crescimento do produto de forma assimétrica nos estados de expansão e recessão econômica. Os resultados obtidos mostram que: i) quando as ações de política monetária são mensuradas através das inovações ortogonalizadas para a taxa Selic em um modelo VAR, os efeitos reais de choques monetários negativos são maiores do que os de choques positivos no estado de expansão e os efeitos reais de choque negativos são maiores em expansão do que em recessão econômica; ii) quando a variação na taxa de juros Selic é tomada como medida de política monetária, nós constatamos também assimetrias entre os efeitos reais de variações positivas e negativas na taxa Selic durante a fase de recessão, e entre os efeitos reais de variações negativas na taxa Selic entre as fases do ciclo de negócios. No segundo ensaio, nós procuramos aperfeiçoar o entendimento da política monetária brasileira sob o regime de metas de inflação através da calibração das preferências do Banco Central. m específico, nós calibramos a função perda do policymaker escolhendo, de uma ampla classe de políticas alternativas, os valores dos parâmetros de preferência que minimizam o desvio entre a trajetória ótima e a trajetória verdadeira da taxa Selic. Nossos resultados mostram que o Banco Central tem adotado um regime de metas de inflação flexível e dado um maior peso à estabilização da inflação. Nós constatamos também que a preocupação da autoridade monetária com a suavização da taxa de juros tem sido maior do que com a estabilização do produto. O terceiro ensaio investiga a existência de possíveis assimetrias nos objetivos do Banco Central. Assumindo que a função perda é assimétrica em relação a desvios positivos e negativos do gap do produto e da taxa de inflação em relação à meta, nós estimamos uma função de reação não-linear que permite identificar e testar a significância estatística dos parâmetros de assimetrias nas preferências da autoridade monetária. Para o período de 2000-2007, os resultados indicaram que o Banco Central brasileiro apresentou uma preferência assimétrica a favor de uma inflação acima da meta. Visto que este comportamento pode ser decorrente das decisões de política em momentos de fortes crises (tais como as de 2001 e 2002), nós delimitamos a nossa amostra para o período de 2004-2007. Para este período, nós não encontramos evidências empíricas apontando para qualquer tipo de assimetria nas preferências sobre a estabilização da inflação e do gap do produto. / This thesis is composed of three essays. In the first essay, we check whether the effects of monetary policy actions on output in Brazil are asymmetric. Therefore, we estimate Markov-switching models that allow positive and negative shocks to affect the growth rate of output in an asymmetric fashion in expansion and recession states. Results show that: i) when monetary policy actions are measured by means of orthogonalized innovations for the Selic rate in a VAR model, the real effects of negative monetary shocks are larger than those of positive shocks in an expansion and the real effects of negative shocks are greater in an expansion than in a recession; ii) when the variation in the Selic rate is used to measure monetary policy, we also have asymmetries between the real effects of positive and negative variations in the Selic rate during a recession, and between the real effects of negative variations of the Selic rate between the states of the business cycle. In the second essay, we seek to further elucidate the Brazilian monetary policy under the inflation targeting regime by calibrating Central Bank preferences. More specifically, we calibrate the policymaker’s loss function by choosing the preference parameter values which minimize the deviation between the optimal and actual paths of the basic interest rate (Selic). Our results indicate that the Central Bank has adopted a flexible inflation target regime and placed some greater weight upon inflation stabilization. We also find out that the monetary authority’s concern with interest rate smoothing has been far deeper than with output stabilization. The third essay investigates the existence of possible asymmetries in the Central Bank of Brazil’s objectives. By assuming that the loss function is asymmetric with regard to positive and negative deviations of the output gap and of the inflation rate from its target, we estimated a nonlinear reaction function which allows identifying and checking the statistical significance of asymmetric parameters in the monetary authority’s preferences. For years 2000 to 2007, results indicate that the Central Bank of Brazil showed asymmetric preference over an above-target inflation rate. Given that this behavior may stem from policy decisions in periods of severe crises (e.g., in 2001 and in 2002), we restricted our sample to the 2004-2007 period. We did not find any empirical evidence of any type of asymmetry in the preferences over the stabilization of inflation and of the output gap for this period.

Esta tese é composta de três ensaios. No primeiro ensaio, nós examinamos se os efeitos reais das ações de política monetária no Brasil são assimétricos. Para isto, estimamos modelos Markov-switching que permitem que os choques monetários positivos e negativos afetem a taxa de crescimento do produto de forma assimétrica nos estados de expansão e recessão econômica. Os resultados obtidos mostram que: i) quando as ações de política monetária são mensuradas através das inovações ortogonalizadas para a taxa Selic em um modelo VAR, os efeitos reais de choques monetários negativos são maiores do que os de choques positivos no estado de expansão e os efeitos reais de choque negativos são maiores em expansão do que em recessão econômica; ii) quando a variação na taxa de juros Selic é tomada como medida de política monetária, nós constatamos também assimetrias entre os efeitos reais de variações positivas e negativas na taxa Selic durante a fase de recessão, e entre os efeitos reais de variações negativas na taxa Selic entre as fases do ciclo de negócios. No segundo ensaio, nós procuramos aperfeiçoar o entendimento da política monetária brasileira sob o regime de metas de inflação através da calibração das preferências do Banco Central. m específico, nós calibramos a função perda do policymaker escolhendo, de uma ampla classe de políticas alternativas, os valores dos parâmetros de preferência que minimizam o desvio entre a trajetória ótima e a trajetória verdadeira da taxa Selic. Nossos resultados mostram que o Banco Central tem adotado um regime de metas de inflação flexível e dado um maior peso à estabilização da inflação. Nós constatamos também que a preocupação da autoridade monetária com a suavização da taxa de juros tem sido maior do que com a estabilização do produto. O terceiro ensaio investiga a existência de possíveis assimetrias nos objetivos do Banco Central. Assumindo que a função perda é assimétrica em relação a desvios positivos e negativos do gap do produto e da taxa de inflação em relação à meta, nós estimamos uma função de reação não-linear que permite identificar e testar a significância estatística dos parâmetros de assimetrias nas preferências da autoridade monetária. Para o período de 2000-2007, os resultados indicaram que o Banco Central brasileiro apresentou uma preferência assimétrica a favor de uma inflação acima da meta. Visto que este comportamento pode ser decorrente das decisões de política em momentos de fortes crises (tais como as de 2001 e 2002), nós delimitamos a nossa amostra para o período de 2004-2007. Para este período, nós não encontramos evidências empíricas apontando para qualquer tipo de assimetria nas preferências sobre a estabilização da inflação e do gap do produto. / This thesis is composed of three essays. In the first essay, we check whether the effects of monetary policy actions on output in Brazil are asymmetric. Therefore, we estimate Markov-switching models that allow positive and negative shocks to affect the growth rate of output in an asymmetric fashion in expansion and recession states. Results show that: i) when monetary policy actions are measured by means of orthogonalized innovations for the Selic rate in a VAR model, the real effects of negative monetary shocks are larger than those of positive shocks in an expansion and the real effects of negative shocks are greater in an expansion than in a recession; ii) when the variation in the Selic rate is used to measure monetary policy, we also have asymmetries between the real effects of positive and negative variations in the Selic rate during a recession, and between the real effects of negative variations of the Selic rate between the states of the business cycle. In the second essay, we seek to further elucidate the Brazilian monetary policy under the inflation targeting regime by calibrating Central Bank preferences. More specifically, we calibrate the policymaker’s loss function by choosing the preference parameter values which minimize the deviation between the optimal and actual paths of the basic interest rate (Selic). Our results indicate that the Central Bank has adopted a flexible inflation target regime and placed some greater weight upon inflation stabilization. We also find out that the monetary authority’s concern with interest rate smoothing has been far deeper than with output stabilization. The third essay investigates the existence of possible asymmetries in the Central Bank of Brazil’s objectives. By assuming that the loss function is asymmetric with regard to positive and negative deviations of the output gap and of the inflation rate from its target, we estimated a nonlinear reaction function which allows identifying and checking the statistical significance of asymmetric parameters in the monetary authority’s preferences. For years 2000 to 2007, results indicate that the Central Bank of Brazil showed asymmetric preference over an above-target inflation rate. Given that this behavior may stem from policy decisions in periods of severe crises (e.g., in 2001 and in 2002), we restricted our sample to the 2004-2007 period. We did not find any empirical evidence of any type of asymmetry in the preferences over the stabilization of inflation and of the output gap for this period.