Submitted by Marilene Donadel (marilene.donadel@unioeste.br) on 2017-10-31T20:29:18Z No. of bitstreams: 1 Cleber_E_Graef_2017.pdf: 1369308 bytes, checksum: 1472cb369401446a8991d6bfd0e3e046 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2017-10-31T20:29:18Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Cleber_E_Graef_2017.pdf: 1369308 bytes, checksum: 1472cb369401446a8991d6bfd0e3e046 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2017-07-27 / Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior - CAPES / In this research, the price transmission between international and Brazilian sugar market was analyzed, from January 2003 to May 2016. The principles of market integration, price transmission and the framework of the Law of One Price, using time series econometric models (Augmented Dickey-Fuller test, Granger causality, Johansen cointegration test, and variance decomposition of prediction errors) were used as a theoretical approach. The results indicated a long-term relationship between international and domestic sugar prices; however, it was not observed for exchange rate. Thus, in the long-term, a variation of 1% in the sugar international price implies a variation of 0.42% in the domestic price, resulting an inelastic relation. The results did not validate the Law of One Price. / Neste trabalho foi analisada a transmissão de preços entre os mercados internacional e brasileiro de açúcar, no período de janeiro de 2003 a maio de 2016. Como approach teórico foram utilizados os princípios da integração de mercado, da transmissão de preços e a abordagem da Lei do Preço Único, via modelos econométricos de séries temporais (teste Dickey-Fuller aumentado, causalidade de Granger, cointegração de Johansen, decomposição da variância dos erros de previsão). Os resultados indicaram relacionamento de longo prazo entre os preços internacionais e domésticos do açúcar, porém, o mesmo não se verificou com a taxa de câmbio. Assim, no longo prazo, uma variação de 1% no preço internacional do açúcar implica em uma variação 0,42% no preço doméstico, configurando uma relação inelástica. Os resultados não validaram a Lei do Preço Único.

Submitted by André Luiz Mofato Pinto (andremofato@yahoo.com.br) on 2013-11-22T22:02:18Z No. of bitstreams: 1 Dissertação_André_Mofato.pdf: 699893 bytes, checksum: 089e487b592f974c16590b5754d35a3d (MD5) / Rejected by Vitor Souza (vitor.souza@fgv.br), reason: André, O arquivo não esta dentro dos padrões. A falta ficha catalográfica e a folha de assinatura na versão eletrônica (PDF). on 2013-12-03T12:49:34Z (GMT) / Submitted by André Luiz Mofato Pinto (andremofato@yahoo.com.br) on 2013-12-05T19:25:56Z No. of bitstreams: 1 Dissertação_André_Mofato.pdf: 735715 bytes, checksum: 89bfe864faa36b095467a9c39d8586c7 (MD5) / Rejected by Vitor Souza (vitor.souza@fgv.br), reason: Falta a folha de assinatura. on 2014-05-28T20:07:39Z (GMT) / Submitted by André Luiz Mofato Pinto (andremofato@yahoo.com.br) on 2014-05-28T20:11:30Z No. of bitstreams: 1 AndréMofato.pdf: 2996119 bytes, checksum: 0a583d2e85f3b3f2a3da2b882359e0ed (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Vitor Souza (vitor.souza@fgv.br) on 2014-05-28T20:12:59Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 AndréMofato.pdf: 2996119 bytes, checksum: 0a583d2e85f3b3f2a3da2b882359e0ed (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2014-06-02T13:50:44Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 AndréMofato.pdf: 2996119 bytes, checksum: 0a583d2e85f3b3f2a3da2b882359e0ed (MD5) Previous issue date: 2013 / This study aims to estimate an empirical model to relate spending on advertising revenues of firms, in order to serve as a tool for decision making, for it will study a case of telecommunications industry. The communication industry (advertising) in Brazil, according to IBGE 2008, is responsible for 4% of GDP, generating revenues of 57.5 billion dollars. With 113,000 businesses that generate 711,000 jobs, 866,000 people occupy and pay 5.9 billion in wages and taxes. However, most marketing managers say they do not have tools to measure the impact of their actions on the results of companies. The empirical model is estimated on the basis of monthly data for domestic long distance of Embratel for the period January 2009 to December 2011. The information often not available could only be used due to confidentiality undertaking. From cointegration techniques, we calculated the long-run elasticity of income over spending on advertising and price, so with their speed of adjustment to short-term deviations. The results suggest that revenue responds positively to changes in advertising spending, although the percentage is relatively low. Through the Dorfman-Steiner theorem we’re able to indicate that the optimum relationship between advertising spending and revenue would be approximately 20%, subjected to limitations of the model. / Este trabalho tem por objetivo estimar um modelo empírico para relacionar os gastos em publicidade com a receita das firmas, de forma a servir como ferramenta de tomada de decisão, para isso vamos fazer um estudo de caso da indústria de telecomunicações. A Indústria de comunicação (publicidade) no Brasil, segundo dados do IBGE de 2008, é responsável por 4% do PIB, gerando receitas da ordem 115 bilhões de reais. Com 113 mil empresas que geram 711 mil empregos, ocupam 866 mil pessoas e pagam 11,8 bilhões em salários e encargos. No entanto, a maioria dos gestores de marketing declara não ter instrumentos para medir o impacto de suas ações no resultado das empresas. O modelo empírico será estimado tendo como base dados mensais dos serviços de ligações de longa distância nacional da Embratel para o período de janeiro de 2009 até dezembro de 2011. As informações quase sempre não disponíveis, só puderam ser usadas devido ao compromisso de confidencialidade. A partir de técnicas de cointegração, foi calculada a elasticidade de longo prazo da receita em relação aos gastos com publicidade e ao preço, assim com as respectivas velocidades de ajustamento aos desvios de curto prazo. Os resultados sugerem que a receita responde positivamente às variações dos gastos em publicidade, embora o percentual seja relativamente baixo, através do teorema de Dorfman-Steiner conseguimos indicar que o ponto ótimo da relação entre gastos com publicidade e a receita seria de aproximadamente 20%, respeitadas as limitações do modelo.

Doctor of Philosophy / Department of Economics / Steven P. Cassou / This dissertation consists of three essays in asymmetric empirical macroeconomics. Making macroeconomic policies has become increasingly difficult because of intricate relationships among macroeconomic variables. In this dissertation, we apply state-of-the-art macroeconometric techniques to investigate asymmetric relationships between key macroeconomic aggregates. Our findings have important macroeconomic policy implications. An analogue to the Phillips curve shows a positive relationship between inflation and capacity utilization. Some recent empirical work has shown that this relationship has broken down when using data after the mid-1980s and several popular explanations for this changing relationship, including advancements in technology and globalization, were put forward as possible explanations. In the first essay, we empirically investigate this issue using several threshold error correction models. We find, in the long run, a 1% increase in the rate of inflation leads to approximately a 0.0046% increase in capacity utilization. The asymmetric error correction structure shows that changes in capacity utilization show significant corrective measures only during booms while changes in inflation correct during both phases of the business cycle with the corrections being stronger during recessions. We also find that, in the short run, changes in the inflation rate do Granger cause capacity utilization while changes in capacity utilization do not Granger cause inflation. The Granger causality from inflation to capacity utilization can be interpreted as supporting recent calls made in the popular press by some economists that it may be desirable for the Federal Reserve Bank to try to induce some inflation in an effort to stimulate the economy. In the second essay, we examine the role of consumer confidence on economic activities like households’ consumption in good and bad economic times. We consider the “news” versus “animal spirit” approach interpretation of consumer confidence. In the wake of the Great Recession of 2008-09, many have called for confidence-boosting policies to help speed up the recovery. A recent study has reinforced these policy calls by showing that the Michigan Consumer Confidence Index contains important information about “news” on future productivity that has long-lasting effects on economic activities like aggregate consumption. Using US data, we show this conclusion is more nuanced when considering an economy that has different potential states. We investigate regime-switching models which use the National Bureau of Economic Research US business cycle expansion and contraction data to create an indicator series that distinguishes bad and good economic times and use this series to investigate impulse responses and variance decompositions. We show the connection between consumer confidence to some types of consumer purchases is important during good economic times but is relatively unimportant during bad economic times. We also use this type of model to investigate the connection between news and consumer confidence and this connection is also shown to be state dependent. In the context of the animal spirits versus news debate, our findings show that during economic expansions, consumer confidence shocks likely reflect news, while during economic contractions, consumer confidence shocks are consistent with animal spirits. These findings also have important implications for recent policy debates which consider whether confidence boosting policies, like raising inflation expectations on big-ticket items such as automobiles or business equipment, would lead to a faster recovery. The third essay investigates expectation shocks and their effect on the economy. For instance, this essay investigates whether the economy responds to expectation shocks in an importantly asymmetric way. A growing literature shows that agents' expectation about the future can lead to boom-bust cycles. These studies so far ignore the transmission effects of expectations on current economic activities across the policy regimes. Using the Survey of Professional Forecasters and Livingstone Survey data, this study empirically investigates the effects of expectation shocks on macroeconomic activities when policy regimes shift. Identifying a structural shock to expectations by using the timing of information in the forecast surveys and actual data releases, we show that the effects of agents' expectations about the future on current macroeconomic activities are asymmetric across the policy regimes. In particular, we find that a perception of good times ahead typically leads to a significant rise in current measures of economic activity in a hawkish regime relative to a dovish regime. We also find that monetary policy's reactions to agents' expectations are asymmetric across the policy regimes. Our findings do not support the views of critics of the central banks, who argued that keeping monetary policy too easy for too long is responsible for fueling the booms. Instead, our findings support the traditional view that a positive (negative) expectation about the future coincides with an anticipatory tightening (easing) of monetary policy.

Master of Science / Department of Agricultural Economics / Hikaru H. Peterson / Organic has become a familiar term in agriculture, usually bringing to mind the phrases “no chemicals” and “large premiums.” While organic products usually command a substantial price premium over their conventional counterparts, the determinants of this premium are generally unknown. The lack of literature covering organic prices is not from a lack of interest but from a lack of information and data for organic commodities. This study examines two aspects of organic grain prices in an attempt to learn more about the organic grain sector. The first objective was to identify determinants of organic premiums received by members of a Kansas organic grain cooperative. Six different grains along with alfalfa hay were examined using hedonic models and bootstrapping statistical techniques. Findings of the hedonic analyses are as follows. Dairy farms seemed to pay a lower premium for feed grade corn and hard red winter wheat compared to other types of buyers. Buyers located in Kansas tended to provide a smaller premium than buyers located elsewhere. Early contract periods produced a smaller premium than later periods. Shipment timing was much the same, with fourth quarter shipments receiving the largest premium. Additionally, each subsequent contract year resulted in a larger premium. If the cooperative had arranged shipment of the commodity, a lower premium was acquired. Finally, longer contract lengths resulted in a larger premium. The second part of this study examined various price series of organic and conventional commodities to determine if the two markets were related. Using vector autoregressive models, cointegration and causality tests were conducted, and speed of adjustment to a shock in the long run equilibrium and exogeneity were also examined. Of the 43 pairs of organic and conventional price series tested, 29 were found to be cointegrated. Of those cointegrated pairs, 11 causal relationships were found. Five of these causal relationships indicated that the conventional commodity prices led the organic. There were six instances where the organic commodity prices were found to lead the conventional. For most causal relationships, about 5% of the adjustment to a shock, or divergence from long run equilibrium occurred in one week.

This diploma thesis is dealing with the study of dependence between birth and marriage in the Czech Republic in 1973-2016, this period is divided into two time point, due to the demographic transition and the new political regime, before 1989 (state regulated economy) and after 1989 (the changeover to a market economy). The basis for multidimensional analysis of time series is the starting point for finding the relationship or dependency between the monitored characteristics. The demographic indicator of birth rate (natality) is characterized by the number of live births and the marriage rate (nuptiality) by the number of marriages in the Czech Republic, available at monthly frequency. In the introduction of this thesis, the hypothesis of the absence of dependence (relationship) between the observed time series is determined, which will be analysed at the end of the analysis for both time series. The results of this thesis can be helpful not only to experts who were engaged with this issue in detail, but also to those interested in demographics or time series, because the prediction of these indicators will be simulated in the end of this paper.

This paper examines the (in contemporary literature inconclusive) usefulness ofcointegration between stock prices as basis for a trading strategy. The primary contributionto previously used frameworks of the paper is the implementation and use of error correctionmodels for selection of stocks to trade on. Evaluation is done through simulated resultsrunning the algorithm on the sectors of the Standard and Poor’s 500 index in the years 2005through 2014. Results indicate that trading strategies of this nature may be very successfuleven in recent years given that the universe of tradeable stocks within a sector is sufficientlylarge. The application of error correction models improve average returns, though in a waynot originally anticipated.

The study describes how cointegration-based techniques can be employed in order to construct profitable trading strategies that exploit mispricing events between similar securities. Particularly, the Johansen Maximum Likelihood Estimation and the Kalman filter approaches are applied to the universe of 200 most liquid ETF stocks traded on NYSE and NASDAQ. The results show that the strategies are quite sensitive to transaction costs, but are still able to maintain profitability even after accounting for a conservative level of transaction costs. While the Kalman filter produces better results on daily data, the 15-minute timeframe is dominated by portfolios constructed by the Johansen cointegration test. Both strategies achieve significantly higher risk-adjusted returns on the intraday timeframe. The study also reveals a performance decline of both strategies in the period of 2013-2015 and outlines possible interpretation of such event.

In capital-scarce low income economies, the lack of attractiveness to private foreign investment implies that the only readily available source of external financing for economic development has to come from foreign aid which normally comes with an altruistic motive. However, despite long history of aid-giving to low income countries and especially Sub-Saharan Africa, evidence of effectiveness of such assistance has remained debatable, particularly with the dominance of cross-country studies in such enquiry. With yet no existing country study for Sierra Leone, a typical aid dependent country, this research investigates the relationship between donor intervention (in their aid disbursement) and the development outcomes of economic growth and poverty reduction in the country. In conducting such an enquiry, the study proposed three objectives. The first examines the relationship between aid and economic growth. The second objective investigates the relationship between aid and poverty reduction considering two variants of poverty reduction: improvement of pro-poor growth and aggregate human welfare. The final objective assesses the effect of domestic politics on aid’s effectiveness in improving human welfare. Arising from a pluralistic analytical framework involving a triangulation of econometric estimation approaches complemented with qualitative enquiry, the study finds that aid to Sierra Leone is significant in promoting economic growth in the country. In terms of the impact on poverty, the results show that foreign aid to Sierra Leone has significantly improved long-run pro-poor growth in the country, but this impact could not be confirmed in the short-run. With respect to the other strand of poverty, the study finds that though aid may have not improved human well-being in Africa, it is found to significantly improve human development in Sierra Leone, though the evidence could not support its reduction of infant mortality rate as a second indicator of human well-being. Finally, for the investigation of the link between aid, politics and human development in Sierra Leone, the study finds that though aid is significant in directly improving human development in the country, yet pro-democratic politics (as against autocratic regimes) can also be good a policy option for aid‘s impact on human development in the country. Accounting for disaggregation bias of foreign aid, the study finds that whilst grants seem to consistently improve economic growth, pro-poor growth and human welfare, the study could not find strong evidence to suggest that technical assistance and loans likewise improve economic development the country. The impact of food aid on pro-poor growth is found to be moderate in conformity with the study’s hypothesis. Concluding from the analysis, it is evident in the case of Sierra Leone that the supplemental theories largely hold that foreign aid is vital in the promotion of a country’s economic development. Hence, the intervention of donors in the economy of Sierra Leone has not seemed to be in vain, but has rather proved to be largely useful. It implies that Sierra Leone’s persistent poverty characterisation amidst notable donor presence and participation in the country’s economy has little to do with the fact that foreign aid has not been effective in promoting the country’s economic development, but it may however be that the magnitude of the effect may not have been that high to completely eradicate poverty. The study’s identification of the most effective types of aid as well the realisation of political stability and democracy for enhanced effectiveness of aid in the country could be crucial if the economic significance of foreign aid is to be improved in Sierra Leone.

Submitted by Renata Lopes (renatasil82@gmail.com) on 2015-12-08T13:19:32Z No. of bitstreams: 1 karendiascorrea.pdf: 4111220 bytes, checksum: 763076d4718dfcb2597f2ba14764202a (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Adriana Oliveira (adriana.oliveira@ufjf.edu.br) on 2015-12-09T13:41:48Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 karendiascorrea.pdf: 4111220 bytes, checksum: 763076d4718dfcb2597f2ba14764202a (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2015-12-09T13:41:48Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 karendiascorrea.pdf: 4111220 bytes, checksum: 763076d4718dfcb2597f2ba14764202a (MD5) Previous issue date: 2015-08-06 / Este trabalho tem como objetivo analisar o efeito de longo prazo da volatilidade da taxa de câmbio real efetiva sobre os produtos básicos, semimanufaturados e manufaturados exportados do Brasil para os principais parceiros econômicos, sendo estes Estados Unidos, União Europeia e MERCOSUL. A literatura teórica é controversa com relação aos efeitos esperados da volatilidade sobre as exportações. O presente estudo avança em relação à literatura empírica reunida aqui em duas direções: na metodologia de mensuração empregada na volatilidade e na categoria de produtos utilizados. Para tanto, foi empregada a abordagem de cointegração via modelo ARDL e o teste de Fronteira de Pesaran et al. (2001). Os principais resultados do trabalho são que há evidência de que a volatilidade tem um impacto negativo sobre as exportações brasileiras com destino ao MERCOSUL. Quanto às exportações para os Estados Unidos, os resultados são contraditórios, dado que apresentaram uma relação negativa entre a volatilidade e exportações dos produtos manufaturados e semimanufaturados e uma relação predominantemente positiva na análise desagregada em capítulos da NCM. Por fim, para a União Europeia, apenas na análise desagregada ocorreu a relação estatística de longo prazo entre volatilidade e exportações. Neste caso, a predominância das relações foi negativa. / This work aims to analyze the long-term effect of the volatility of the real effective exchange rate on commodities, semi-manufactured and manufactured products exported from Brazil to the main economic partners, which are the United States, European Union and MERCOSUR. This study improved regarding the empirical literature in two directions: in the measurement methodology used in volatility and in the category of used products. For this we used the approach of cointegration via ARDL model by Border test Pesaran et al. (2001). The main results of the work are that there is evidence that volatility has a negative impact on Brazilian exports to MERCOSUR. For exports to the United States the results are contradictory, given that showed a negative relationship between volatility and exports for manufactured and semi-manufactured goods and a largely positive relationship in the disaggregated analysis of NCM chapters. Finally, for the European Union only a disaggregated analysis was the long-term statistical relationship between volatility and exports. In this case, the dominance relations was negative.

The study examined the relationship between financial intermediation and poverty in selected developing countries. In particular the study sought to examine the deterministic relationship, cointegration and the causality between financial intermediation and poverty. Panel data spanning the period 2004-2016 for 35 developing countries was employed. Substantial empirical research proposed that financial development expands economic prospects and reduces poverty and inequality. Hitherto, there is a dearth of empirical studies on the potential effects of formal financial dimensions of financial access, financial efficiency and financial stability in reducing poverty. There is also a lack of empirical work on the joint effect of the other financial dimensions in a financial intermediation setting in poverty reduction. The present study contributed to literature by including these financial dimensions in examining cointegration and causality between financial dimensions and poverty. The study employed a number of econometric methodologies to address the objectives of the research such as the GMM, panel ARDL and panel ECM. The GMM was employed to examine the determinants of poverty that were selected for this study. To examine the long run, short run and the causal relationship, the panel ARDL and the error correction model were used. In addition the study deployed PCA to develop the composite index for institutional quality. Panel heterogenous estimation methods such as the pooled mean group to infer the cointegration and causal effect between the financial dimensions and poverty were employed. The Hausman test was used to determine the most appropriate estimator and the PMG estimator was selected as the most appropriate since the p-value of the Hausman test was insignificant. The results from panel ARDL, cointegration test showed the existence of a long run relationship between financial intermediation, financial access, financial efficiency, financial access and poverty. Furthermore, the study noted that the relationship between financial intermediation and poverty differ depending on how poverty is measured. Therefore, the distortions in understanding and definition of poverty may consequently lead to distorted policies that yield little or no results for the effectiveness of the financial sector in poverty reduction.The study found strong causality in the long run for all the poverty proxies and the selected financial variables. Additionally the results from the panel causality tests indicate the bidirectional causality of the variables in the long run. We fail to observe the causality among most iii of the variables in the short run. There is strong joint causality among the variables in the panel as the results of the error correction term is negative and significant indicating that there is dynamic stability between the financial variables and poverty. The study further included the domestic public debt and remittances as determinants of poverty in a financial intermediation setting. Since domestic public debt can crowd out private credit, this study included domestic public debt for the panel of the developing countries and the study found that domestic public debt has a poverty reducing effect. Additionally the study found that remittances reduce the share of population living in poverty whilst increasing inequality as indicated in the findings of the study. / Finance, Risk Management and Banking