The constant increase in public sector spending in the advanced economies, increases pressure on the revenue side of public budgets. The primary sources of public budgets are taxes. This raises a question of what type of tax instrument to choose in respect to meet the high efficiency in sourcing public budgets restriction and at the same time, to minimize the negative impact on the private sector and households. As generally effective tax is considered a consumption tax. But what is the real effect of this tax in the short run and long run? The aim of this thesis is to analyze the influence of value -- added tax (VAT) on household expendictures in the short and long run. At first I provide empirical test of the short-term effect of VAT on household spending using quarter panel data for Visegrad fore countries, as I am focused mostly on the Czech Republic and Slovakia. Then construct a broader set of data for 14 EU countries, in purpose to test the long-term effect. For testing, I use several estimation techniques for panel data, taking into account the dynamic nature of these data sets.

Submitted by Cesar Fukushima (fukushimacesar@gmail.com) on 2018-05-11T19:35:54Z No. of bitstreams: 1 CESAR_T_FUKUSHIMA_FINAL.pdf: 1330741 bytes, checksum: fa16e039db18efc7ce1d52fbc317312f (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Simone de Andrade Lopes Pires (simone.lopes@fgv.br) on 2018-05-14T20:52:37Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 CESAR_T_FUKUSHIMA_FINAL.pdf: 1330741 bytes, checksum: fa16e039db18efc7ce1d52fbc317312f (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Suzane Guimarães (suzane.guimaraes@fgv.br) on 2018-05-15T12:49:12Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 CESAR_T_FUKUSHIMA_FINAL.pdf: 1330741 bytes, checksum: fa16e039db18efc7ce1d52fbc317312f (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2018-05-15T12:49:12Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 CESAR_T_FUKUSHIMA_FINAL.pdf: 1330741 bytes, checksum: fa16e039db18efc7ce1d52fbc317312f (MD5) Previous issue date: 2018-04-17 / O presente trabalho consiste em uma análise do consumo das famílias utilizando-se a hipótese da renda permanente e do ciclo de vida, com base nos indicadores de consumo, crédito, renda e juros no Brasil durante o período de 2003 a 2017, em um ambiente econômico que apresentou um ciclo de expansão, seguido por duas crises econômicas, sendo que a segunda crise (após 2015) trouxe agravamentos ao ambiente econômico do país. Para tanto, utilizaram-se a metodologia proposta por Campbell e Mankiw (1989) e o Vetor Auto Regressivo (VAR) sobre as séries históricas de renda, crédito, taxa de juros e volume de crédito à pessoa física. Com base na metodologia de Markov Switching-VAR, buscou-se analisar quebras estruturais no comportamento do consumidor no período analisado. O resultado mostrou duas quebras estruturais, uma entre o segundo trimestre de 2003 e o quarto trimestre de 2007 e outra entre o primeiro trimestre de 2008 e o segundo trimestre de 2015. Em todos os períodos, o modelo de Campbell e Mankiw apresentou comportamentos similares, nos quais se rejeita a hipótese da renda permanente. No período entre o terceiro trimestre de 2015 e o terceiro trimestre de 2017, momento de grande impacto da crise econômica brasileira, obteve-se uma rejeição da hipótese da renda permanente com aumento significativo da restrição à liquidez e ao crédito. Segundo o modelo VAR, que tenta identificar o comportamento dinâmico das variáveis em estudo, observou-se que choques gerados individualmente na renda e no crédito têm impacto positivo no consumo, ou seja, geram um incremento no consumo das famílias; no entanto um choque nos juros tem um efeito inversamente proporcional no consumo, o que está de acordo com a rejeição da hipótese da renda permanente. / The present work consists of an analysis of household consumption using the permanent income and life cycle hypothesis, based on consumption, credit, income and interest rate indicators in Brazil from 2003 to 2017, in an economic environment that presented a cycle of expansion, followed by two economic crisis, with the second crisis (after 2015) aggravating to the country's economic environment. In this work the employed methodology was the one proposed by Campbell and Mankiw (1989) together with the Vector Auto Regressive (VAR), on the historical series of income, credit, interest rate and volume of credit to individuals. Based on the Markov SwitchingVAR methodology, we sought to analyze structural breaks in consumer behavior during the analyzed period. The result showed two structural breaks, one between the second quarter of 2003 and the fourth quarter of 2007, and another between the first quarter of 2008 and the second quarter of 2015. In all periods, the Campbell and Mankiw model showed similar behavior, in which we reject the hypothesis of permanent income. Between the third quarter of 2015 and the third quarter of 2017, a period of great impact of the Brazilian economic crisis, the hypothesis of permanent income was rejected, with a significant increase in the restriction on liquidity and credit. According to the VAR model, which tries to identify the dynamic behavior of the variables under study, we have observed that shocks individually generated on income and credit have a positive impact on consumption, ie, it generates an increase in household consumption. On the other hand, a shock on the interest rate causes an inversely proportional effect on consumption, which is in line with the rejection of the hypothesis of permanent income.

The dissertation consists of four self-contained essays on consumption. Essays 1 and 2 consider different measures of aggregate consumption, and Essays 3 and 4 consider how the distributions of income and wealth affect consumption from a macro and micro perspective, respectively. Essay 1 considers the empirical practice of seemingly interchangeable use of two measures of consumption; total consumption expenditure and consumption expenditure on nondurable goods and services. Using data from Sweden and the US in an error correction model, it is shown that consumption functions based on the two measures exhibit significant differences in several aspects of econometric modelling. Essay 2, coauthored with Thomas Holgersson, considers derivation of a univariate and a multivariate version of a test for asymmetry, based on the third central moment. The logic behind the test is that the dependent variable should correspond to the specification of the econometric model; symmetric with linear models and asymmetric with non-linear models. The main result in the empirical application of the test is that orthodox theory seems to be supported for consumption of both nondurable and durable consumption. The consumption of durables shows little deviation from symmetry in the four-country sample, while the consumption of nondurables is shown to be asymmetric in two out of four cases, the UK and the US. Essay 3 departs from the observation that introducing income uncertainty makes the consumption function concave, implying that the distributions of wealth and income are omitted variables in aggregate Euler equations. This implication is tested through estimation of the distributions over time and augmentation of consumption functions, using Swedish data for 1963-2000. The results show that only the dispersion of wealth is significant, the explanation of which is found in the marked changes of the group of households with negative wealth; a group that according to a concave consumption function has the highest marginal propensity to consume. Essay 4 attempts to empirically specify the nature of the alleged concavity of the consumption function. Using grouped household level Swedish data for 1999-2001, it is shown that the marginal propensity to consume out of current resources, i.e. current income and net wealth, is strictly decreasing in current resources and net wealth, but approximately constant in income. Also, an empirical reciprocal to the stylized theoretical consumption function is estimated, and shown to bear a close resemblance to the theoretical version.