<p>Aggressive fiscal and monetary policies by governments of countries and central banks in developed markets could somehow push inflation to some very high level in the long run. Due to the decreasing of pension fund benefits and increasing inflation rate, pension companies are selling inflation-linked products to hedge against inflation risk. Such companies are seriously considering the possible effects of inflation volatility on their investment, and some of them tend to include inflationary allowances in the pension payment plan. In this dissertation we study the management of pension funds of the defined contribution type in the presence of inflation-recession. We study how the fund manager maximizes his fund&rsquo / s wealth when the salaries and stocks are affected by inflation. In this regard, we consider the case of a pension company which invests in a stock, inflation-linked bonds and a money market account, while basing its investment on the contribution of the plan member. We use a benchmarking approach and martingale methods to compute an optimal strategy which maximizes the fund wealth.</p>

Magister Scientiae - MSc / Aggressive fiscal and monetary policies by governments of countries and central banks in developed markets could somehow push inflation to some very high level in the long run. Due to the decreasing of pension fund benefits and increasing inflation rate, pension companies are selling inflation-linked products to hedge against inflation risk. Such companies are seriously considering the possible effects of inflation volatility on their investment, and some of them tend to include inflationary allowances in the pension payment plan. In this dissertation we study the management of pension funds of the defined contribution type in the presence of inflation-recession. We study how the fund manager maximizes his fund's wealth when the salaries and stocks are affected by inflation. In this regard, we consider the case of a pension company which invests in a stock, inflation-linked bonds and a money market account, while basing its investment on the contribution of the plan member. We use a benchmarking approach and martingale methods to compute an optimal strategy which maximizes the fund wealth. / South Africa

Magister Commercii - MCom / Over the past four decades, size, value and momentum effects have been uncovered on stock markets, and several multifactor asset pricing models have been proposed to explain them. The associated premiums have been found to be time-varying and the explanations behind the effects are still debated. In South Africa, contradictory findings have been reported on the existence of those effects and the explanatory power of multifactor models. More important, the cyclicality of the effects and the risk/mispricing debate have been given little attention. In this regard, this study purports to establish the existence of size, value and momentum effects, investigate the explanatory power of the Fama-French three- and five-factor models (FF3F and FF5F respectively), and Carhart four-factor model (C4F), and examine the cyclicality and risk-based rationale of the style premiums on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE). Using a research sample comprised of common stocks included in the FTSE/JSE All Share Index (ALSI) for the period 1 January 2002 - 31 December 2018, the study subdivides the examination period into two business cycles, with each cycle including one upward phase and one downward phase

No description available.

Doctor of Philosophy / Department of Economics / Steven P. Cassou / This dissertation consists of three essays on modeling the behavior of both fiscal and monetary policy by allowing for asymmetry in preferences of the policy authorities. Whether the responses of fiscal or monetary policy to the business cycle conditions are symmetric or asymmetric is still an unresolved question. The idea behind asymmetric behavior is that policy makers take stronger action during times of distress than during ordinary times. The following chapters investigate this question empirically using data for the United States and show that policy makers do behave asymmetrically. Chapter 1 investigates whether the asymmetric monetary policy preferences for the output gap as shown in Surico (2007) disappeared during the post-Volcker period spanning 1982:04- 2003:02. The results show Surico’s conclusion to be fragile as moving the starting period for the estimation a few quarters forward shows strong asymmetric policy behavior. Chapter 2 investigates U.S. fiscal policy sustainability and cyclicality in empirical structures that allow fiscal policy responses to exhibit asymmetric behavior. Two quarterly intervals of data are investigated, both of which begin in 1955. The short sample was chosen for comparison to Bohn (1998), while the full sample uses all available data. The results for a short sample that ends in the second quarter of 1995 show some differences from the results for the full sample that includes the financial crisis and the Great Recession. For the full sample, U.S. fiscal policy is asymmetrical in regard to both sustainability and cyclicality. Regarding fiscal policy sustainability, the best fitting models show evidence of fiscal policy sustainability for the short sample. However, the fiscal sustainability question does become less clear for the full sample. Regarding fiscal policy cyclicality, we find during times of distress, policy is strongly countercyclical, but during good times the results are mixed. Chapter 3 investigates the source of asymmetry in reaction of U.S. fiscal policy to business cycle conditions, as shown in chapter 2. By decomposing the fiscal policy variable into the tax revenues and the expenditures, we show that both series exhibit asymmetry in a way which is analogous to the results found in chapter 2.

In relation to the latest economic crisis much attention was paid to the bank capital requirements. Many papers discuss the pro-cyclical effect of these capital requirements and the options of how to stabilize the banking industry and financial system. In this thesis I researched another instrument which can cause the pro-cyclical effect - the loan loss provisions. In reaction to this issue the Spanish central bank has adopted the model of dynamic provisioning which acts counter-cyclically. This model is supposed to balance the amount of created provisions and banks' profit over the time. In this thesis I introduce a hypothetical situation in which the countries using the Euro currency adopted the model of dynamic provisioning and I examine the hypothesis that the adoption of this model would mitigate the latest economic crisis as the banks would achieve higher profits during the time of recession. Based on the conducted research I confirmed my hypothesis and conclude that the dynamic provisioning would balance the economic swings. However, the results also showed that the set-up of dynamic provisions model is crucial. In order to make the model efficient the model coefficients have to be precisely determined by central banks or individual banks and approved by independent supervisors. Keywords...

Cette thèse étudie les systèmes bancaires africains et se concentre tout particulièrement sur la question de l’actionnariat bancaire et de ses impacts. Le premier chapitre étudie l’efficience de coût. Les banques étrangères sont plus efficientes que les banques domestiques et les banques panafricaines sont les banques les plus efficientes du continent. Le second chapitre étudie la cyclicité des portefeuilles de prêt. La croissance des prêts des banques africaines est sensible à l’évolution de la croissance du PIB par habitant. Les banques panafricaines ont une croissance des prêts moins cyclique. La croissance des prêts des banques étrangères est sensible à l’évolution de la croissance dans leur pays d’origine. Les chapitres trois et quatre étudient l’inclusion financière. La probabilité d’être inclus financièrement augmente lorsque l’individu est de sexe masculin, a un revenu plus élevé, une éducation plus importante, et est plus âgé jusqu’à un certain seuil. La présence des banques panafricaines augmente l’accès au crédit des entreprises. Les banques panafricaines augmenteraient aussi l’inclusion financière des ménages, mais ce résultat est moins robuste. La conclusion générale de cette thèse souligne le rôle nouveau et bénéfique que jouent les banques panafricaines sur le continent. Ces jeunes institutions financières augmentent l’efficience de coût, diminuent la cyclicité des portefeuilles de prêt, et améliorent l’inclusion financière. / This dissertation studies African financial systems with a focus on bank ownership. Chapter one studies cost efficiency. Foreign banks are more efficient than domestic banks, and Pan-African banks are the most efficient banks on the continent. Chapter two analyses lending procyclicality. Lending growth of African banks is sensitive to the GDP per capita growth. Pan-African banks have a less pro-cyclical lending behaviour. Lending growth of African foreign banks is sensitive to GDP per capita growth in their home country. Chapter three and four study financial inclusion. Being male, wealthier, more educated and older to a certain extent increases the likelihood to be financially included. Pan-African banks presence increases firms’ access to credit. Pan-African banks would also increase households’ financial inclusion, but such result is less robust.The general conclusion of this dissertation underlines the new, beneficial role Pan-African banks play on the continent. These young financial institutions increase cost efficiency, reduce cyclicality of lending and improve financial inclusion.

Vykdydami savo veiklą bankai susiduria su įvairia rizika, susijusia su lūkesčiais, kad gaunama grąža kompensuos prisiimtą riziką. Bankų veiklos rizikingumą sustiprina ne tik vidinės bankų valdymo klaidos, bet taip pat ekonomikos svyravimai arba verslo ciklai. Ekonomikos augimo laikotarpiu bankai optimistiškai vertina skolininkų ateities perspektyvas ir todėl vykdo liberalią kreditų teikimo politiką. Prasidėjus ekonomikos kritimui, sulėtėjus pinigų srautams, bankų rizikingumas išauga, tai reikalauja didesnių atidėjinių, rezervų ir aukštesnio kapitalo lygio. Problemos aktualumą patvirtina ir paskutinė finansų krizė, kuri yra didžiausia nuo Didžiosios depresijos laikų. Finansų sektoriuje kilusi krizė atsiliepė „tikrajai“ ekonomikai ir sukėlė ekonominiams sunkmečiams būdingus padarinius. Todėl yra ieškoma būdų kaip tinkamai vertinant bankų riziką, laiku užkirsti kelią finansinėms krizėms, o kartu išvengti bereikalingų suvaržymų, stabdančių finansų sektoriaus ir viso ūkio plėtrą. Dėl visų minėtų priežasčių bankų rizikos problemos pastaruoju metu susilaukia daug mokslinės visuomenės, bankų priežiūros ir pačių bankų dėmesio. Darbo objektas – pasirinktų, Lietuvoje veikiančių, komercinių bankų riziką atspindintys rodikliai ir jų ryšys su verslo ciklu. Darbo tikslas – ištirti verslo ciklo poveikį bankų rizikai. Darbo tikslui pasiekti, darbe numatoma išspręsti šiuos uždavinius: • Išskirti bankų rizikos šaltinius; • Išanalizuoti kaip bankų rizika pasikeičia, kintant ekonominėms sąlygoms... [toliau žr. visą tekstą] / Banks in the course of their work are confronted with various risks. That’s risks are associated with the expectation, that the return will compensate the risk assumed by bank. Risk in banking activities not only strengthens the internal management of a bank error, but also economic fluctuations or business cycles. In economic growth times, banks are optimistic about the future prospects of the borrowers and therefore banks acts a liberal supply of credit policies, reducing lending standards. When economy stat’s to fall, the cash flow of money will slow, bank risk profile increases, it requires larger provisions, reserves and a higher level of capital. The work issues confirms the relevance of the last financial crisis, which is the largest since the Great Depression. The financial sector crisis effected "the real" economy and financial crisis caused the specific effects of economic recessions. So it is looking for ways of properly assessing the risk of bank, and to prevent financial crises in time, to avoid unnecessary constraints hindering the financial sector and the economy development. For all these reasons, the banks' risk problems recently attracts many scientific societies, banking supervision, and most banks focus of attention. The object of work - the selection, the commercial banks, operating in Lithuania, risk-reflective indicators and indicators link to the business cycle. The aim of work - to explore the business cycle effects of bank risk. To achieve the aim of... [to full text]

This doctoral thesis addresses in a sequence of five essays the question how fiscal policy and economic output are interrelated in emerging Europe and how this relationship is shaped by the respective politico-economic environment and the individual-level support for economic reforms. Following main findings can be highlighted: (1) Countries in Central, Eastern and Southeastern Europe (CESEE) respond to a fiscal expansion in the euro area with fiscal easing at home, while the GDP response is mixed across countries.(2)Automatic fiscal stabilizers are comparatively small and discretionary fiscal policy has been largely pro-cyclical in CESEE. (3) The public spending and revenue structure is more "growth-friendly" in CESEEthan in the EU-15. (4) In transition economies with more democratic institutions and a better quality of governance, individuals with high market-relevant skills show a significantly larger support of the privatization status quo than individuals with low market skills. (5) The society in Russia - triggered by a lack of social capital - chooses to demand more state regulationand tolerate corruption to reduce negative externalities imposed by private business.(author's abstract)

The active use of macroeconomic policies to smooth economic fluctuations and, as a<p>consequence, the stance that policymakers should adopt over the business cycle, remain<p>controversial issues in the economic literature.<p>In the light of the dramatic experience of the early 1930s’ Great Depression, Keynes (1936)<p>argued that the market mechanism could not be relied upon to spontaneously recover from<p>a slump, and advocated counter-cyclical public spending and monetary policy to stimulate<p>demand. Albeit the Keynesian doctrine had largely influenced policymaking during<p>the two decades following World War II, it began to be seriously challenged in several<p>directions since the start of the 1970s. The introduction of rational expectations within<p>macroeconomic models implied that aggregate demand management could not stabilize<p>the economy’s responses to shocks (see in particular Sargent and Wallace (1975)). According<p>to this view, in fact, rational agents foresee the effects of the implemented policies, and<p>wage and price expectations are revised upwards accordingly. Therefore, real wages and<p>money balances remain constant and so does output. Within such a conceptual framework,<p>only unexpected policy interventions would have some short-run effects upon the economy.<p>The "real business cycle (RBC) theory", pioneered by Kydland and Prescott (1982), offered<p>an alternative explanation on the nature of fluctuations in economic activity, viewed<p>as reflecting the efficient responses of optimizing agents to exogenous sources of fluctuations, outside the direct control of policymakers. The normative implication was that<p>there should be no role for economic policy activism: fiscal and monetary policy should be<p>acyclical. The latest generation of New Keynesian dynamic stochastic general equilibrium<p>(DSGE) models builds on rigorous foundations in intertemporal optimizing behavior by<p>consumers and firms inherited from the RBC literature, but incorporates some frictions<p>in the adjustment of nominal and real quantities in response to macroeconomic shocks<p>(see Woodford (2003)). In such a framework, not only policy "surprises" may have an<p>impact on the economic activity, but also the way policymakers "systematically" respond<p>to exogenous sources of fluctuation plays a fundamental role in affecting the economic<p>activity, thereby rekindling interest in the use of counter-cyclical stabilization policies to<p>fine tune the business cycle.<p>Yet, despite impressive advances in the economic theory and econometric techniques, there are no definitive answers on the systematic stance policymakers should follow, and on the<p>effects of macroeconomic policies upon the economy. Against this background, the present thesis attempts to inspect the interrelations between macroeconomic policies and the economic activity from novel angles. Three contributions<p>are proposed. <p><p>In the first Chapter, I show that relying on the information actually available to policymakers when budgetary decisions are taken is of fundamental importance for the assessment of the cyclical stance of governments. In the second, I explore whether the effectiveness of fiscal shocks in spurring the economic activity has declined since the beginning of the 1970s. In the third, the impact of systematic monetary policies over U.S. industrial sectors is investigated. In the existing literature, empirical assessments of the historical stance of policymakers over the economic cycle have been mainly drawn from the estimation of "reduced-form" policy reaction functions (see in particular Taylor (1993) and Galì and Perotti (2003)). Such rules typically relate a policy instrument (a reference short-term interest rate or an indicator of discretionary fiscal policy) to a set of explanatory variables (notably inflation, the output gap and the debt-GDP ratio, as long as fiscal policy is concerned). Although these policy rules can be seen as simple approximations of what derived from an explicit optimization problem solved by social planners (see Kollmann (2007)), they received considerable attention since they proved to track the behavior of central banks and fiscal<p>policymakers relatively well. Typically, revised data, i.e. observations available to the<p>econometrician when the study is carried out, are used in the estimation of such policy<p>reaction functions. However, data available in "real-time" to policymakers may end up<p>to be remarkably different from what it is observed ex-post. Orphanides (2001), in an<p>innovative and thought-provoking paper on the U.S. monetary policy, challenged the way<p>policy evaluation was conducted that far by showing that unrealistic assumptions about<p>the timeliness of data availability may yield misleading descriptions of historical policy.<p>In the spirit of Orphanides (2001), in the first Chapter of this thesis I reconsider how<p>the intentional cyclical stance of fiscal authorities should be assessed. Importantly, in<p>the framework of fiscal policy rules, not only variables such as potential output and the<p>output gap are subject to measurement errors, but also the main discretionary "operating<p>instrument" in the hands of governments: the structural budget balance, i.e. the headline<p>government balance net of the effects due to automatic stabilizers. In fact, the actual<p>realization of planned fiscal measures may depend on several factors (such as the growth<p>rate of GDP, the implementation lags that often follow the adoption of many policy<p>measures, and others more) outside the direct and full control of fiscal authorities. Hence,<p>there might be sizeable differences between discretionary fiscal measures as planned in the<p>past and what it is observed ex-post. To be noted, this does not apply to monetary policy<p>since central bankers can control their operating interest rates with great accuracy.<p>When the historical behavior of fiscal authorities is analyzed from a real-time perspective, it emerges that the intentional stance has been counter-cyclical, especially during expansions, in the main OECD countries throughout the last thirteen years. This is at<p>odds with findings based on revised data, generally pointing to pro-cyclicality (see for example Gavin and Perotti (1997)). It is shown that empirical correlations among revision<p>errors and other second-order moments allow to predict the size and the sign of the bias<p>incurred in estimating the intentional stance of the policy when revised data are (mistakenly)<p>used. It addition, formal tests, based on a refinement of Hansen (1999), do not reject<p>the hypothesis that the intentional reaction of fiscal policy to the cycle is characterized by<p>two regimes: one counter-cyclical, when output is above its potential level, and the other<p>acyclical, in the opposite case. On the contrary, the use of revised data does not allow to identify any threshold effect.<p><p>The second and third Chapters of this thesis are devoted to the exploration of the impact<p>of fiscal and monetary policies upon the economy.<p>Over the last years, two approaches have been mainly followed by practitioners for the<p>estimation of the effects of macroeconomic policies on the real activity. On the one hand,<p>calibrated and estimated DSGE models allow to trace out the economy’s responses to<p>policy disturbances within an analytical framework derived from solid microeconomic<p>foundations. On the other, vector autoregressive (VAR) models continue to be largely<p>used since they have proved to fit macro data particularly well, albeit they cannot fully<p>serve to inspect structural interrelations among economic variables.<p>Yet, the typical DSGE and VAR models are designed to handle a limited number of variables<p>and are not suitable to address economic questions potentially involving a large<p>amount of information. In a DSGE framework, in fact, identifying aggregate shocks and<p>their propagation mechanism under a plausible set of theoretical restrictions becomes a<p>thorny issue when many variables are considered. As for VARs, estimation problems may<p>arise when models are specified in a large number of indicators (although latest contributions suggest that large-scale Bayesian VARs perform surprisingly well in forecasting.<p>See in particular Banbura, Giannone and Reichlin (2007)). As a consequence, the growing<p>popularity of factor models as effective econometric tools allowing to summarize in<p>a parsimonious and flexible manner large amounts of information may be explained not<p>only by their usefulness in deriving business cycle indicators and forecasting (see for example<p>Reichlin (2002) and D’Agostino and Giannone (2006)), but also, due to recent<p>developments, by their ability in evaluating the response of economic systems to identified<p>structural shocks (see Giannone, Reichlin and Sala (2002) and Forni, Giannone, Lippi<p>and Reichlin (2007)). Parallelly, some attempts have been made to combine the rigor of<p>DSGE models and the tractability of VAR ones, with the advantages of factor analysis<p>(see Boivin and Giannoni (2006) and Bernanke, Boivin and Eliasz (2005)).<p><p>The second Chapter of this thesis, based on a joint work with Agnès Bénassy-Quéré, presents an original study combining factor and VAR analysis in an encompassing framework,<p>to investigate how "unexpected" and "unsystematic" variations in taxes and government<p>spending feed through the economy in the home country and abroad. The domestic<p>impact of fiscal shocks in Germany, the U.K. and the U.S. and cross-border fiscal spillovers<p>from Germany to seven European economies is analyzed. In addition, the time evolution of domestic and cross-border tax and spending multipliers is explored. In fact, the way fiscal policy impacts on domestic and foreign economies<p>depends on several factors, possibly changing over time. In particular, the presence of excess<p>capacity, accommodating monetary policy, distortionary taxation and liquidity constrained<p>consumers, plays a prominent role in affecting how fiscal policies stimulate the<p>economic activity in the home country. The impact on foreign output crucially depends<p>on the importance of trade links, on real exchange rates and, in a monetary union, on<p>the sensitiveness of foreign economies to the common interest rate. It is well documented<p>that the last thirty years have witnessed frequent changes in the economic environment.<p>For instance, in most OECD countries, the monetary policy stance became less accommodating<p>in the 1980s compared to the 1970s, and more accommodating again in the<p>late 1990s and early 2000s. Moreover, financial markets have been heavily deregulated.<p>Hence, fiscal policy might have lost (or gained) power as a stimulating tool in the hands<p>of policymakers. Importantly, the issue of cross-border transmission of fiscal policy decisions is of the utmost relevance in the framework of the European Monetary Union and this explains why the debate on fiscal policy coordination has received so much attention since the adoption<p>of the single currency (see Ahearne, Sapir and Véron (2006) and European Commission<p>(2006)). It is found that over the period 1971 to 2004 tax shocks have generally been more effective in spurring domestic output than government spending shocks. Interestingly, the inclusion of common factors representing global economic phenomena yields to smaller multipliers<p>reconciling, at least for the U.K. the evidence from large-scale macroeconomic models,<p>generally finding feeble multipliers (see e.g. European Commission’s QUEST model), with<p>the one from a prototypical structural VAR pointing to stronger effects of fiscal policy.<p>When the estimation is performed recursively over samples of seventeen years of data, it<p>emerges that GDP multipliers have dropped drastically from early 1990s on, especially<p>in Germany (tax shocks) and in the U.S. (both tax and government spending shocks).<p>Moreover, the conduct of fiscal policy seems to have become less erratic, as documented<p>by a lower variance of fiscal shocks over time, and this might contribute to explain why<p>business cycles have shown less volatility in the countries under examination.<p>Expansionary fiscal policies in Germany do not generally have beggar-thy-neighbor effects<p>on other European countries. In particular, our results suggest that tax multipliers have<p>been positive but vanishing for neighboring countries (France, Italy, the Netherlands, Belgium and Austria), weak and mostly not significant for more remote ones (the U.K.<p>and Spain). Cross-border government spending multipliers are found to be monotonically<p>weak for all the subsamples considered.<p>Overall these findings suggest that fiscal "surprises", in the form of unexpected reductions in taxation and expansions in government consumption and investment, have become progressively less successful in stimulating the economic activity at the domestic level, indicating that, in the framework of the European Monetary Union, policymakers can only marginally rely on this discretionary instrument as a substitute for national monetary policies. <p><p>The objective of the third chapter is to inspect the role of monetary policy in the U.S. business cycle. In particular, the effects of "systematic" monetary policies upon several industrial sectors is investigated. The focus is on the systematic, or endogenous, component of monetary policy (i.e. the one which is related to the economic activity in a stable and predictable way), for three main reasons. First, endogenous monetary policies are likely to have sizeable real effects, if agents’ expectations are not perfectly rational and if there are some nominal and real frictions in a market. Second, as widely documented, the variability of the monetary instrument and of the main macro variables is only marginally explained by monetary "shocks", defined as unexpected and exogenous variations in monetary conditions. Third, monetary shocks can be simply interpreted as measurement errors (see Christiano, Eichenbaum<p>and Evans (1998)). Hence, the systematic component of monetary policy is likely to have played a fundamental role in affecting business cycle fluctuations. The strategy to isolate the impact of systematic policies relies on a counterfactual experiment, within a (calibrated or estimated) macroeconomic model. As a first step, a macroeconomic shock to which monetary policy is likely to respond should be selected,<p>and its effects upon the economy simulated. Then, the impact of such shock should be<p>evaluated under a “policy-inactive” scenario, assuming that the central bank does not respond<p>to it. Finally, by comparing the responses of the variables of interest under these<p>two scenarios, some evidence on the sensitivity of the economic system to the endogenous<p>component of the policy can be drawn (see Bernanke, Gertler and Watson (1997)).<p>Such kind of exercise is first proposed within a stylized DSGE model, where the analytical<p>solution of the model can be derived. However, as argued, large-scale multi-sector DSGE<p>models can be solved only numerically, thus implying that the proposed experiment cannot<p>be carried out. Moreover, the estimation of DSGE models becomes a thorny issue when many variables are incorporated (see Canova and Sala (2007)). For these arguments, a less “structural”, but more tractable, approach is followed, where a minimal amount of<p>identifying restrictions is imposed. In particular, a factor model econometric approach<p>is adopted (see in particular Giannone, Reichlin and Sala (2002) and Forni, Giannone,<p>Lippi and Reichlin (2007)). In this framework, I develop a technique to perform the counterfactual experiment needed to assess the impact of systematic monetary policies.<p>It is found that 2 and 3-digit SIC U.S. industries are characterized by very heterogeneous degrees of sensitivity to the endogenous component of the policy. Notably, the industries showing the strongest sensitivities are the ones producing durable goods and metallic<p>materials. Non-durable good producers, food, textile and lumber producing industries are<p>the least affected. In addition, it is highlighted that industrial sectors adjusting prices relatively infrequently are the most "vulnerable" ones. In fact, firms in this group are likely to increase quantities, rather than prices, following a shock positively hitting the economy. Finally, it emerges that sectors characterized by a higher recourse to external sources to finance investments, and sectors investing relatively more in new plants and machineries, are the most affected by endogenous monetary actions. / Doctorat en sciences économiques, Orientation économie / info:eu-repo/semantics/nonPublished