The aim of my thesis is to analyze the German economy and chart position of Germany in the European Union. Emphasis will be placed on the current economic position of Germany and changes caused by the global financial and debt crisis. The first chapter introduces the political system and assesses the socio-economic characteristics of the country. The second chapter describes the economic development of both East and West Germany after World War II. The success of the social market economy of West Germany is assessed, contrasting the development in East Germany that focused on heavy industry. The economic situation after the unification of Germany is analyzed in the third chapter by using macroeconomic indicators such as GDP, inflation, current account balance and unemployment. Further attention is paid to foreign trade and investment abroad by German and foreign investments in Germany. The second part of third chapter describes the global financial and subsequent debt crisis and its impact on the German economy. The last chapter deals with the position of Germany in the European Union and solving current problems in the Eurozone.

No / There has been a recent rise in optimism about Africa's prospects: increased economic growth; renewed regional and national political commitments to good governance; and fewer conflicts. Yet, given current trends and with less than eight years until 2015, Africa is likely to fail to meet every single one of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). Home to almost one-third of the world's poor, Africa's challenges remain as daunting as ever. Despite highly publicized increased growth in some economies, the combined economies of Africa have, on average, actually shrunk and are far from meeting the required 7 per cent growth needed to tackle extreme poverty. A similar picture emerges from the analysis of Africa's performance on the other MDGs. In a world where security and development are inextricably connected in complex and multifaceted ways, Africans are, as a result, among the most insecure. By reviewing a select number of political, security and socio-economic indicators for the continent, this analysis evaluates the reasons underlying Africa's continuing predicament. It identifies four critical issues: ensuring peace and security; fostering good governance; fighting HIV/ AIDS; and managing the debt crisis. In assessing these developmental security challenges, the article recalls that the MDGs are more than time bound, quantified targets for poverty alleviation¿they also represent a commitment by all members of the international community, underwritten by principles of co-responsibility and partnership, to an enlarged notion of development based on the recognition that human development is key to sustaining social and economic progress. In recent years, and often following failures, especially in Africa, to protect civilian populations from the violence and predation of civil wars, a series of high-level commissions and expert groups have conducted strategic reviews of the UN system and its function in global politics. The debate has also developed at the theoretical level involving both a recon-ceptualization of security, from state centred norms to what is referred to as the globalization of security around the human security norm. There has also been a reconceptualization of peacekeeping, where the peacekeeping force has enough robustness to use force not only to protect populations under the emergent responsibility to protect norm, but also enough conflict resolution capacity to facilitate operations across the conflict¿development¿peacebuilding continuum. This article opens up a discussion of how these ideas might be relevant to security regime building and conflict resolution in African contexts, and suggests how initiatives in Africa might begin to make a contribution to the theory and practice of cosmopolitan peacekeeping.

This study aims to analyze the policy success of the two economic adjustment programmes introduced to solve the Greek debt crisis to better understand the EU's change and development after dealing with crises. The analysis uses McConnell’s (2010) policy evaluation framework, which enables the study to see what degree/spectrum of policy success occurred and which of the five policy areas were more or less successful. The findings of this study conclude that the crisis management policies are leaning towards the spectrum of success and that there is an incentive to suggest that policy success is a factor contributing to the EU's organizational change and development, but that more research is needed to confirm it as a significant factor. Furthermore, the study does reveal which policy success areas can be a bigger cause for the EU’s change and development, them being more achieved implementation, the targeted policy group/actor seeing benefit without damaging other groups/actors, and there being minor opposition aimed towards the policies introduced in crises.

This study offers a reinterpretation of the so-called Eurozone crisis, arguing that its crisis character is overstated and that it is rather a normal stage in the process of European banking sector integration. Particularly, I maintain that it is neither a sovereign debt crisis caused by profligate peripheral governments, nor a crisis of the Eurozone's common monetary policy. Nor, however, are the Eurozone's low growth, high unemployment, and economic and political instability deliberate policies, whether by German or Greek governments, European institutions, or the European banking circuitry. Rather, I trace the Eurozone's low growth and high unemployment back to what I call transpositions. Transpositions change the possible boundaries of perceiving political and economic situations by altering the syntagmatic structure governing their intelligibility. The shift from 2003-2007 'boom times' to post-2007 'times of crisis' is one such transposition, which occurs behind the backs of human actors and thus forms the horizon of possible behavior of market and political actors. The Eurozone's 'crisis' transposition, results in differentiations within the asset class of Euro-denominated sovereign debt between a 'core,' comprising Germany, Austria, Latvia, and Finland, among others, and a 'periphery,' encompassing Greece, Ireland, Italy, Portugal, Spain, and Cyprus. It follows that the solvency of Eurozone member states is a derivative function of banking sector liquidity, reversing the conventional 'sovereign debt crisis' explanation to what I call the country-fundamental transposition. The second transposition I explore is the austerity transposition. I maintain that the Eurozone's real economy is more interconnected than conventional narratives of European economic unification allow, and that supposedly national European economies – including particularly that of Germany – are integrated subcircuits of Europe's real economy. Constituting them as supposedly national economies is itself a transposition, necessary for the preservation of the European banking circuitry's interconnected balance sheets. Yet, the austerity transposition goes further, beyond a form of political economy oriented towards growth and sustainability, and into a moral economy of condemnation differentiating between morally virtuous and morally pernicious economies in the Eurozone. Its destructive effects are therefore neither irrational nor the result of a German hegemonic agenda, but that of the Eurozone's post-2007 syntagmatic structure. / Ph. D.

Chapters 2-3: A global games approach to sovereign debt crises The first chapters present a model that investigates the risks involved when a fiscal authority attempts to roll-over a stock of debt and there is the potential for coordination failure by investors. A continuum of investors, after receiving signals about the authority's willingness to repay, decides whether to roll-over the stock of debt. If an insufficient proportion of investors participates, the authority defaults. With one fiscal authority, private information results in a deterministic outcome. When a public signal is available, the model behaves in a similar manner to a sunspot model. In line with much of the global games literature, improving public information has an ambiguous effect on welfare. Finally, the model is extended to include a second fiscal authority, which captures a similar sunspot result and illustrates the potential for externalities in fiscal policy. Lower debt in the less indebted authority can push a more indebted authority into crisis. Lower debt makes the healthier authority relatively more attractive, which causes the investors to treat the heavily indebted authority more conservatively. In certain circumstances, this is sufficient to cause a coordination failure. Chapter 4: A debt game with correlated information This chapter models of debt roll-over where a continuum of investors receives correlated signals on whether a debtor is solvent or insolvent. The investors face a collective action problem: a sufficient proportion of investors must agree to participate in the debt roll-over for it to be a success. If an insufficient proportion of investors participates in the deal, the debtor will default. The game has a unique switching strategy, which results in global uncertainty being preserved. The ex ante distribution of play (conditional on the true solvency of the debtor) follows a Vasicek credit distribution. The ex ante probability of a debt crisis is affected by the exogenous model parameters. Of particular interest is the observation that increasing private noise unambiguously reduces the probability of a debt crisis. Unsurprisingly, increasing the fiscal space or return on debt also decreases the probability of a crisis. Chapter 5: Bailouts and politics The final chapter examines the political-economic equilibrium in a two-period model with overlapping generations and a financial sector, which is inspired by the model in Tabellini (1989). The public policy is chosen under majority rule by the agents currently alive. It demonstrates that the bailout policy adopted in the second period has important effects on the bank's financing decisions in the first period. By adopting a riskier financing regime (i.e. higher leverage) in the first period, the older generation can extract consumption from the younger generation in the second period. Sovereign backstops of the financial sector are state-contingent: they can appear costless for long periods of time but eventually result in a socialization of private-sector debt. It is this mechanism that makes implementing capital requirements costly to investors yet beneficial to the younger generation. The model also highlights two important issues: (i) bank capital is endogenous and (ii) proposed resolution mechanisms must be politically credible. It suggests that a major benefit of increasing and narrowing equity-capital requirements or increasing liquidity ratios is that they are implemented ex ante and therefore available either to absorb losses in the event of a crisis or to reduce the possibility of large drops in asset values. Finally, this chapter also provides a structure by which to interpret the stylized facts of Calomiris et al. (2014): that more populist political institutions are associated with more fragile financial systems.

Submitted by Filipe dos Santos (fsantos@pucsp.br) on 2017-02-16T12:25:33Z No. of bitstreams: 1 Emelson Macedo Martins Pereira.pdf: 1309491 bytes, checksum: e34a0b2ff56ad35bf4992da520243e1c (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2017-02-16T12:25:33Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Emelson Macedo Martins Pereira.pdf: 1309491 bytes, checksum: e34a0b2ff56ad35bf4992da520243e1c (MD5) Previous issue date: 2016-11-28 / Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior - CAPES / There is a turbulence in the recent history of the common European currency. The public debt crisis in the Eurozone has caused discussions about the monetary integration process. Until then, the Economic and monetary european union served as a reference for agreements such as Mercosur and NAFTA. In recent years, as an effect of the global economic crisis of 2008, a strong deficit increase has occurred in the Eurozone’s countries due to the need to stimulate demand and prevent bankruptcy of large private banks. Consequently, the public debt crisis in Greece, Italy, Ireland, Portugal and Spain creates uncertainty about the euro’s future. The public expenditure cuts, freezing of salaries, pensions and tax increment were immediate alternatives to contain deficits. Political and economic differences re-emerged on the continent, undermining the pact resulting from attempts to integrate the continent economically and politically. Thus, the European Union is experiencing the most controversial situation in its history. The main objective of this research is to understand the roots of the European economic crisis and investigate instruments for its containment, permeating the orthodox, keynesian and marxist paradigms / Há uma turbulência na história recente da moeda comum europeia. A crise da dívida pública na zona do euro vem ocasionando debates acerca do processo de integração monetária. Até então, a União econômica e monetária europeia (Ueme) servia como fonte de referência para acordos como o Mercosul e o NAFTA. Nos últimos anos, como efeito da crise econômica mundial de 2008, notou-se grande elevação dos déficits nos países da zona do euro em decorrência da necessidade de estímulo à demanda e de impedir que houvesse falência de grandes bancos privados. Consequentemente, a crise da dívida pública na Grécia, Itália, Irlanda, Portugal e Espanha gera incerteza com relação ao futuro do euro. Os cortes de gastos públicos, o aumento de impostos e congelamento de salários e aposentadorias foram alternativas imediatas para a contenção dos déficits. As divergências políticas e econômicas reemergiram no continente, abalando o pacto resultado de décadas de tentativas para integrar econômica e politicamente a Europa. Dessa forma, a União Europeia atravessa a situação mais controversa de sua história. O objetivo central da pesquisa é entender as raízes da crise econômica europeia e investigar os instrumentos para sua contenção, permeando os paradigmas ortodoxo, keynesiano e marxista

Este trabalho testa, através da metodologia de cópulas, a hipótese de contágio financeiro entre ações brasileiras e índices de mercado dos países que deram origem às crises do Terror em 2001, da Argentina em 2001, dos Subpprimes em 2007 e do Débito Soberano Europeu em 2009. Além disso, ainda é feita uma análise dos setores econômicos que mais foram afetados por cada crise. Os testes da crise do Terror apresentaram evidências de contágio do SP500 para 24 ações brasileiras, afetando, principalmente os setores ligado à indústria e à energia. As crises da Argentina e do Débito Soberano Europeu apresentaram evidências de contágio dos índices Merval e Athex para apenas 3 empresas. A crise dos Subprimes apresentou evidências de contágio do SP500 para 35 empresas brasileiras, sendo a maioria ligada aos setores financeiros, de energia e industrial. 7 ações foram afetadas pelas duas crises norteamericanas. Os resultados reforçam a importância da análise de contágio em cada empresa individual, ao invés de utilizar o índice do mercado brasileiro como um todo. / This paper tests, through the copulas methodology, the hypothesis of financial contagion between the individual Brazilian stocks and the market indices of the countries where the crises were originated. The crises analyzed are the Terror crisis in 2001, the Argentina’s crisis in 2001, the Subprime crisis in 2007 and the Sovereign Debt crisis in 2009. In addition to this, the Brazilian economic sectors are examined in order to find out which were most affected by each crisis. The tests of the Terror crisis presented evidence of SP500 contagion to 24 Brazilian stocks, affecting, mainly, sectors related to industry and energy. The Argentina’s crisis and the European Sovereign Debt crisis presented contagion’s evidence of the Merval and Athex indices for only 3 Brazilian companies. The Subprimes crisis presented evidence of SP500 contagion for 35 Brazilian companies, mostly related to the financial, energy and industrial sectors. 7 Brazilian stocks were affected by both American crises. The results reinforce the importance of contagion analysis in each individual company, rather than using the Brazilian market index.

This paper analyses if European citizens are willing to show solidarity with debt-ridden EU member states during the recent crisis. Based on a theoretical concept comprehending four di-mensions of solidarity - generalised willingness to support, existence of social cleavages, rea-sons of supporting others, acceptance of conditions a crisis country has to meet to receive as-sistance - we derived hypotheses stating that the existence of a European wide solidarity is rather unlikely. We analysed data from two Eurobarometer surveys 2010 and 2011 and a unique survey conducted in Germany and Portugal in 2012. Descriptive and multilevel analyses indi-cated that in 2010 and 2011, a narrow majority of all EU citizens supported fiscal assistance for crisis countries, and socio-economic and cultural cleavages in attitudes regarding financial as-sistance for crisis countries were rather low. Findings from the two country comparison showed that the willingness to show solidarity was predominantly guided by moral reasoning instead of the respondent’s self-interest. However, German and Portuguese respondents disagree on austerity measures, with the exception of social spending cuts. Taken all together, we come to the conclusion that recent years have brought a new legitimacy to the use of EU bailout measures which are now a given European practice.

Este trabalho testa, através da metodologia de cópulas, a hipótese de contágio financeiro entre ações brasileiras e índices de mercado dos países que deram origem às crises do Terror em 2001, da Argentina em 2001, dos Subpprimes em 2007 e do Débito Soberano Europeu em 2009. Além disso, ainda é feita uma análise dos setores econômicos que mais foram afetados por cada crise. Os testes da crise do Terror apresentaram evidências de contágio do SP500 para 24 ações brasileiras, afetando, principalmente os setores ligado à indústria e à energia. As crises da Argentina e do Débito Soberano Europeu apresentaram evidências de contágio dos índices Merval e Athex para apenas 3 empresas. A crise dos Subprimes apresentou evidências de contágio do SP500 para 35 empresas brasileiras, sendo a maioria ligada aos setores financeiros, de energia e industrial. 7 ações foram afetadas pelas duas crises norteamericanas. Os resultados reforçam a importância da análise de contágio em cada empresa individual, ao invés de utilizar o índice do mercado brasileiro como um todo. / This paper tests, through the copulas methodology, the hypothesis of financial contagion between the individual Brazilian stocks and the market indices of the countries where the crises were originated. The crises analyzed are the Terror crisis in 2001, the Argentina’s crisis in 2001, the Subprime crisis in 2007 and the Sovereign Debt crisis in 2009. In addition to this, the Brazilian economic sectors are examined in order to find out which were most affected by each crisis. The tests of the Terror crisis presented evidence of SP500 contagion to 24 Brazilian stocks, affecting, mainly, sectors related to industry and energy. The Argentina’s crisis and the European Sovereign Debt crisis presented contagion’s evidence of the Merval and Athex indices for only 3 Brazilian companies. The Subprimes crisis presented evidence of SP500 contagion for 35 Brazilian companies, mostly related to the financial, energy and industrial sectors. 7 Brazilian stocks were affected by both American crises. The results reinforce the importance of contagion analysis in each individual company, rather than using the Brazilian market index.

Este trabalho testa, através da metodologia de cópulas, a hipótese de contágio financeiro entre ações brasileiras e índices de mercado dos países que deram origem às crises do Terror em 2001, da Argentina em 2001, dos Subpprimes em 2007 e do Débito Soberano Europeu em 2009. Além disso, ainda é feita uma análise dos setores econômicos que mais foram afetados por cada crise. Os testes da crise do Terror apresentaram evidências de contágio do SP500 para 24 ações brasileiras, afetando, principalmente os setores ligado à indústria e à energia. As crises da Argentina e do Débito Soberano Europeu apresentaram evidências de contágio dos índices Merval e Athex para apenas 3 empresas. A crise dos Subprimes apresentou evidências de contágio do SP500 para 35 empresas brasileiras, sendo a maioria ligada aos setores financeiros, de energia e industrial. 7 ações foram afetadas pelas duas crises norteamericanas. Os resultados reforçam a importância da análise de contágio em cada empresa individual, ao invés de utilizar o índice do mercado brasileiro como um todo. / This paper tests, through the copulas methodology, the hypothesis of financial contagion between the individual Brazilian stocks and the market indices of the countries where the crises were originated. The crises analyzed are the Terror crisis in 2001, the Argentina’s crisis in 2001, the Subprime crisis in 2007 and the Sovereign Debt crisis in 2009. In addition to this, the Brazilian economic sectors are examined in order to find out which were most affected by each crisis. The tests of the Terror crisis presented evidence of SP500 contagion to 24 Brazilian stocks, affecting, mainly, sectors related to industry and energy. The Argentina’s crisis and the European Sovereign Debt crisis presented contagion’s evidence of the Merval and Athex indices for only 3 Brazilian companies. The Subprimes crisis presented evidence of SP500 contagion for 35 Brazilian companies, mostly related to the financial, energy and industrial sectors. 7 Brazilian stocks were affected by both American crises. The results reinforce the importance of contagion analysis in each individual company, rather than using the Brazilian market index.