Framed within a discussion of populism, this thesis provides a critical analysis of the campaign and short tenure in office of Ecuadorian President Lucio Gutiérrez Borbúa. It outlines a multi-dimensional approach to populism that is characterized by five components: (1) personalistic leadership, (2) a heterogeneous coalition of support, (3) top-down political mobilization, (4) an ambiguous ideological discourse, and (5) a redistributive and clientelistic economic approach. Applied to the Gutiérrez case, the multi-dimensional approach highlights the viability and volatility of populism.<p> This thesis argues that Gutiérrez ascended to the presidency through the successful application of a populist strategy, which generated significant expectations among the public and his political allies. Yet, once in office, Gutiérrez populist strategy was unable to sustain the support he enjoyed during the campaign. The expectations he generated went unmet as he engaged in clear reversals of the populist imaginary created by his candidacy. His twenty-eight months in office were characterized by neoliberalism, corruption, and status quo political machinations that had sunk his predecessors. Tracking Gutiérrez transition from populist champion to political pariah using the multi-dimensional approach indicates that although populism can be an effective electoral strategy, it can also impose significant limitations on a government. Ultimately, the Gutiérrez case reinforces the important role played by the populist imaginary in determining the success or failure of populist leaders.

Cette thèse s'intéresse aux questions d'accès aux marchés financiers dans les économies émergentes et en développement. La première partie donne un aperçu général des conséquences macroéconomiques de l'un des régimes de politique monétaire le plus favorable au marché - le ciblage d'inflation - en utilisant le cadre d'analyse de la méta-analyse. La deuxième partie analyse le risque et la stabilité des marchés obligataires des États. La troisième et dernière partie examine les effets disciplinaires résultant de la participation aux marchés obligataires souverains. Plusieurs résultats émergent. Au chapitre 1, les résultats indiquent que la littérature sur les effets macroéconomiques du ciblage d'inflation est sujette à des biais de publication. Après avoir purgé ces biais, le véritable effet du ciblage d'inflation reste statistiquement et économiquement significatif à la fois sur le niveau de l'inflation et la volatilité de la croissance économique, mais ne l’est pas sur la volatilité de l'inflation ou le taux de croissance économique réel. Aussi, les caractéristiques des études déterminent l’hétérogénéité des résultats de l'impact du ciblage d’inflation dans les études primaires. Le chapitre 2 montre que l'adoption d'un régime de ciblage d'inflation réduit le risque souverain dans les pays émergents. Cependant, cet effet varie systématiquement en fonction du cycle économique, de la politique budgétaire suivie, du niveau de développement et de la durée dans le ciblage. Le chapitre 3 montre que les envois de fonds des migrants, contrairement aux flux d'aide au développement, permettent de réduire le risque souverain. Cette réduction est plus marquée dans un pays avec un système financier moins développé, un degré d'ouverture commerciale élevé, un espace budgétaire faible et sans effet dans les pays dépendants des envois de fonds. Le chapitre 4 montre que les pays ayant des contrats d’échange sur risque de crédit sur leurs dettes sont plus sujets à des crises de dette. Il constate également que cet effet reste sensible aux caractéristiques structurelles des pays. Le chapitre 5 montre que la participation aux marchés obligataires de long terme (domestiques et internationaux) encourage les gouvernements des pays en développement à accroître leurs recettes fiscales intérieures. Il révèle également que l'effet favorable dépend du niveau des recettes de seigneuriage, d’endettement, du régime de change, du niveau de développement économique, du degré d’ouverture financière, et du développement financier. Le chapitre 6 montre que la présence de marchés obligataires domestiques, de long terme et liquides réduit considérablement le degré de dollarisation financière dans les pays en développement. Cet effet est plus important dans les pays avec un régime monétaire de ciblage d’inflation ou de change flottant, et à règles budgétaires. Enfin, il constate que la présence de marchés obligataires domestiques réduit la dollarisation financière à travers la baisse du niveau et de la variabilité de l'inflation, de la variabilité du taux de change nominal, et des revenus de seigneuriage. / This thesis focuses on some critical issues of the access to international financial markets in developing and emerging market economies. The first part provides a general overview of the macroeconomic consequences of one of the most market-friendly monetary policy regime—inflation targeting—using a meta-regression analysis framework. The second part analyses government bond market risk and stability. The last part investigates the disciplining effects of government bond market participation—bond vigilantes. In Chapter 1, the results indicate that the literature of the macroeconomic effects of inflation targeting adoption is subject to publication bias. After purging the publication bias, the true effect of inflation targeting appears to be statistically and economically meaningful both on the level of inflation and the volatility of economic growth, but not statistically significant on inflation volatility or real GDP growth. Third, differences in the impact of inflation targeting found in primary studies can be explained by differences in studies characteristics including the sample characteristics, the empirical identification strategies, the choice of the control variables, inflation targeting implementation parameters, as well as the study period and some parameters related to the publication process. Chapter 2 shows that the adoption of inflation targeting regime reduces sovereign debt risk in emerging countries. However, this relative advantage of inflation targeting—compared to money or exchange rate targeting—varies systematically depending on the business cycle, the fiscal policy stance, the level of development, and the duration of countries’ experience with inflation targeting. Chapter 3 shows that remittances inflows significantly reduce bond spreads, whereas development aid does not. It also highlights that the effect of remittances on spreads arises in a regimes of lower developed financial system, higher degree of trade openness, lower fiscal space, and exclusively in non-remittances dependent regimes. Chapter 4 indicates that countries with credit default swaps contracts on their debts have a higher probability of experiencing a debt crisis, compared to countries without credit default swaps contracts. It also finds that the impact of credit default swaps initiation is sensitive to several structural characteristics including the level of economic development, the country creditworthiness at the timing of credit default swaps introduction, the public sector transparency, the central bank independence; and to the duration of countries’ experiences with credit default swaps transactions. Chapter 5 shows that bond markets participation encourages government in developing countries to increase their domestic tax revenue mobilization. Finally, it finds that bond markets participation improves the mobilization of internal taxes, compared to tax on international trade, and reduces their instability. Chapter 6 shows that the presence of domestic bond markets significantly reduces financial dollarization in domestic bond markets countries. This effect is larger for inflation targeting countries compared to non-inflation targeting countries, is apparent exclusively in a non-pegged exchange rate regime, and is larger when there is a fiscal rule that constrains the conduct of fiscal policy. Finally, it finds that the induced drop in inflation rate and its variability, nominal exchange rate variability, and seigniorage revenue are potential transmission mechanisms through which the presence of domestic bond markets reduces financial dollarization in domestic bond markets countries.

Après trois décennies des conflits armés, le Cambodge a enfin la capacité d’accélérer sa croissance et l’intégration de son économie dans la région et le monde. Pour cela, le pays doit reconstruire un système financier solide et mettre en place une politique monétaire. Nous proposons une étude de l’efficacité de la politique monétaire de la BNC (Banque Nationale du Cambodge) en tenant compte du fait que le sous-développement du secteur financier amoindrit les effets des canaux de transmission de la politique monétaire.Après avoir abordé les aspects théoriques en mettant en lumière le consensus de la politique monétaire et les différents canaux de transmission, nous passons en revue les travaux empiriques menés sur ce thème tant dans les pays développés, les pays en développement que les pays en transition. Il en ressort que les spécificités des systèmes financiers des différents pays, conditionnent la complexité et les effets des canaux de transmission et que le développement du système financier favorise la conduite de la politique monétaire, ne serait-ce que parce qu’elle étaye la confiance du public. Nous mettons ainsi en évidence l’importance d’une réforme du secteur financier préalable à toute politique monétaire. Par ailleurs, l’évolution du secteur financier est liée au développement économique mais celle-ci est aussi susceptible de créer de l’instabilité financière si le pays ne met pas en place des institutions suffisamment solides. Sa réussite demande que soient préalablement remplies un certain nombre de conditions comme la stabilité macroéconomique, la qualité de la réglementation financière et le développement du marché monétaire. Ce type de stratégie a été mise en place en 2001 (Blueprint [2001]) pour développer un système financier fondé sur les mécanismes du marché ; elle n’a que partiellement abouti. Elle a été revue en 2006 (le FSDS [06-15]) avec pour objectif d’harmoniser le calendrier de la réforme avec les améliorations en matière économiques, politiques, sociales et institutionnelles.Au stade actuel de développement du Cambodge, les canaux de transmission de la politique monétaire ne sont pas tous efficients à cause d’un système financier sous-développé, de globalisation financière et la dollarisation. Nous avons par conséquent mené une étude empirique sur la base de données Cambodgiennes pour évaluer leurs effets. Il en ressort que le canal du crédit n’a pas d’impact sur la croissance économique mais sur le niveau général des prix alors que le canal monétaire a un impact positif à court-terme sur le niveau général des prix. L’agrégat M1 et le crédit sont positivement reliés à court-terme. Notre étude suggère l’existence d’un canal monétaire et l’absence d’un canal du crédit. A la recherche du cadre le plus adapté de la politique monétaire dans le contexte du pays, nous analysons trois stratégies : le ciblage du taux d’inflation, celui du taux de change et celui des agrégats monétaires. Nous prenons aussi en compte les aspects institutionnels de la politique monétaire (l’indépendance, la responsabilité et la transparence de la conduite de la politique monétaire), la stratégie de communication et des mécanismes de décision de la Banque Centrale. Une stratégie basée sur un ciblage des agrégats monétaires semble l’option la plus adaptée. Un ciblage du taux de change paraît être une option secondaire (second-best) pour modérer la volatilité excessive et ancrer les anticipations des agents économiques. / After three decades of the armed conflicts, Cambodia finally has the capacity to accelerate her economic growth and integration into the region and the world. The country must rebuild a sound financial system and put in place an effective monetary policy. We propose to conduct a study on the efficacy of monetary policy of NBC (Central Bank of Cambodia) while taking into account of the underdevelopment of the financial system which weakens the effects of the transmission channels of the monetary policy.Following the literature reviews which highlight the consensus of an effective monetary policy and different channels of transmission, we undertake an empirical review in developed and developing countries. The specificities of financial system of each county condition the complexity and the effects of transmission channels. Moreover, the development of financial system enhances the implementation of monetary policy as long as it enjoys public confidence. We thus emphasize the importance of the reform of financial system prior to conducting an effective monetary policy. Besides, the development of financial system links closely with that of the economy but it is likely to foster financial instability if the country doesn’t have sufficiently sound institutions. The success of the reform requires a number of preconditions such as macroeconomic stability, acceptable quality of regulations, and development of monetary market. The reform was put in place in 2001 (Blueprint [2001]) to develop a sound and efficient financial system based on market mechanisms; it could only partially achieve its objectives. It was revised in 2006 (FSDS [06-15]) to harmonize its objectives with the pace of reform which experienced economic, political, social and institutional improvements.In the current state of development of Cambodia, transmission channels of monetary policy are not fully efficient. We conducted an empirical studies based on Cambodian data to evaluate its effects. It seems that credit channel doesn’t have the impacts on economic growth but on general level of prices while monetary channel has positive and short-term impacts on general level of prices. Our study suggests the existence of a monetary channel and absence of credit channel. In a quest of the suitable monetary policy framework in the current context of the country, we analyze three forms of framework: inflation targeting, exchange rate targeting and monetary aggregate targeting. We also take into account of institutional aspects (independence, accountability, and transparency of the monetary policy implementation), communication strategy, and decision mechanisms of NBC. A monetary policy strategy based on monetary aggregate targeting appears the most suitable option. Exchange rate targeting framework seems to be a second-best option to absorb the excessive volatility and anchor the public expectations.

This dissertation is a collection of essays on challenges in international trade and international finance, which apply econometric methods to diverse data sets and relate them to economic policy questions. In times of crises, the question, whether individual countries have the ability to pursue idiosyncratic monetary policy, is important. The degree of integration and comovement between financial markets, for instance, is critical to better assess the real threat facing a country in a crisis. Also, from a macroeconomic modeling perspective, there has recently been a renewed interest in the cyclical and long-run comovement of interest rates. Hence, in a first essay, we reinvestigate the long- and short-run comovements in the G7-countries by conducting tests for cointegration, common serial correlation and codependence with nominal and real interest rates. Overall, we only find little evidence of comovements: common trends are occasionally observed, but the majority of interest rates are not cointegrated. Although some evidence for codependence of higher order can be found in the pre-Euro area sample, common cycles appear to exist only in rare cases. We argue that some earlier, more positive findings in the literature are difficult to reconcile due to differing assumptions about the underlying stochastic properties of interest rates. Hence, we conclude that they cannot be generalized for all interest rates, time periods, and reasonable alternative estimation procedures. This finding indicates that scope for individual countries to pursue stabilization policy does still exist in a globalized world. Emerging economies, in general, are much more exposed and vulnerable to crises than industrialized countries. Accordingly, stabilization policy is especially important in these countries and the selection of the best monetary regime is essential. This is why, in a second essay, we contrast two different views in the debate on official dollarization: the Mundell (1961) framework of optimum currency areas and a model on boom-bust cycles by Schneider and Tornell (2004), who take account of credit market imperfections prevalent in middle income countries. We highlight the strikingly different role of the exchange rate in the two models. While in the Mundell framework the exchange rate is expected to smooth the business cycle, the second model predicts the exchange rate to play an amplifying role. We empirically evaluate both models for eight highly dollarized Central American economies. We document the existence of credit market imperfections and find that shocks from the exchange rate indeed amplify business cycles in these countries. Using a new method proposed by Cubadda (1999 and 2007), we furthermore test for cyclical comovement and reject the hypothesis that the selected countries form an optimum currency area with the United States according to the Mundell definition. In the context of the recent global crisis, globalization and vertical integration in particular were often blamed for being the cause for the severe trade crisis. For that reason, in the essay that contributes to the trade literature, we analyze the role of international supply chains in explaining the long-run trade elasticity and its short-term volatility in the context of the recent trade collapse. We adopt an empirical strategy based on two steps: first, stylized facts on long- and short-term trade elasticity are derived from exploratory analysis and formal modeling on a large and diversified sample of countries. Then, we derive observations of interrelated input-output matrices for a demonstrative sub-set of countries. We find evidence for two supply chain related factors to explain the overshooting of trade elasticity during the 2008-2009 trade collapse: the composition and the bullwhip effect. However, evidence for a magnification effect could not be found. Overall, we do not accept the hypothesis that international supply chains explain all by themselves the changes in trade-income elasticity.