Uma série de relações de simultaneidade definem a estrutura de determinação dos preços no agregado para uma economia aberta. Além destas inter-relações a natureza das variáveis, seguindo trajetória não estacionárias quando individualmente analisadas mas de equilíbrio no sentido de que se movimentam conjuntamente no longo prazo, faz com que a estrutura para a análise empírica da relação entre a taxa de câmbio e os preços consista em um sistema complexo sobre o qual tem relevância tanto a dinâmica de curto quanto a dinâmica de longo prazo entre das variáveis. O objetivo deste trabalho é manter-se coerente a este contexto para obter estimativas do repasse cambial de longo prazo para os preços da economia brasileira. Isto é possível utilizando o arcabouço metodológico dos modelos Vetores de Correção de Erros (VCE), sendo assim, a principal contribuição deste trabalho consiste na aplicação da metodologia dos modelos Estruturais de Vetores de Correção de Erros (SVCE), introduzidos em King et. al. (1991). Além disso o trabalho discute a identificação do repasse cambial a partir das funções de resposta ao impulso para variáveis não estacionárias, obtidas para os modelos VCE e SVCE, por meio das quais é possível identificar o longo prazo e contrastar os diferentes resultados para o repasse cambial obtidos de acordo com este arcabouço metodológico. / There is a series of simultaneous relations that define the structure of pricing determination in aggregate for an open economy. Besides these interrelations, the nature of the variables, following non-stationary trajectory when analyzed individually but in equilibrium in the sense that, in the long run they move together, causes the structure to the empirical analysis of the relationship between the exchange rate and prices consists in a complex system over which has relevance both the short-run and long-term dynamics between the variables. The objective of this work is to remain consistent in this context to obtaining estimates of long-term exchange pass-through to the aggregate prices of Brazilian economy. This is possible using the methodological framework of the Vector Error Correction models (VEC), inside which, the main contribution of this work consists in applying the methodology of Structural Vector Error Correction models (SVEC), introduced in King et. al. (1991). Furthermore, the paper discusses the identification of exchange rate pass-through using the impulse response functions for non-stationary variables, obtained for the VEC and SVEC models, through which it is possible to identify the long-term exchange rate pass-through and compare the different results obtained according to this methodological framework.

Esta tese de doutorado consiste em três ensaios aplicados de macroeconomia. O primeiro ensaio retoma o clássico resultado do artigo de Meese e Rogoff (1983), em que os autores encontram fortes evidências de que nenhum modelo estrutural para a taxa de câmbio supera as projeções de um modelo random walk. Neste primeiro ensaio, comparamos o erro das projeções para a taxa de câmbio, efetuadas por bancos, instituições financeiras e consultorias econômicas, captadas no ranking Top-5 do Banco Central do Brasil, com as projeções de um modelo random walk e um modelo estrutural, o de paridade não coberta de taxa de juros, para três horizontes de previsão. Os resultados mostram que o modelo random walk tem maior índice de acerto em comparação com os métodos utilizados pelas instituições participantes da pesquisa e em comparação ao método estrutural. Este índice de acerto aumenta com o prazo de projeção. O segundo ensaio trata dos determinantes das expectativas de inflação no Brasil. As expectativas de inflação são uma das mais importantes variáveis na determinação da inflação futura, determinando a condução da política monetária. Através de modelagem econométrica, encontramos que as variáveis que afetam as expectativas de inflação são: a) meta de inflação é a variável mais importante, funcionado como âncora das expectativas; b) inflação passada; c) hiato do produto; d) taxa de câmbio; e) preços internacionais; e f) taxa de juros. Variáveis de política fiscal não parecem ser importantes na determinação das expectativas de inflação. O terceiro ensaio volta a tratar da taxa de câmbio, tratando de entender o impacto das desvalorizações do Real sobre o comportamento das empresas. Sabese que os impactos na atividade econômica de uma desvalorização cambial podem ser positivos ou negativos. Para as firmas, o benefício se dá em termos de competitividade, dada a redução nos custos. Mas, se as firmas tiverem dívida atrelada à moeda estrangeira, a desvalorização pode ter mais custos do que benefícios, dado as restrições à atuação das empresas via mercado de crédito. Este é o efeito de balanço patrimonial. Este terceiro ensaio trata de contribuir na identificação dos impactos destas desvalorizações sobre o comportamento dos investimentos de empresas brasileiras. Através de dados microeconômicos, os resultados das estimações não permitem concluir qual dos dois efeitos, de balanço patrimonial ou de competitividade, é mais importante. Entretanto, a separação da amostra em firmas de diferentes tamanhos evidencia um efeito de balanço patrimonial superior ao efeito de competitividade no caso de firmas grandes. / This doctoral thesis consists of three essays in applied macroeconomics. The first essay retakes the classic result of the article by Meese and Rogoff (1983), in which the authors found strong evidence that no structural model for the exchange rate surpasses the projections of a random walk model. In this first essay we compare the error of the projections for the exchange rate, effected by banks, financial institutions and economic consultants, caught in ranking Top-5 of the Brazilian Central Bank, with the projections of a random walk model and a structural model of uncovered interest parity for three horizons of forecast. The results show that the random walk model has greater index of rightness in comparison with the methods used for the participant institutions of the research and in comparison with the structural method. This index of rightness increases with the projection stated period. The second essay deals with the determinants of inflation expectations in Brazil. Expectations of inflation are one of the most important variables in determining the future inflation, determining the conduct of monetary policy. Through econometric modeling we find that the variables that affect inflation expectations are: a) inflation target it is the most important variable, worked as anchor of expectations; b) past inflation; c) the product gap; d) exchange rate; e) international prices; and f) interest rate. Variables of fiscal policy do not seem to be important in the determination of inflation expectations. The third essay is once again dealing with the exchange rate, trying to understand the impact of the devaluation of the Real on corporate behavior. It is known that the impacts on economic activity of currency devaluation can be positive or negative. For firms, the benefit is given in terms of competitiveness, given the reduction in costs. But, if the firms have geared to the foreign currency debt, the devaluation may have more costs than benefits, given the restrictions on the performance of companies by market credit. This is the effect of balance sheet. This work comes to help in identifying the impact of these devaluations on the performance of the investments of Brazilian companies. Through microeconomic data, the results of the estimates can not conclude which of the two effects, balance sheet or competitiveness, is more important. Meanwhile, the separation of the sample in firms of different sizes shows an effect of balance sheet higher than the effect of competitiveness in the case of large firms.

Thesis advisor: James E. Anderson / Thesis advisor: Rosen Valchev / The effect of uncertainty on firms' behavior and on the macroeconomy is generally negative in the literature. Extensive research has also demonstrated that financial frictions limit the extent of firms' activities and growth prospects. In the first two chapters of this dissertation, I study both empirically and theoretically how a specific type of uncertainty, exchange rate uncertainty, interacts with financial frictions to affect the behavior of exporting firms. In line with the existing literature, I find in the first chapter that exports of manufacturing sectors in which firms are more financially constrained decrease by more in times of high uncertainty. Having more tangible capital, which can potentially be used as collateral, makes the effect of uncertainty less negative, especially im sectors where firms are large. Relying more on external financing, on the other hand, makes the effect more negative and affects sectors with small firms more. Current theoretical models have little to say about the effect of uncertainty on heterogeneous firms. To address this issue, I introduce in the second chapter a model of financially-constrained heterogeneous exporting firms in which credit conditions depend on the degree of exchange rate uncertainty. Firms in different sectors face different types of financial constraints, and are therefore differently affected by uncertainty. I use the calibrated model to evaluate potential policies that could be implemented to alleviate the negative effect of exchange rate uncertainty on exports. The uncovered interest parity puzzle is the empirical finding that countries with higher risk-free interest rates tend to see their currencies appreciate in the short run. Typical two-country macroeconomic models instead predict that high interest-rate currencies depreciate, with arbitrage opportunities eliminating profitable carry trade strategies. The international finance literature responded to this puzzle by providing several alternative theoretical models able to explain the puzzle. In the third chapter of this dissertation, I study how the predictions of two of these alternative models - the habit model of Verdelhan (2010) and the distorted belief model of Gourinchas and Tornell (2004) - are affected when re-cast in a standard dynamic stochastic general equilibrium framework. I investigate how the mechanisms rely on specific parameter values in order to find under which conditions, if any, they can explain the UIP puzzle. In addition, I obtain business cycle moments from model simulations and compare them to the moments obtained from a standard two-country DSGE model and from the data. My results show that for the first model, the habit model, the UIP results disappear under realistic calibrations. For the second model, the distorted beliefs model, UIP properties remain under some calibrations. In addition, business cycle predictions remain close to empirical evidence. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2019. / Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: Economics.

This paper investigates the factors driving the real exchange rate in the Ghanaian economy. The paper aimed at finding the principal factor(s) that influence the real exchange rate and explains the channels by which these factors exert their influence using standard empirical methods of vector autoregressive (VAR) models. The paper established that inflation rate differentials and interest rate differentials influence the exchange rate through the expectations medium. Domestic and foreign money supplies which are exogenous macroeconomic variables were also found to be important in the Ghanaian money market as far as the exchange rate matters. The paper also highlighted how the great recession in the United States may have affected the cedi/dollar rate of exchange after this economic event swept through the United States generating spillover effects on economies around the world.

The question that Less Developed Countries have faced since the advent of floating exchange rates among the Industrial Countries is whether they should also adopt a floating exchange rate system. The Less Developed Countries have opted for a pegged exchange rate system, since their economic characteristics and institutional structure indicate that floating for the Less Developed Countries would result in volatile or unstable exchange rates. Since Less Developed Countries peg t heir exchange rates in the presence of flexible rates among industrial countries, the Less Developed Countries pegged exchange rates move in accordance to the exchange rates to which they are pegged. This study examines whether there are differences in the variability of the different effective exchange rate indices or currency baskets. Specifically the export, import and total trade weighted effective exchange rates for three African Less Developed Countries are examined. Currency baskets are varied by changing the number of currencies coefficent of variation included in was used the basket. The to compare the variability in the different effective exchange rates.

Expectations regarding the relationship between exchange rates and the prices of traded goOds in small open economies have traditionally been derived from the idea of the relative unimportance of a single small country when trading in much larger international markets. This concept has led to the use of distinct 'small-country' or 'dependent-economy' models to analyse the effects of macroeconomic changes. Thus for small economies like Australia, it is usually assumed that the foreign-currency prices of traded goods are fixed in perfectly competitive international markets. Accordingly, exchange rate movements must be completely absorbed in domestic-currency prices. In other words, the pass-through of exchange rate changes to destination-currency prices must be zero for Australian exports, and complete for Australian imports. Such expectations regarding the degree of exchange rate pass-through contrast sharply with those found in conventional macroeconomic models for large countries, in which pass-through is assumed to be complete for all traded goods. Moreover, they conflict with the results derived from the large theoretical and empirical literature on the microeconomic determinants of pass-through, which suggests that much international trade takes place in imperfectly competitive markets, in which the degree of less-than-complete pass-through depends on industry-specific factors. This study explores these apparent conflicts by re-examining the small-country assumption, with particular emphasis on export prices as the area of greatest divergence. Specifically, it addresses three research questions: 1) What are the theoretical conditions that underlie the small-country assumption? 2)What are the implications for the macroeconomic models of small economies if this assumption is violated? 3) In practice, is the data more consistent with the validity or otherwise of the assumption? The analysis focuses on Australia as a practical example of a small open economy with a high proportion of commodity exports. In summary, the theoretical and empirical results reported in this study suggest that the small-country assumption is unlikely to hold in practice. That is, exchange rate pass-through is more likely to be determined by industry-specific factors, rather than by the universal conclusion of zero pass-through for all Australian exports that is derived from the small-country assumption. Further, they imply that the movement in internal prices required to restore equilibrium in a small country following an external shock is likely to be both larger and more uncertain than has previously been expected. Under such circumstances, the full flexibility of the exchange rate, as the primary and most rapid source of the required adjustments, becomes particularly significant. An important policy implication for small open economies that are subject to frequent terms of trade shocks, such as Australia, is that attempts to manage the exchange rate in order to reduce apparently excessive movements may in fact result in a longer and more protracted process of adjustment through the labour market.

The use of currency options has been grown widely during the latest years. This paper tries to answer whether hedge strategies using currency options are superior to forward exchange contracts or not.

The purpose of this research paper is to find how much risk is involved in investing emerging market debt. Emerging markets are becoming a hub for foreign investors either that is an equity or debt investment. The risk is the important element for investors. As for emerging markets the most important risk that investor can face is exchange rate and political risk. I used Augmented Dickey-Fuller to carry out unit roots and johansen cointegration analysis of exchange rates and political risk in emerging markets. My result shows that individual variables are integrated order one, means unit root exist. This shows that political risk tends to follow a random walk. My finding suggests that there is a long run relationship between political risk and exchange rate. As the political risk increase exchange rate also fluctuate with relation to political situation.

This dissertation consists of three independent essays in Macroeconomics. The first essay analyzes monetary coordination between currency areas. It is shown that search frictions can generate the deviations from the law of one price and that each country is tempted to exploit these deviations by inflation. Monetary coordination eliminates the inefficiency caused by inflation. The welfare gains from coordination increase when the two economies become more integrated. In contrast to traditional models, the need for coordination exists even after each country is allowed to directly tax foreign holdings of its currency. The second essay studies the behavior of exchange rates in an environment with search frictions. In contrast to traditional models, even without any nominal rigidity, the model can generate enough volatility of exchange rates found in the data. The changes in the behavior of exchange rates under different regimes are also examined in this essay. The model shows a sharp increase in the volatility of exchange rates when moving from a pegged to a floating exchange regime, while there is no such systematic change in fluctuations of output or consumption. Moreover, the co-movements of output and consumption across countries are higher under a fixed rate regime than under a flexible rate regime. These results are consistent with empirical findings. The final essay focuses on the competition between groups of allied firms. In the essay we propose a model of group fitness and develop an approach to evaluate the fitness of groups and the utility of their member firms. A group has high fitness if member firms have four features: (i) high capacity, (ii) being embedded in dense relationships, (iii) holding complementary resources and (iv) having limited competition and conflict. We illustrate the effectiveness of our model and methodology by applying it to the airline groups between 1997 and 2002. By examining what really happened to the airline groups afterwards, we found that the predictions based on the comparison between the fitness scores of actual groups formed and those of the corresponding population constructed are reasonably accurate, and that the implications based on the ranking of individual firm utility within each group are generally supported.

Using the error correction model, we link the long-run behavior of the Canada-US real exchange rate to its short-run dynamics. The equilibrium real exchange rate is determined by the energy and non-energy commodity prices over the period 1973Q1-1992Q1. However such a single long-run relationship does not hold when the sample period is extended to 2004Q4. This breakdown can be explained by the break point which we find at 1993Q3. At the break point, the effect of the energy price shocks on Canadas real exchange rate turns from negative to positive while the effect of the non-energy commodity price shocks is constantly positive. We find that after one year 40.03% of the gap between the actual and equilibrium real exchange rate is closed. The Canada-US interest rate differential affects the real exchange rate temporarily. The Canadas real exchange rate depreciates immediately after a decrease in Canadas interest rate and appreciates next quarter but not by as much as it has depreciated.