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Yes / The view that corporations have a wider focus than just maximizing shareholder value has received considerable attention from practitioners, managers, and academics alike. We investigate the Q theory of corporate investment with financial frictions when management maximizes stakeholder value instead of shareholder value. Different objective functions are investigated. We characterize the optimal investment and financial policy of the firm. The results show that stakeholder firms invest more than shareholder firms, i.e., over-investing, and an increase of stakeholder shares increases investment, except when equity issuing firms face severe informational asymmetries or severe cost of external equity. We also discuss different approaches to model investment of stakeholder firms and their implications for empirical analysis.

Thesis advisor: Fabio Schiantarelli / This dissertation comprises three self-contained essays that investigate how micro-level frictions affect firms’ operational decisions and investors’ behavior, evaluating their respective costs or benefits for the overall economy. In the first chapter, “Customer Capital and The Aggregate Effect of Short-Termism", joint work with M. Errico and A. Lavia, we study the impact of short-termism on firms’ pricing decisions and quantify the potential costs for consumers in term of welfare. Managers face continuous pressure to meet short-term forecasts and targets, which can impact their investment in customer capital and pricing decisions. Using data on U.S. public companies together with IBES analysts’ forecasts, we find that firms that just meet analysts’ profit forecasts have average markup growth of 0.8% higher than firms that just miss targets, suggesting opportunistic markup manipulation. To assess the aggregate economic implications of short-termism, we develop and estimate a quantitative heterogeneous firm model that incorporates short-term frictions and endogenous markups resulting from customer accumulation. In the model, short-termism solves an agency conflict between manager and shareholders, resulting in higher markups and lower customer capital stock. We find that, on average, firms increase markups by 8% due to short-termism, generating $38 million of additional annual profits. At the macro level, the distortion reduces consumers’ welfare by 4% and lowers the total market capitalization by $3.1 trillion on average. In the second chapter, “Strategic Investors and Exchange Rate Dynamics", joint work with M. Errico, we study how the exchange rate dynamics are influenced by the presence of heterogeneous investors with varying degrees of price impact. Leveraging data from the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) on investors’ currency positions, we show that foreign exchange rate markets display a significant level of concentration,and investors’ price impact is stronger in more concentrated markets. We develop a monetary model of exchange rate determination that incorporates heterogeneous investors with different degrees of price impact. We show that the presence of price impact amplifies the exchange rate’s response to non-fundamental shocks while dampening its response to fundamental shocks. As a result, investors’ price impact contributes to the disconnect of exchange rates from fundamentals and the excess volatility of exchange rates. We provide empirical evidence in line with our theoretical predictions, using data on trading volume concentration from the US CFTC foreign exchange rate market for 10 currencies spanning from 2006 to 2016. Additionally, we extend our framework to account for information heterogeneity among investors, which presents a competing dimension of heterogeneity with qualitatively similar implications for exchange rate dynamics. Both dimensions of heterogeneity are quantitatively relevant, with the heterogeneity in price impact accounting for 62% of the additional volatility and 35% of the additional disconnect attributed to investors’ heterogeneity. In the third chapter, “Firms’ Investment and Central Bank Communication: The Role of Financial Heterogeneity", I study how financial frictions impact the transmission of monetary policy to investment. Monetary policy affects firms’ capital investment through two distinct channels: the pure monetary channel, which operates through changes in interest rates, and the information channel, which operates through changes in investors’ beliefs about the economic outlook and future policy rates. I show that the role of financial frictions for monetary policy transmission hinges crucially on specific channel. Using Compustat data, I find that firms with high leverage are more sensitive to pure monetary shocks but are less sensitive to Fed information shocks. Finally, I develop a dynamic general equilibrium model with firm idiosyncratic productivity, real and financial frictions to rationalize the empirical findings and study aggregate implications. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2024. / Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: Economics.

L'éducation est un investissement qui trouve son rendement sur le marché du travail.Cependant, les frictions à l'œuvre sur ce marché affectent aussi bien le niveau que la nature des investissements éducatifs. Dans le même temps, les compétences acquises lors de la scolarité conditionnent le design des institutions du marché du travail.Nous proposons trois chapitres qui examinent chacun une question particulière.Le premier présente un modèle de mismatch sur le marché du travail où le degré d'inadéquation entre travailleurs et emplois est endogène : il dépend des efforts éducatifs (qui réduisent le mismatch) et des investissements technologiques (qui l'augmentent). Nous examinons l'impact de l'incertitude concernant le futur partenaire de travail, de l'hétérogénéité des travailleurs vis-à-vis de leur capacité scolaire, et de l'aversion au risque.Le deuxième construit un modèle d'appariement avec spécialistes et généralistes dans lequel la proportion de spécialistes est endogène. La nature du capital humain détermine le nombre de files d'attentes dans lequel le travailleur peut prospecter ainsi que son rang dans chacune d'elles. L'éducation véhicule plusieurs externalités : les spécialistes favorisent la création d'emplois dans chaque secteur ; les généralistes améliorent l'efficience de la technologie d'appariement mais aggravent le problème de coordination des firmes. Nous calibrons le modèle sur données agrégées pour 20 pays de l'OCDE. L'auto-sélection s'avère toujours inefficace : taxer la formation professionnelle pourrait réduire le taux de chômage de plus d'un point de pourcentage.Le troisième étudie le design de l'assurance chômage dans un contexte où les travailleurs diffèrent quant à la nature de leur capital humain. Nous montrons que selon le scénario retenu pour la gestion de la caisse d'assurance, la proportion de spécialistes peut conduire à diminuer ou accroître le taux de remplacement de l'indemnité chômage optimale. / Education is an investment that has its return on the labor market. However, frictions at work in this market affect both the level and the nature of educational investments. At the same time, the skills gained during schooling time determine the design of labor market institutions.This thesis is made of three chapters examining, each of them examines a particular issue.The first one presents a mismatch model on labor market where the efficiency of the assignment mechanism is endogenous: it depends on educational efforts (which reduce the mismatch) and on technological investments (which increases it). We examine the impact of uncertainty regarding the future work associate, of the worker's heterogeneity toward scholastic ability, and of risk aversion.In the second one we build a two-sector matching model with generalists and specialists, in which the proportion of specialists is endogenous. The nature of human capital determines the number of job queues in which worker can candidates as well as its rank in each of them. Self-selection in education type leads to three main externalities: specialists enhance job creation in each sector; generalists improve the efficiency of the matching technology, but nevertheless exacerbate firm's coordination problems. We calibrate the model on aggregate data for 20 OECD countries. Self-selection is always inefficient: taxing vocational education, to reduce the proportion of specialists down the efficient level, could reduce unemployment rates by more than one point of percentage.The third one studies the unemployment insurance scheme in a context where workers have different kind of human capital. We show that, depending on the scenario chosen for the management of the insurance fund, the proportion of individuals with specific human capital can lead either to a decrease or to an increase of the replacement rate of the optimal unemployment benefit.

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The choice of an appropriate government policy tool to promote the employment should be done with regard to the source of unemployment. This diploma the- sis investigates structural and cyclical components of unemployment. The two components are induced by different causes. Search and matching frictions in the labor market are the source of the structural component. The cyclical component is induced by a low labor productivity which induces a negative gross marginal profit of firms. Consequently, they are obliged to cancel a portion of existing job- worker matches. The main finding is that during a period of economic slowdown the overall unemployment and its cyclical component rise while the structural component declines. The dynamics of the two components is reversed during a robust economic growth. The diploma thesis proceeds with investigating the pub- lic hiring, a policy potentially suitable to diminish the unemployment during an economic slowdown. The results show that the public hiring can be successfully applied despite the private employment crowding out. A New Keynesian DSGE model calibrated for the Czech Republic is used to model the labor market dy- namics. The results are interpreted with regard to the historic development of the unemployment and the economic growth from 2000 to 2014. JEL...

This dissertation consists of three chapters on financial friction, misallocation and development dynamics. The first chapter considers how financial frictions and mobility distortions generate the persistence of post-reform development dynamics. I build a general equilibrium model and calibrate it to China. The mobility distortion is an occupation distortion that restricts a proportion of agents to the low-productive sector. A removal of distortions triggers the transition of the economy. Using a calibrated version of the model, the transition path displays slow convergence and mimics the patterns observed in data. The mobility distortion creates high-ability, but poor, agents before the reform. This provides a channel for financial frictions to have longer effect after the reform. Compared with the literature that uses tax distortions, the economy with mobility distortions generates slower convergence. The second chapter is a welfare analysis of the well-documented depressed migrant wage in China from a dynamic perspective. The depressed migrant wage per se attracts fewer migrant workers and lowers the migrants' consumption and the aggregate output. However, it encourages urban entrepreneurs to substitute capital for labor, relaxing the effect of financial frictions. The net effect on output and consumption depends on the stage of development. Initially, it benefits the economy by speeding up TFP growth and capital accumulation in the urban sector. In the later stage, owing to low consumption of migrants, policy intervention can increase aggregate consumption and output. The third chapter investigates why the intergenerational income mobility decreases and the inequality increase for China over the past 30 years. I propose a theoretical overlapping generation model with missing capital markets, increasing the return to human capital and increasing education cost to explain these facts. After the economic reform happens, all levels of wages go up and all families accumulate and update human capital. However, the increasing education cost and credit constraint prevent the children from rural families from accumulating human capital quickly. The urban families accumulate human capital faster than the rural families. These predictions from the model are verified in the census data. Whether this process continues or not depends on the subsidy of education. Government education policy can improve the allocation of education in the economy.

Dado o recente cenário econômico brasileiro, caracterizado por incertezas políticas e instabilidades econômicas, é essencial que as empresas engajem uma política de hedge, como parte de sua política financeira, com o objetivo de evitar que seus resultados sejam afetados por fricções de mercado. Neste contexto, o presente trabalho teve como objetivo verificar o impacto da política de hedge sobre os custos de agência das empresas brasileiras. Os resultados obtidos foram de encontro com a literatura sobre hedge e custos de agência, foi encontrado que quanto maior a utilização do hedge, menor são os custos de agência enfrentados pelos acionistas. Essa relação demonstra que ao engajar a utilização do hedge na política financeira da empresa, o gestor passa a minimizar os impactos das fricções de mercado, e reduz as perdas residuais que os acionistas sofreriam em suas riquezas, caso o gestor não engajasse a política. Ainda, conforme sugerido por Dadalt, Gay e Nam (2002), outro benefício encontrado nesse resultado, é que ao reduzir os impactos das fricções de mercado nos lucros da empresa, o gestor informa aos stakeholders, um lucro que demonstra melhor a performance da companhia, assim credores e investidores podem tomar melhores decisões referentes aos contratos com a empresa, com base em um lucro que contém menor informação assimétrica. Dessa forma, a utilização da política de hedge pode aliviar problemas relacionadas a seleção adversa entre a empresa e seus stakeholders / Given the recent Brazilian economic scenario, characterized by political uncertainties and economic instabilities, it is essential that companies engage in a hedge policy as part of their financial policy, in order to prevent their results from being affected by market frictions. In this context, the present study aimed to verify the impact of the hedge policy on the agency costs of Brazilian companies. The results obtained were in agreement with the literature on hedge and agency costs, it was found that the greater the use of hedge, the lower the agency costs faced by the shareholders. This relationship demonstrates that by engaging the use of hedge in the company\'s financial policy, the manager starts to minimize the impacts of market frictions and reduces the residual losses that shareholders would suffer in their wealth if the manager did not engage the policy. As suggested by Dadalt, Gay and Nam (2002), another benefit found in this result is that by reducing the impacts of market frictions on company profits, the manager informs stakeholders of a profit that best demonstrates the performance of the company, so creditors and investors can make better decisions regarding contracts with the company, based on a profit that contains less asymmetric information. In this way, the use of the hedge policy can alleviate problems related to adverse selection between the company and its stakeholders.

Thesis advisor: Fabio Ghironi / My dissertation develops a set of tools for introducing heterogeneity into economic models in an analytically tractable way. Many models use the representative agent framework, which greatly simplifies macroeconomic aggregation but abstracts from the heterogeneity we see in the real world. In my research, I move away from the representative agent framework in two key ways. First, my work in international macroeconomics incorporates heterogeneity via idiosyncratic shocks across countries. Second, my work on financial frictions employs asymmetric information between lenders and borrowers. In both of these areas, my goal is to examine the implications of heterogeneity in the most tractable way possible. Crucially, these insights can be incorporated into the models currently used by academics and central banks for policy analysis. The first chapter of my dissertation, "Price Stability in Small Open Economies," joint work with Mikhail Dmitriev, studies the conduct of optimal monetary policy in a continuum of small open economies. We obtain a novel closed-form solution that does not restrict the elasticity of substitution between home and foreign goods to one. Using this global closed-form solution, we give an exact characterization of optimal monetary policy and welfare with and without international policy cooperation. We consider the cases of internationally complete asset markets and financial autarky, producer currency pricing and local currency pricing. Under producer currency pricing, it is always optimal to mimic the flexible-price equilibrium through a policy of price stability. Under local currency pricing, policy should fix the exchange rate. Even though countries have monopoly power, the continuum of small open economies implies that policymakers cannot affect world income. This inability to influence world income removes the incentive to deviate from price stability under producer currency pricing or a fixed exchange rate under local currency pricing, and prevents gains from international monetary cooperation in all cases examined. Our results contrast with those for large open economies, where interactions between home policy and world income drive optimal policy away from price stability or fixed exchange rates, and gains from cooperation are present. The second chapter of my dissertation, "The Optimal Design of a Fiscal Union'', joint work with Mikhail Dmitriev, examines the role of fiscal policy cooperation and financial market integration in an open economy setting, motivated by the recent crisis in the euro area. I show that the optimal design of a fiscal union is governed by the degree of substitutability between the export goods of different countries. When countries produce goods that are imperfect substitutes they should harmonize their income taxes to prevent large terms of trade externalities. On the other hand, when countries produce goods that are close substitutes, they should organize a contingent fiscal transfer scheme to insure against idiosyncratic shocks. The welfare gains from the optimal fiscal union are as high as 5\% of permanent consumption when countries are able to trade safe government bonds, and approach 20\% of permanent consumption when countries lose access to international financial markets. These gains are especially large for countries like Greece that produce highly substitutable export goods and who cannot raise funds on international financial markets to insure against downside risk. The results illustrate why federal currency unions such as the U.S., Canada and Australia, with income tax harmonization and built-in fiscal transfer arrangements, withstand asymmetric shocks across regions much better than the euro area, which lacks these ingredients at the moment. The third chapter of my dissertation, joint work with Mikhail Dmitriev, studies macro-financial linkages and the impact of financial frictions on real economic activity in some of my other work. Beginning with the Bernanke-Gertler-Gilchrist (1999) financial accelerator model, a large literature has shown that financial frictions amplify business cycles. Using this framework, Christiano, Motto and Rostagno (AER, 2013) show that shocks to financial frictions can explain business cycle fluctuations quite well. However, this literature relies on two ad hoc assumptions. When these assumptions are relaxed and agents have access to a broader set of lending contracts, the financial accelerator disappears, and shocks to financial frictions have little to no impact on the economy. In addition, under the ad hoc lending contract inflation targeting eliminates the financial accelerator. These results provide guidance for monetary policymakers and present a puzzle for macroeconomic theory. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2014. / Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: Economics.

Dado o recente cenário econômico brasileiro, caracterizado por incertezas políticas e instabilidades econômicas, é essencial que as empresas engajem uma política de hedge, como parte de sua política financeira, com o objetivo de evitar que seus resultados sejam afetados por fricções de mercado. Neste contexto, o presente trabalho teve como objetivo verificar o impacto da política de hedge sobre os custos de agência das empresas brasileiras. Os resultados obtidos foram de encontro com a literatura sobre hedge e custos de agência, foi encontrado que quanto maior a utilização do hedge, menor são os custos de agência enfrentados pelos acionistas. Essa relação demonstra que ao engajar a utilização do hedge na política financeira da empresa, o gestor passa a minimizar os impactos das fricções de mercado, e reduz as perdas residuais que os acionistas sofreriam em suas riquezas, caso o gestor não engajasse a política. Ainda, conforme sugerido por Dadalt, Gay e Nam (2002), outro benefício encontrado nesse resultado, é que ao reduzir os impactos das fricções de mercado nos lucros da empresa, o gestor informa aos stakeholders, um lucro que demonstra melhor a performance da companhia, assim credores e investidores podem tomar melhores decisões referentes aos contratos com a empresa, com base em um lucro que contém menor informação assimétrica. Dessa forma, a utilização da política de hedge pode aliviar problemas relacionadas a seleção adversa entre a empresa e seus stakeholders / Given the recent Brazilian economic scenario, characterized by political uncertainties and economic instabilities, it is essential that companies engage in a hedge policy as part of their financial policy, in order to prevent their results from being affected by market frictions. In this context, the present study aimed to verify the impact of the hedge policy on the agency costs of Brazilian companies. The results obtained were in agreement with the literature on hedge and agency costs, it was found that the greater the use of hedge, the lower the agency costs faced by the shareholders. This relationship demonstrates that by engaging the use of hedge in the company\'s financial policy, the manager starts to minimize the impacts of market frictions and reduces the residual losses that shareholders would suffer in their wealth if the manager did not engage the policy. As suggested by Dadalt, Gay and Nam (2002), another benefit found in this result is that by reducing the impacts of market frictions on company profits, the manager informs stakeholders of a profit that best demonstrates the performance of the company, so creditors and investors can make better decisions regarding contracts with the company, based on a profit that contains less asymmetric information. In this way, the use of the hedge policy can alleviate problems related to adverse selection between the company and its stakeholders.