Cette thèse contribue au débat sur les politiques de ciblage d’inflation et de transparence des banques centrales en présentant notamment trois essais théoriques et empiriques sur le sujet. Dans le premier essai, nous étudions théoriquement les conditions sous lesquelles il serait optimal pour une banque centrale d’adopter explicitement un régime de ciblage d’inflation. Nous proposons un nouveau cadre théorique qui combine les deux principales raisons avancées dans la littérature pour expliquer les effets réels à court terme de la politique monétaire et qui sont d’une part, la présence d’informations hétérogènes entre les agents économiques (Phelps, 1970 ; Lucas, 1972), et d’autre part, la rigidité des salaires ou des prix (Taylor, 1980 ; Calvo, 1983). Nous analysons ensuite notre problématique dans ce nouveau cadre en considérant l’interaction entre le degré de rigidité des prix, et le degré de complémentarités stratégiques dans la fixation de prix des firmes. Nos résultats montrent que l’adoption d’un régime de ciblage d’inflation dépend fortement de l’importance relative des paramètres du modèle. En particulier, nous montrons que le ciblage d’inflation devrait être toujours adopté lorsque les complémentarités stratégiques sont faibles, alors que dans le cas contraire, il est optimal uniquement lorsque les prix sont assez rigides et que la banque centrale détient des informations suffisamment précises sur les fondamentaux de l’économie. Dans le second essai, nous utilisons la macroéconomie expérimentale afin d’évaluer dans quelle mesure l’annonce de la cible d’inflation est pertinente dans un cadre de ciblage de l’inflation. Nos résultats montrent que lorsque la banque centrale ne se soucie que de la stabilisation de l’inflation, l’annonce de la cible d’inflation n’apporte pas de gain supplémentaire en termes de performances macro-économiques, par rapport à une politique monétaire active (type règle de Taylor). Cependant, si la banque centrale intègre également la stabilisation de l’activité économique dans ses objectifs, la communication de la cible contribue à réduire la volatilité de l’inflation, du taux d’intérêt, et de l’écart de production, bien que leurs niveaux moyens ne soient pas affectés. Ce résultat fournit ainsi une justification pour l’adoption d’un régime de ciblage flexible d’inflation par la majorité des pays ciblant l’inflation. Enfin dans le troisième essai, nous appliquons une analyse transversale ainsi que la technique des variables instrumentales, afin d’analyser les effets de la transparence des banques centrales sur les résultats macroéconomiques dans les pays émergents. Nous construisons un nouvel indice de transparence qui combine certains aspects de l’indice de transparence globale d’Eijffinger et Geraats (2006), avec ceux de l’indice de transparence sur le comité de politique monétaire de Hayo et Mazhar (2011). Nous analysons ensuite le rôle individuel de chaque composante du nouvel indice en termes de réduction du niveau de l’inflation et de sa volatilité, ainsi que de la volatilité du produit. Contrairement à la littérature antérieure, nous trouvons que le nouvel indice de transparence ainsi que ses aspects économique, politique, procédurale et de transparence sur la politique monétaire impactent négativement le niveau moyen de l’inflation, mais pas sa volatilité dans ces pays. L’unique composante du nouvel indice qui permet de réduire à la fois la volatilité de l’inflation et celle de la production est la transparence opérationnelle. Ces résultats s’avèrent robustes aux différentes spécifications de modèles économétriques utilisés dans cet essai. / This dissertation contributes to the debate on inflation targeting and central bantransparency by presenting three theoretical and empirical essays on the topic. In the first essay, we theoretically investigate the conditions under which it would be optimal for a central bank to explicitly adopt an inflation targeting regime. We propose a new theoretical framework that combines the two main frictions put forward in the literature to explain the real short run effects of monetary policy that is, heterogeneous information among agents (Phelps, 1970; Lucas, 1972), and wage or price rigidities (Taylor, 1980; Calvo, 1983). We then analyze our issue in this new framework by considering the interaction between the degree of price stickiness, and the degree of strategic complementarities in firms’ price setting. Our results show that adopting an inflation targeting regime crucially depends on the relative importance of the model’s parameters. In particular, we show that inflation targeting should always be adopted when strategic complementarities are low, while in the opposite case, it is optimal only if prices are sticky enough and the central bank holds sufficiently accurate information on the fundamentals of the economy. In the second essay, we use experimental macroeconomics to evaluate to what extent communication of the inflation target is relevant in an inflation targeting framework. Our results show that first, when the central bank only cares about inflation stabilization, announcing the inflation target does not make a difference in terms of macroeconomic performance compared to a standard active monetary policy. However, if the central bank also cares about the stabilization of the economic activity, communicating the target helps to reduce the volatility of inflation, interest rate, and output gap although their average levels are not affected. This finding provides a rationale for the adoption of flexible inflation targeting by the majority of inflation targeting countries. In the third essay, using a cross-sectional analysis and instrumental variables technique, we analyze the impact of central bank transparency on macroeconomic outcomes in emerging economies. We build a new index of transparency that combines some aspects of the overall Eijffinger and Geraats (2006) transparency index, with those of monetary policy committee transparency developed in Hayo and Mazhar (2011). We then analyze the individual role of each component of the new index in mitigating inflation and its volatility, as well as output volatility. By contrast to the previous literature, we interestingly find that the overall new index of transparency as well as its political, economic, procedural, and policy aspects negatively impact the average level of inflation, but not its volatility in these countries. The unique component of the new index that reduces the volatility of both inflation and output is operational transparency, and these results are robust to different econometric and instruments setting specifications.

This thesis is a collection of three essays on inflation expectations, forecasting uncertainty, and the role of uncertainty in sequential auctions, all using experimental approach. Chapter 1 studies how individuals forecast inflation in fictitious macroeconomic setup and analyzes the effect of monetary policy rules on their decisions. Results display heterogeneity in inflation forecasting rules and demonstrate the importance of adaptive learning forecasting if model switching is assumed. Chapter 2 extends the analysis from Chapter 1 by analyzing individual inflation forecasting uncertainty. Results show that confidence intervals depend on inflation variance and business cycle phase, have a strong inertia, and are often asymmetric. Finally, Chapter 3 analyzes the role of uncertainty about the number of bidders for the behavior of subjects in a sequential auction experiment. Uncertainty does not aggravate price decline, but it changes individual bidding strategies and auction efficiency. / Esta tesis consta de tres ensayos sobre las expectativas de inflación, la incertidumbre de la predicción, y la importancia de la incertidumbre en subastas secuenciales. Todos ellos utilizan un método experimental. El capítulo 1 estudia cómo los individuos predicen la inflación en la economía ficticia y analiza el efecto de las reglas de política monetaria en sus decisiones. Los resultados revelan la heterogeneidad en las reglas de predicción de la inflación y demuestran la importancia del mecanismo de aprendizaje adaptivo si el cambio entre los modelos se supone. Capítulo 2 continúa el análisis del capítulo 1, analiza la incertidumbre individual de las expectativas de inflación. Los resultados muestran que los intervalos de confianza dependen de varianza de la inflación y la fase del ciclo económico, tienen una fuerte inercia, y son frecuentemente asimétricos. Por último, el capítulo 3 analiza la influencia de la incertidumbre sobre el número de oferentes en el comportamiento de los individuos en un experimento de la subasta secuencial. La incertidumbre no agrava la caída de los precios, pero cambia las estrategias de los oferentes y la eficiencia de la subasta.

Submitted by Maurício Tadeu Reis (mauricio_41@live.com) on 2018-09-04T14:10:20Z No. of bitstreams: 1 Dissertacao-04-09-2018.pdf: 942449 bytes, checksum: 506f00632a87d40c0d92c1996f1cf67f (MD5) / Rejected by Joana Martorini (joana.martorini@fgv.br), reason: ,, on 2018-09-04T15:07:20Z (GMT) / Submitted by Maurício Tadeu Reis (mauricio_41@live.com) on 2018-09-04T15:16:08Z No. of bitstreams: 1 Dissertacao-04-09-2018.pdf: 942449 bytes, checksum: 506f00632a87d40c0d92c1996f1cf67f (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Josineide da Silva Santos Locatelli (josineide.locatelli@fgv.br) on 2018-09-04T15:16:43Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 Dissertacao-04-09-2018.pdf: 942449 bytes, checksum: 506f00632a87d40c0d92c1996f1cf67f (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Isabele Garcia (isabele.garcia@fgv.br) on 2018-09-04T15:22:27Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 Dissertacao-04-09-2018.pdf: 942449 bytes, checksum: 506f00632a87d40c0d92c1996f1cf67f (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2018-09-04T15:22:27Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Dissertacao-04-09-2018.pdf: 942449 bytes, checksum: 506f00632a87d40c0d92c1996f1cf67f (MD5) Previous issue date: 2018-08-09 / Neste trabalho serão estimadas diversas regressões para o prêmio de risco de inflação encontrado na economia brasileira, com dados entre janeiro 2006 e dezembro 2017. Adicionalmente, a inflação implícita terá uma seção de resultados semelhante ao encontrado para o prêmio de risco de inflação. Foram encontradas na literatura, tanto local quanto na estrangeira, poucas referências que tinham como tema central o prêmio de risco de inflação, a literatura encontrada é mais vasta ao buscarmos por inflação implícita ou taxa natural de juros. Os modelos construídos para mercados estrangeiros visam eliminar o problema da defasagem nos indexados de inflação dos títulos reais, como tanto no trabalho de Evans quanto de Grishchenko e Huang onde, para os mercados britânico e americano, respectivamente, aplicam um modelo que visava reduzir o ruído gerado pela defasagem no indexador de inflação. Para o mercado local, temos uma literatura mais focada em inflação implícita, no qual podemos notar em Vicente e Graminho que realizam a decomposição de todos os componentes da inflação implícita, inclusive o prêmio de risco de inflação. Foi possível tirar algumas conclusões sobre quais variáveis podem afetar o prêmio de risco de inflação e de qual forma, destas, destacou-se o CDS e as expectativas de inflação para períodos condizentes com os analisados para juros reais e nominais. / In this work many regressions towards the inflation risk premium for the Brazilian economy will be estimated, with data from January 2006 to December 2017. In addition to that, there will be a topic where we can find similar results for the implicit inflation as the ones obtained for the inflation risk premium. In the bibliography we found a few references for both local and foreign studies about the main topic, the inflation risk premium, the bibliography is more common to implicit inflation and natural interest rates. The models constructed for the foreign markets focused on minimizing the inflation lag problem on the indexed real bonds, both Evans's work and Grishchenko and Huang tried to minimize this problem with their models, for the British and American economies, respectively, their models tried to build an alternative real termstructure without this inflation lag. For the local market we found a bibliography more focused on implicit inflation, such as in Vicente and Graminho who studied the implicit inflation and all of its components, including the inflation risk premium. It was possible to take a few conclusions about some economic variables and its relation to inflation risk premium, if it exists. From these variables, we highlight the CDS and inflation expectations in consistent periods with those used for real and nominal interest rates.

Recent breakthrough studies by Gali and Gertler (1999), Sbordone (2002) and Roberts (2001) argue that the New Keynesian Phillips curve (based on Calvo pricing model) is empirically valid concept and they conclude that the real marginal costs are preferred driving force to output gap in inflation dynamics for open economies. Neiss and Nelson (2002) and Gali, Gertler and Salido (2001), in turn, contradict that to date, there has been only little empirical evidence to support this statement. Neiss and Nelson (2002) add that "once output gap is defined consistently with economic theory, the gap-based New Keynesian Phillips curve has a fit with data which is at least as good as the real marginal costs-based one". For this purpose, my study investigates relationship between output gap and inflation described in the hybrid New Keynesian Phillips curve. Study estimates key coefficients of the hybrid gap-based New Keynesian Phillips curve, with both forward- and backward-looking inflation components, in the Czech Republic for periods 2000Q1 - 2012Q4 using Kalman filtration. My findings suggest that (i) output gap has a significant impact on Czech inflation dynamics (ii) share of forward-looking agents predominates to backward-looking agents in the Czech Republic and (iii) Czech inflation seems to be significantly driven by change in import prices.

This study investigated the determinants of inflation in South Africa using quarterly data from 1970Q1 to 2015Q4. The study was motivated by recent trends in domestic inflation that has frequently been at the upper end of the target range of between 3% and 6% and the need to guide inflation related policy since 2008. These recent trends raised concerns regarding the effectiveness of the current monetary policy approach in responding to internal and external factors that are significant in determining domestic inflation. Using Error Correction Model (ECM) modelling techniques, empirical results revealed that inflation expectations, labour costs, government expenditure and import prices are positive determinants, while GDP and exchange rates are negative determinants of inflation. To achieve the macroeconomic policy objective of a stable and low inflation rate for South Africa, more emphasis should be placed on anchoring inflation expectations, which was found to be highly significant in determining inflation. / Economics / M. Com. (Economics)

The purpose of this thesis is to argue that the core of a monetary economy is a network of triangular contracts between banks, firms, workers and capital goods suppliers. Not only does this network give rise to the creation and valuation of money but it is the organising feature of modern economies, giving rise to both episodes of stability and crises. In constructing this argument I consider both orthodox and heterodox points of view. We analyse equilibrium models of money, and find that while money can exist in sequence economies with frictions, models of this type give no justification for its creation, valuation or holding for any significant duration, either theoretically or experimentally. Models that introduce dated goods and trading frictions to motivate the issue of risk-spreading ‘bundled’ debt are more promising for money creation, although they still cannot explain the the holding and valuation of money. Using the concept of team-production of Alchian and Demsetz and that of ‘hostage-taking’ in contracts owing to Williamson, we demonstrate how the issue of a token of generalised purchasing power from a team-production contract can enhance output and consumption. This conclusion motivates an original monetary theory of production that integrates the insights of Post-Keynesian monetary theory and the triangular contracts of the Circulation Approach and expresses them in a way that shows consistent asset and liability matching through a balance sheet approach. The creation and valuation of money and the determination of interest are embedded within the central processes of this economy. The features of the monetary production economy we analyse are in contrast to the mainstream proposition that the economy as a whole is rendered coherent by the existence of a unique and stable equilibrium determined by the utility-maximisation of households and the profit maximisation of firms. Apart from their inability to describe the economy in aggregate, such models treat money as an afterthought that is in no way core to their conception. We set the triangular contracts within a rigorous stock-flow framework of the type developed by Godley and Lavoie and argue that the shifting of the level of impact of uncertainty and failed expectations induced by money leads to specific patterns of economic disruption. These patterns are independent of the specific behavioural characteristics of households and firms and so are robust to policy changes that leave the institutions of the monetary production economy intact. We briefly assess current monetary policy and alternatives in the light of these findings.

Submitted by Daniela Kubudi Glasman (dkubudi@gmail.com) on 2014-06-23T17:18:45Z No. of bitstreams: 1 tese_DanielaKubudi_final.pdf: 1329488 bytes, checksum: 78a5e9b2527544313ec47b6425dbeb07 (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by BRUNA BARROS (bruna.barros@fgv.br) on 2014-10-27T16:31:57Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 tese_DanielaKubudi_final.pdf: 1329488 bytes, checksum: 78a5e9b2527544313ec47b6425dbeb07 (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Marcia Bacha (marcia.bacha@fgv.br) on 2014-11-13T13:38:37Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 tese_DanielaKubudi_final.pdf: 1329488 bytes, checksum: 78a5e9b2527544313ec47b6425dbeb07 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2014-11-13T13:39:30Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 tese_DanielaKubudi_final.pdf: 1329488 bytes, checksum: 78a5e9b2527544313ec47b6425dbeb07 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2013-02-25 / This thesis consists of three works that analyses the term structure of interest rates using different datasets and models. Chapter 1 proposes a parametric interest rate model that allows for segmentation and local shocks in the term structure. Adopting U.S. Treasury data, two versions of this segmented model are implemented. Based on a sequence of 142 forecasting experiments, the proposed models are compared to established benchrnarks and find that they outperform in out-of-sample forecasting results, specially for short-term maturities and for the 12-month horizon forecast. Chapter 2 adds no-arbitrage restrictions when estimating a dynamic gaussian polynomial term structure model for the Brazilian interest rate market. This article propose an important approximation of the time series of term structure risk factors, that allows to extract the risk premium embedded in interest rate zero coupon instruments without having to run a fui! optimization of a dynamic model. This methodology has the advantage to be easily implemented and provides a good approximation for the term structure risk premia that can be used in many applications. Chapter 3 models the joint dynamic of nominal and real yields using an affine macro-finance no-arbitrage term structure model in order to decompose the break even inflation rates into inflation risk premiums and inflation expectations in the US market. The Yields-Only and the Macro version of this model are implemented and the estimated inflation risk premiums obtained are small and quite stable during the sample period, but have differences when comparing the two versions of the model. / Esta tese é composta de três artigos que analisam a estrutura a termo das taxas de juros usando diferentes bases de dados e modelos. O capítulo 1 propõe um modelo paramétrico de taxas de juros que permite a segmentação e choques locais na estrutura a termo. Adotando dados do tesouro americano, duas versões desse modelo segmentado são implementadas. Baseado em uma sequência de 142 experimentos de previsão, os modelos propostos são comparados à benchmarks e concluí-se que eles performam melhor nos resultados das previsões fora da amostra, especialmente para as maturidades curtas e para o horizonte de previsão de 12 meses. O capítulo 2 acrescenta restrições de não arbitragem ao estimar um modelo polinomial gaussiano dinâmico de estrutura a termo para o mercado de taxas de juros brasileiro. Esse artigo propõe uma importante aproximação para a série temporal dos fatores de risco da estrutura a termo, que permite a extração do prêmio de risco das taxas de juros sem a necessidade de otimização de um modelo dinâmico completo. Essa metodologia tem a vantagem de ser facilmente implementada e obtém uma boa aproximação para o prêmio de risco da estrutura a termo, que pode ser usada em diferentes aplicações. O capítulo 3 modela a dinâmica conjunta das taxas nominais e reais usando um modelo afim de não arbitagem com variáveis macroeconômicas para a estrutura a termo, afim de decompor a diferença entre as taxas nominais e reais em prêmio de risco de inflação e expectativa de inflação no mercado americano. Uma versão sem variáveis macroeconômicas e uma versão com essas variáveis são implementadas e os prêmios de risco de inflação obtidos são pequenos e estáveis no período analisado, porém possuem diferenças na comparação dos dois modelos analisados.

This thesis examines the measurement, applications and properties of consumer inflation expectations in the context of eight European Union countries: France, Germany, the UK, Spain, Italy, Belgium, the Netherlands and Sweden. The data proceed mainly from the European Commission's Consumer Survey and are qualitative in nature, therefore requiring quantification prior to use. This study first seeks to determine the optimal quantification methodology among a set of approaches spanning three traditions, associated with Carlson-Parkin (1975), Pesaran (1984) and Seitz (1988). The success of a quantification methodology is assessed on the basis of its ability to match quantitative expectations data and on its behaviour in an important economic application, namely the modelling of wages for our sample countries. The wage equation developed here draws on the theoretical background of the staggered contracts and the wage bargaining literature, and controls carefully for inflation expectations and institutional variables. The Carlson-Parkin variation proposed in Curto Millet (2004) was found to be the most satisfactory. This being established, the wage equations are used to test the hypothesis that the advent of EMU generated an increase in labour market flexibility, which would be reflected in structural breaks. The hypothesis is essentially rejected. Finally, the properties of inflation expectations and perceptions themselves are examined, especially in the context of EMU. Both the rational expectations and rational perceptions hypotheses are rejected. Popular expectations mechanisms, such as the "rule-of-thumb" model or Akerlof et al.'s (2000) "near-rationality hypothesis" are similarly unsupported. On the other hand, evidence is found for the transmission of expert forecasts to consumer expectations in the case of the UK, as in Carroll's (2003) model. The distribution of consumer expectations and perceptions is also considered, showing a tendency for gradual (as in Mankiw and Reis, 2002) but non-rational adjustment. Expectations formation is further shown to have important qualitative features.