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<p>The  Austrian  Business  Cycle  Theory  (ABC)  provides  a  qualitative  explanation  of  why economies go through ups and downs in terms of national income, production output and labor employment. The theory states that interest and money supply policy distort the time preferences of economic agents. If the monetary authority reduces the interest rate through artificial credit expansion the new economic conditions induce both increased production and consumption. The  framework of  the Austrian  theory depends on  savings  to  fuel  investments, i.e. reduced consumption in order to create increased future consumption. Artificially  induced  expansions  create  a wedge between  these producer  and  consumer preferences, and prolonging of the process widens the gap between the economic state and the free market  equilibrium which  is  long-term  sustainable. When  the  financial  system  eventually is unable to maintain inflation of credit to uphold the economy, there will be abandonment of capital investments, resulting in an unavoidable recession. The purpose of this thesis is to analyze the theory from a short run perspective, using data from  the United Kingdom  economy. The  theory has previously primarily been  tested  in long run perspectives and mainly on the American economy. To achieve the noted a model was constructed based on the description of the theory by economists Hayek and Garrison, members of the Austrian school of economics. To empirically model the ABC theory the ratio between consumption and investment, the intertemporal  resource allocation, was  calculated and used as a dependent variable  in  regressions with money aggregates, credit and interest rate gap as independent variables. The empirical findings give some support to the theory, with a number of those findings directly in favor of the theory. Credit was shown to better explain changes in the C/I ratio than money aggregates, indicating that credit is more directly suited for investments. The coefficient for the interest rate gap, the difference between the natural interest rate and the market interest rate, showed strong significance. Overall differences between economic expansions and recessions were found statistically significant, which lends support to the model.</p>

I study the impact of the used goods market on pricing and profits in the video game industry and the implications of resale restrictions. I develop a modeling framework that incorporates (a) heterogeneous consumers who are forward looking in their buying an selling behaviors, (b) a strategic game producer who prices its products considering both inter-temporal price discrimination and price competition with used goods, (c) rational expectations on future prices by both consumers and the firm, and (d) market equilibria for both new and used-goods markets. Without observing sales data, I use equilibrium pricing solutions in my model and the varying rate of price decrease after a game's release to identify the sales volume of a game in every period as a percentage of its total demand. I develop a computationally tractable utility specification to solve the computational challenge comes with modeling the supply side equilibrium. I construct the demand function for a game from heterogeneous consumers whose valuations distribute on an interval, and partially characterize the consumers' decisions and reduce the dimensionality of the state space. Applying the model to a unique dataset of game prices collected from the Internet, I estimate the game-specific demand for multiple games released in the U.S. market. The results show significant variation across games in terms of shapes of valuation distributions, expected play time, degrees of consumers' preference for new over used games, and price sensitivities. Policy simulations show that the effects of prohibiting resale largely depend on the shape of a game's demand distribution, because most of the profits are gained from higher-valuation consumers who purchase the game when the price is high. Prohibiting resale does not dampen their willingness to pay for the game because their high utility from playing it. Moreover, higher expected future prices in the absence of the used-game market further reduces their incentives to wait. I find the predicted profit increase is significant for most games when reselling is prohibited. However, games with demand consisting mostly of low valuation consumers benefit less from this structural change, because (a) early sales increase only slightly given a much smaller proportion of high valuation consumers and (b) losing the option to resell significantly decreases the willingness to pay for low valuation consumers, forcing the firm to slash its prices dramatically over time. I find empirical evidence that a firm can be better off with the used game market. This suggests that though eliminating the resale market is generally optimal for popular games, retaining it can be more profitable for some games. / text

Cette thèse est composée de trois chapitres indépendants. Le premier chapitre concerne la formation des anticipations. Je montre que les agents sont susceptibles d’utiliser un modèle mal spécifié plutôt que le "vrai" modèle de l’économie. Je considère une économie simple avec deux types d’agents. Les agents rationnels apprennent la solution à anticipation rationnelle tandis que les agents "cohérents" utilisent un modèle autorégressif. Je montre qu’un équilibre de long terme dans lequel les agents cohérents sont dominants existe. Des simulations montrent que l’économie peut converger vers cet équilibre. Le deuxième chapitre concerne le choix intertemporel. Je considère un modèle dans lequel la richesse entre dans l’utilité. J’étudie le cas non-séparable, séparant ainsi l’effet revenu sur l’offre de travail de l’effet de substitution intertemporelle. Je déduis des implications pour la politique économique, puis, j’estime les deux paramètre introduits par cette spécification de l’utilité. Je trouve des valeurs positives et élevées pour les deux. Le troisième chapitre présente un modèle d’investissement en présence de sélection adverse. Ma contribution est de fournir une solution simple, facile à intégrer dans un modèle macroéconomique. Les emprunteurs différent par le risque de leur projet d’investissement comme dans Stiglitz et Weiss (1981). Ils signalent le risque de leur projet en empruntant une fraction des bénéfices mis en réserve. J’obtiens une solution analytique pour la contrainte d’incitation. Je l’intègre dans un modèle dynamique et déduis certaines implications. / This thesis is made of three independent chapters. The first chapter contributes to the literature on expectations. I argue that they may learn a misspecified model instead of learning the rational expectation model. I consider a simple economy with two types of agents. Rational learners learn the true model of the economy whereas consistent learners learn an autoregressive model. I show that a long run equilibrium exists in which consistent learners dominate. Simulations show that the economy may converge towards it. The second chapter deals with the intertemporal choice. I consider a model with wealth in the utility. I study the case of nonseparability. This disentangles between the income effect on labor supply and the intertemporal substitution effect. I derive several implications for economic policy. Then, I estimate the two new parameters introduced in the paper. I find large and positive values for both. The third chapter builds a model of corporate investment under adverse selection. My contribution is to provide a tractable model easy to embed into a macroeconomic model. Borrowers differs by the riskiness of their investment project like in Stiglitz and Weiss (1981). They have infinite horizon and signal their type by borrowing a fraction of their retained earnings. I get an analytic solution for the incentive constraint. I integrate the relation into a dynamic model and derive some implications.

Nos últimos anos, um grande número de estudos tem investigado o consumo de cigarros com base em uma teoria que permeia uma relação entre custos e benefícios, envolvendo trocas entre consequências em curto e longo prazo, que tem sido proposta para explicar porque escolhas insalubres – incluindo exemplos nos âmbitos de poupança, procrastinação, vício e auto-confiança – ocorrem, apesar de refletirem prejuízos. Esta abordagem, aqui definida como preferência de tempo, é um fenômeno conhecido quando os benefícios estão no presente e os custos são projetados para o futuro, permeando a teoria de tomada de decisões ao longo do tempo (escolha intertemporal) – que reflete uma escolha entre uma recompensa menor imediata e uma recompensa maior atrasada. A fim de analisar a relação de escolha entre ganhos e perdas imediatos e atrasados, em diferentes contextos, e os diversos fatores que influenciam essa escolha, um questionário foi desenvolvido a partir de artigos anteriores (Kirby, 2009; Myerson et al., 2016) e aplicado a uma amostra da população de fumantes. O objetivo das análises do presente estudo baseia-se em avaliar a influência de variáveis como domínio, gênero, idade e impulsividade em cada uma das condições do questionário, chegando a conclusões a respeito da influência das mesmas, dependendo de variáveis como contexto, tipo e efeito. Os resultados do estudo comprovam que a preferência de tempo é uma medida válida para predizer o processo de tomada de decisão de consumidores de cigarros, o que significa que fumantes são mais propensos a escolher resultados imediatos em vez de resultados atrasados. Isto indica que, de modo geral, fumantes preferem recompensas imediatas do que benefícios futuros. No entanto, os resultados do estudo apontam que, sob determinadas condições, esse efeito de preferência de tempo se reduz, aumentando a propensão de escolha por resultados atrasados em vez de resultados imediatos. Estas circunstâncias foram encontradas em diferenças relacionadas ao contexto (fumo x genérico), diferenças relacionadas ao efeito de sinal (ganho x perda), diferenças em relação aos domínios (financeiro, saúde, estético e social), diferenças a cerca do modo de comprometimento de participação (pessoal x outros) e diferenças relacionadas às características demográficas dos respondentes (faixa etária e gênero). / In the last past years, a large number of studies have investigated cigarette smoking based on a theory that permeates a relationship between costs and benefits, involving trade-offs between short and long-term consequences, which has been proposed to explain why unhealthy choices, including exemples in the areas of savings, procrastination, addiction and self-confidence - occur, even though they reflect losses. This approach, here defined as time preference, is a known phenomenon when benefits are at the present and costs are projected into the future, permeating a decision-making theory over time (intertemporal choice) - which reflect a choice between a immediate but small reward and a larger but late reward. In order to analyze these choices between immediate and delayed gains and losses in different contexts, and the various factors that influence this choice, a questionnaire was developed based on previous articles (Kirby, 2009, Myerson et al., 2016) and applied into a sample of the population of smokers. The objective of the present study is to evaluate the influence of variables such as domain, gender, age and impulsivity in each of the conditions of the questionnaire, leading to conclusions about their influence, depending on variables such as context, type and effect. The results of the study prove that time preference is a valid measure to predict the decision-making process of smokers, which means that smokers are more likely to choose immediate outcomes rather than late outcomes. This indicates that, overall, smokers prefer immediate rewards than future benefits. However, the study results point out that, under certain conditions, this time preference effect is reduced, increasing the tendency to choose for delayed results rather than immediate results. These circumstances were found in differences related to the context (smoking x generic), differences related to the sign effect (gain x loss), differences in relation to the domains (financial, health, aesthetic and social), differences about the mode of commitment of participation (personal x other) and differences related to the demographic characteristics of the respondents (age rage and gender).

Made available in DSpace on 2013-08-07T18:47:50Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 000402188-Texto+Parcial-0.pdf: 179631 bytes, checksum: e28045ddc2f7f02f970460631e035881 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2008 / The current study, a Master’s Degree paper, is dedicated to relevant issues in the legal world. It is mainly about the concern about individuals’ acquired rights when it comes to successive constitutional changes in our legal system, an issue connected to the analysis of intertemporal Law. In this context, a thorough theoretical and jurisprudential explanation about conflicts of laws in time, focusing on the analysis of irretroativity and immediate law application, is followed. Regarding acquired rights, the theories of Italian Carlos Francesco Gabba and Frenchman Paul Roubier – important authors in the field – and their application in Brazilian Law are dealt with. Following, there is a focus on acquired rights as fundamental ones because they relate to essential aspects of human beings’ dignity, legal security, prohibition of social retrocession, proportionality, and social rights. The paper also discusses all past Brazilian Constitutions, and specifically the current one, and the concept of Constituent and Constituted Power. In this scenery, it is analyzed the reformation power of the constant Constitutional Amendments – some praiseworthy, other no to so much – and the limits that are imposed to this power by the essential nucleus of the Constitution, which includes acquired rights.Finally, scientific research is then connected to some real conflict hypothesis that emerged from our legal system following changes in the Constitutional text, such as the prescription for rural workers (EC 28/00) and modifications regarding reform of the Social Security system (EC 20/98, 41/03 e 47/05), which partly consolidated offenses to acquired rights. It is also vital the exam that was carried out on the decisions of the Brazilian Supreme Court, the guardian of our Constitutional system, regarding these conflicting hypothesis and the themes that are discussed in the paper – acquired rights, constitutional amendments and intertemporal Law. Conclusively, the text emphasizes the need for a Constant harmonization of the main principles of our legal system, with the maturing of the normative strength of the Constitution and the respect for acquired rights in order to reach social progress, without disregarding the necessary legal security of the Democratic Rule of Law. / O presente estudo, dissertação de Mestrado, dedica-se a questões relevantes no mundo jurídico. Aborda, especialmente, a preocupação com o respeito ao direito adquirido dos indivíduos em face das sucessivas alterações constitucionais em nosso ordenamento, assunto conjugado à análise do direito intertemporal. Nesse contexto, elabora-se larga explanação, doutrinária e jurisprudencial, acerca dos conflitos de leis no tempo, com ênfase na análise da irretroatividade e da aplicação imediata das leis. No tocante ao direito adquirido, trata-se das teorias do italiano Carlos Francesco Gabba e do francês Paul Roubier - autores exponenciais no assunto - e de sua aplicação no direito brasileiro. Nessa linha, enfoca-se o direito adquirido como garantia fundamental, pois relacionado aos aspectos essenciais da dignidade da pessoa humana, da segurança jurídica, da proibição de retrocesso social, da proporcionalidade e dos direitos sociais. Também, abordam-se todas as Constituições que já regeram nosso país, em específico a ainda vigente, passando pela noção de Poder Constituinte e Constituído. Nesse cenário, analisa-se o poder reformador das constantes emendas constitucionais - algumas elogiáveis, outras, nem um pouco - e a limitação imposta a esse poder pelas cláusulas pétreas - fazendo parte deste rol, o direito adquirido.Por fim, busca-se correlacionar a pesquisa científica com algumas hipóteses reais de conflito que emergiram em nosso ordenamento jurídico justamente em razão de modificações do texto constitucional, tais como a prescrição para o trabalhador rural (EC 28/00) e as referentes à reforma do sistema previdenciário (EC 20/98, 41/03 e 47/05), as quais, em parte, alicerçaram afronta aos direitos adquiridos. Imprescindível, além disso, o exame realizado em face dessas hipóteses conflitantes e dos temas abrigados pelo trabalho - direito adquirido, emenda constitucional e direito intertemporal - no posicionamento do Supremo Tribunal Federal, guardião do nosso sistema constitucional. Conclui-se o texto enfatizando a necessidade de harmonização constante dos princípios elementares do nosso ordenamento, com amadurecimento da força normativa da Constituição e do respeito ao direito adquirido, a fim de se atingir o progresso social, sem se descuidar da necessária segurança jurídica ao Estado Democrático de Direito.

Nos últimos anos, um grande número de estudos tem investigado o consumo de cigarros com base em uma teoria que permeia uma relação entre custos e benefícios, envolvendo trocas entre consequências em curto e longo prazo, que tem sido proposta para explicar porque escolhas insalubres – incluindo exemplos nos âmbitos de poupança, procrastinação, vício e auto-confiança – ocorrem, apesar de refletirem prejuízos. Esta abordagem, aqui definida como preferência de tempo, é um fenômeno conhecido quando os benefícios estão no presente e os custos são projetados para o futuro, permeando a teoria de tomada de decisões ao longo do tempo (escolha intertemporal) – que reflete uma escolha entre uma recompensa menor imediata e uma recompensa maior atrasada. A fim de analisar a relação de escolha entre ganhos e perdas imediatos e atrasados, em diferentes contextos, e os diversos fatores que influenciam essa escolha, um questionário foi desenvolvido a partir de artigos anteriores (Kirby, 2009; Myerson et al., 2016) e aplicado a uma amostra da população de fumantes. O objetivo das análises do presente estudo baseia-se em avaliar a influência de variáveis como domínio, gênero, idade e impulsividade em cada uma das condições do questionário, chegando a conclusões a respeito da influência das mesmas, dependendo de variáveis como contexto, tipo e efeito. Os resultados do estudo comprovam que a preferência de tempo é uma medida válida para predizer o processo de tomada de decisão de consumidores de cigarros, o que significa que fumantes são mais propensos a escolher resultados imediatos em vez de resultados atrasados. Isto indica que, de modo geral, fumantes preferem recompensas imediatas do que benefícios futuros. No entanto, os resultados do estudo apontam que, sob determinadas condições, esse efeito de preferência de tempo se reduz, aumentando a propensão de escolha por resultados atrasados em vez de resultados imediatos. Estas circunstâncias foram encontradas em diferenças relacionadas ao contexto (fumo x genérico), diferenças relacionadas ao efeito de sinal (ganho x perda), diferenças em relação aos domínios (financeiro, saúde, estético e social), diferenças a cerca do modo de comprometimento de participação (pessoal x outros) e diferenças relacionadas às características demográficas dos respondentes (faixa etária e gênero). / In the last past years, a large number of studies have investigated cigarette smoking based on a theory that permeates a relationship between costs and benefits, involving trade-offs between short and long-term consequences, which has been proposed to explain why unhealthy choices, including exemples in the areas of savings, procrastination, addiction and self-confidence - occur, even though they reflect losses. This approach, here defined as time preference, is a known phenomenon when benefits are at the present and costs are projected into the future, permeating a decision-making theory over time (intertemporal choice) - which reflect a choice between a immediate but small reward and a larger but late reward. In order to analyze these choices between immediate and delayed gains and losses in different contexts, and the various factors that influence this choice, a questionnaire was developed based on previous articles (Kirby, 2009, Myerson et al., 2016) and applied into a sample of the population of smokers. The objective of the present study is to evaluate the influence of variables such as domain, gender, age and impulsivity in each of the conditions of the questionnaire, leading to conclusions about their influence, depending on variables such as context, type and effect. The results of the study prove that time preference is a valid measure to predict the decision-making process of smokers, which means that smokers are more likely to choose immediate outcomes rather than late outcomes. This indicates that, overall, smokers prefer immediate rewards than future benefits. However, the study results point out that, under certain conditions, this time preference effect is reduced, increasing the tendency to choose for delayed results rather than immediate results. These circumstances were found in differences related to the context (smoking x generic), differences related to the sign effect (gain x loss), differences in relation to the domains (financial, health, aesthetic and social), differences about the mode of commitment of participation (personal x other) and differences related to the demographic characteristics of the respondents (age rage and gender).

abstract: This dissertation focuses on consequences of public policy on consumption responses. Chapter 1 evaluates the effect of Thailand's car tax rebate scheme in 2012 on household consumption by examining aggregate and administrative data. Car sales doubled during the policy and dramatically declined afterwards while domestic household spending was sluggish following the policy, suggesting a substantial dampening effect of the policy on future household consumption. Chapter 2 develops a formal model to evaluate Thai household consumption responses. A life-cycle model of consumption and saving is developed with features including uninsured income risks, liquidity constraints, durable goods with embedded adjustment costs and non-homothetic preference in durable goods. Adjustment costs and liquidity constraints are important frictions in the evaluation of the shorter-term responses to changes in relative prices, while non-homotheticity captures the income effect given that cars are luxury goods in the Thai economy context. Key parameters and the partial equilibrium responses, which are key inputs to inform the aggregate outcome of the policy, are estimated. The results show that the car-tax rebates had a sizable impact on slowing Thai household consumption following the policy due to high level of elasticity of intertemporal substitution among Thai households. Chapter 3 examines the effect of public smoking bans in the EU countries. Using individual-level data, this chapter investigates whether nationwide smoke-free laws in Europe lead to higher smoking reduction and cessation rates among mature smokers. Exploiting the different timing in imposing smoking ban laws and using a difference-in-differences approach, I find that light smokers and heavy smokers were more likely to quit smoking after comprehensive bans were in place while there was no significant effect on average smokers. The results confirm that smoking bans, particularly when enforced more strictly and comprehensively, lead to higher smoking cessation rates even among mature smokers with well-established addiction. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation Economics 2018

The concern with persistant high government deficits and debts has been one of the most controversial and discussed issues among academics and policymakers during the last two decades of the twentieth century. Despite recent efforts towards fiscal consolidation in most developed countries, expensive welfare programs and unfunded social security systems can exert a considerable strain on public finances over the next generations. The main objective of this thesis is to investigate whether current fiscal policies are sustainable, that is, able to guarantee the government's solvency, and what are the consequences of unsustainability on monetization, inflation and interest rates. The first question is tested by examining the long-run univariate and multivariate stochastic properties of the fiscal variables, as implied by the intertemporal budget constraint. The second question is assessed within a vector autoregressive framework, which allows the consideration of feedback mechanisms often neglected in the literature. More specifically, the econometric methodology employed throughout the study comprises recent developments in cointegration analysis, panel data techniques, bounds-ARDL procedure, and Granger non-causality. The empirical analysis is focused on a comparative study of six core members of the European Union, during the post-war period: Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, Netherlands and United Kingdom. The evidence suggests that only Germany and the Netherlands have been following a sustainable fiscal path, although the latter remains vulnerable to the consequences of an ever-increasing stock of debt. However, unsustainable fiscal policies do not seem to have imposed an excessive burden on monetary policies, as predicted by the conventional economic theory. Apart from Italy, there is no empirical evidence that high deficits necessarily imply monetary financing, growing inflation and rising interest rates.

The thesis analyzes the measure of academic procrastination among students and the measure of general procrastination among working population with a university degree. The thesis includes 3 studies. In study 1 an experiment was conducted on 33 students of the University of Economics in Prague. The results show, that students achieve better academic results given external, evenly distributed deadlines compared to when they are allowed to set the deadlines themselves. The second study analyses long-term data about 1909 students of the University of Economics and their academic results. The results show that procrastination can influence as much as 8% of the final grade. Study 3 analyzes information about 2487 subjects and their tax-return forms. It puts into context the dates of submission of the tax returns and personal characteristics of the submitters. The results show that procrastination declines with age. Methods on how to fight procrastination are suggested at the end of the thesis.