La présente thèse analyse l’impact de l’inflation sur la croissance économique et ses différents déterminants. Dansun premier temps, notre étude s’intéresse à deux aspects de la relation entre l’inflation et la croissance économique.Ainsi, nous examinons tout d’abord la non-linéarité du lien entre l’inflation et la croissance économique et identifionsplusieurs seuils pour l'échantillon global ainsi que pour les différents sous-échantillons définis selon le niveau durevenu. Ensuite, nous procédons à l’identification de certaines caractéristiques macroéconomiques au niveau despays qui influencent cette non-linéarité. Nos résultats empiriques corroborent les deux éléments d’analyse précédentset montrent que la non-linéarité de la relation entre l'inflation et la croissance dépend de l’ouverture commerciale dupays, de son accumulation de capital et du niveau de ses dépenses publiques (chapitre 2). Puis, dans un secondtemps, nous nous intéressons à l’explication de la non-linéarité de la relation entre l’inflation et la croissance entestant l’effet Tobin de l’inflation sur le capital physique et sur l’effet de substitution entre le travail et l’éducationpour le capital humain. Nous montrons que l’impact positif des taux d’inflation modérés résulte de l’effet Tobin surle capital physique, tandis que la réduction de l'impact de l'accélération de l'inflation provient d’une meilleureaccumulation du capital humain. Nous confirmons tous ces effets et mettons en évidence le rôle du développementfinancier pour l'ensemble de ces mécanismes (chapitre 3). Enfin, nous abordons la question du manque de cohérenceentre la vision macroéconomique fondée sur la détermination d’un seuil optimal d'inflation et les préférences réellesdes banques centrales à travers le monde. Nous remarquons que les banques centrales utilisent des modèlesmicroéconomiques néo-keynésiens qui définissent le taux d'inflation optimal comme celui minimisant les dispersionsdans les marchés des produits et des facteurs de production. Nous testons alors l'effet de l'inflation sur la variabilitédes prix relatifs et de la croissance ; nos résultats montrent que seul un faible taux d’inflation positif réduit cesincertitudes et cela quel que soit le niveau de revenu du pays. Concernant les pays émergents de notre échantillon, lechoix du régime de politique monétaire affecte également cette variabilité (chapitre 4). / This thesis is concerned with the effects of inflation on output growth and on its determinants. In the first step, ourstudy analyzes two aspects of the inflation–growth relationship. First, it examines the nonlinearity of the relationshipbetween inflation and output growth and identifies several thresholds for the global sample and for various incomespecificsub-samples. Secondly, it identifies some country-based macroeconomic features that influence thisnonlinearity. Our empirical results substantiate both views and validate the fact that the inflation–growth nonlinearityis sensitive to a country’s trade openness capital accumulation, and government expenditures (chapter 2). After that,we explain this inflation–growth nonlinearity by testing a Tobin effect of inflation on physical capital and asubstitution effect – from work to education – for human capital. We find that the positive effects of moderateinflation rate are due to the Tobin effect on physical capital whereas a weak negative effect of high inflation ratestems from a better human capital accumulation. We identify a strong role of well developed financial systems in allthese mechanisms (chapter 3). Lastly, we address a lack of coherence between the macro based optimal inflationthresholds for output growth and the actual preferences of central banks around the world. We notice that centralbanks use micro based New-Keynesian models and their optimal inflation rate is the one that minimizes dispersionsin factors and product markets. We test the effect of inflation on relative price variability and output growthvariability and, for all income groups, the results support a slight positive inflation rate to minimize theseuncertainties. For our selected emerging economies, monetary policy regimes also affect these dispersions (chapter4).

[pt] À medida que a literatura de transformação estrutural esteve focada em explicar os Kuznets facts - um conjunto de regularidades empíricas apresentado pela dinâmica dos setores de uma economia - questões importantes ficaram à margem. A desigualde foi uma delas: Simon Kuznets, o pai dessa literatura, repetitivamente defendeu que desigualdade e dinâmica setorial eram relacionadas. Nesse sentido, nosso objetivo é extender o modelo canônico de trasformação estrutual de forma a introduzir distribuição de renda e riqueza entre indivíduos. Permitimos que haja risco idiossincrático e mercados incompletos em um ambiente de crescimento com dois setores. Em um exercício quantitativo, é conduzida uma transição secular entre uma economia pobre baseada em bens para uma economia rica intensiva em serviços - ao longo da qual o modelo gera uma curva em U invertido para a trajetória da desigualdade. Nossa contribuição é sugerir como o preço relativo entre consumo e investimento (que varia no tempo e decorre da estrutura multi-setorial do modelo) tem um papel importante no comportamento das medidas distributivas. Também mostramos que o consumo de subsistência, típico de ambientes de transformação estrutural, pode influenciar a desigualdade. Na sequência, o modelo é extendido com uma restrição sobre a capacidade dos trabalhadores de se moverem entre os setores - e mostramos como essa fricção pode amplificar o o formato em U invertido seguido pelo Gini de renda e riqueza. Por fim, nossa economia é calibrada para os Estados Unidos (1950-2000), gerando evidências qualitativas e quantitativas do efeito sobre a desigualdade de ambos os efeitos acima (preço relativo e consumo de subsistência). A evidência quantitativa, porém, é em certos casos limitada. / [en] While the structural change literature has been mainly focused on explaining the Kuznets Facts - a set of regularities concerning sectoral dynamics throughout economic growth - important issues were left apart. Inequality was one of them: Simon Kuznets, the father of this literature, when making some of the first documentation of structural change patterns, repetitively expressed his concern that inequality and sector reallocation were linked. In this regard, we seek to extend the benchmark model of structural change to introduce wealth and income distribution. We allow idiosyncratic risk and incomplete markets in a two-sector environment of growth. In a quantitative exercise, a secular transition from a poor and good s producer economy to a richer and service-based one is conducted. The model can account for an inverse U-shaped path for inequality as growth takes place. Our contribution is to suggest how a time-varying relative price of consumption and investment - yielded by the model s multi-sector structure - plays a role in the inequality behavior. We also show that the subsistence consumption requirement, typical of structural change setups, can influence distributional variables. The model is extended with a restriction over workers capacity to move across sectors - and we show that it amplifies the inverse U-shaped path followed by the income and wealth Gini. Finally, the model is calibrated for the US economy (1950-2000), yielding qualitative and quantitative evidence of the effect on inequality from both mechanisms presented above (relative prices and subsistence consumption). Quantitative strength, however, is in some cases limited.

The New Zealand Wool Industry (NZWI) contributes over a billion dollars a year to NZ gross output. However, this industry is at a crossroads and the incumbent practitioners are looking for ways to increase the value of the New Zealand wool clip. The value of the industry to the economy is directly related to the price which buyers are prepared to pay for wool, primarily as a result of the marketing approaches used, physical parameters of wool as well as intra and inter-fibre competition. The inflation adjusted price has steadily decreased over recent years and understanding of its dynamics is a fundamental problem for the stakeholders. Among the stakeholders, buyers / exporters, heavily involved in the process of price formation currently face a real time problem of sourcing strong wool from two parallel but different marketing systems operated simultaneously – auction and direct supply. The underlying mathematics which governs the decision making of buyers on the price dynamics in these sourcing options is poorly understood. This study developed system models for price formation in both auction and direct supply sourcing and an associated optimization model for the buyer / exporter of the New Zealand wool clip. All three of these models were original and none appear to have been described previously. It is hoped that these three models will be of quite general utility and also be useful therefore for other agricultural commodities that are traded simultaneously via auction and direct supply. The average price for a given wool type, which is the output from this new modelling exercise is precisely what is required as input data for solving the minimization problem in wool blending models.