Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'Macroeconomic imbalance'

L'objet de cette thèse est d'étudier les liens qui existent entre les déséquilibres macroéconomiques et les crises, et de voir dans quelles mesures leur prise en compte peut aider une meilleure gestion des crises dans les pays de la zone euro. Les différents chapitres de cette thèse tentent d'apporter des réponses à trois questions importantes : Quels sont les indicateurs macro-financiers qui pourraient aider à mieux anticiper les épisodes de stress budgétaire dans les pays de la zone euro ? Quelles seraient les conséquences de la mise en place d'un système de garantie des dépôts bancaires sur les variables macroéconomiques et sur le comportement des investisseurs, investisseurs qui tiendraient compte du risque de défaut souverain ? Dans quelle mesure une meilleure qualité des institutions, de la gouvernance pourrait-elle aider à améliorer la croissance de long terme d'une économie contrainte sur le marché international des capitaux ? En retenant une approche de court terme, les deux premiers chapitres montrent l'importance de la confiance des marchés dans l'analyse du lien entre déséquilibres macroéconomiques et crises. Dans le troisième chapitre, nous adoptons une perspective de plus long terme pour analyser les effets de cette confiance des marchés sur la dynamique de la croissance. Notre approche est à la fois théorique et empirique. L'approche théorique se base sur les modèles DSGE (modèles d'équilibre général stochastiques dynamiques et la modélisation d'une crise dans une petite économie ouverte. L'approche empirique se focalise sur les modèles Probit/Logit sur données de panel et sur un modèle d'alerte fondé sur des signaux avancés (early warning indicators)<br>This dissertation consists of three essays on how macro-financial imbalances precede crises and to what extent their consideration can help better management of crises in the Eurozone countries. The different chapters of this thesis, try to answer three important questions : What are the macro-financial imbalances that exposed the Euro area countries to fiscal stress before the outbreak of the debt crises in Europe? What are the impacts of sovereign default and deposit guarantee on macroeconomic variables and on the behavior of investors ? To what extent could better institutions/governance help to improve the long-term growth in a constrained economy on the international capital market ? Using a short-term approach, the first two chapters show the importance of market confidence in analysis of the link between macroeconomic imbalances and crises. In the third chapter, we adopt a long-term perspective to analyze the effects of this market confidence on the dynamics of growth. Our approach is both theoretical and empirical. The theoretical approach is based on the DSGE models (dynamic stochastic general equilibrium models) and the modeling of a crisis in a small open economy (SOE). The empirical approach focuses on Probit/Logit models for panel data and on Signal model based on early warning indicators

This thesis analyses determinants for structural reforms in the euro area. First, it is theoretically scrutinized how the common monetary policy of the European Central Bank causes a reform bias between small and large countries. Second, it is examined how private market adjustment, structural reforms and their interaction affect the intra-euro area current account balances of euro area countries. Third, it is analysed how an asymmetric foreign asset and liability distribution across the euro area affects single countries need for structural reforms of labour markets. Fourth, the impact of fiscal stabilization policy on structural reform activity will be examined.

The papers in this thesis explore the political economy of the macroeconomic imbalances that built up between advanced democracies during the Great Moderation—the long period of reduced macroeconomic volatility and low inflation that preceded the global financial crisis. More specifically, the papers focus on the role that institutions, political systems and electoral politics, and government demand-side policies played in the imbalances that emerged in real exchange rates and current accounts. The first paper uses macroeconomic data on OECD economies and a new statistical approach for causal inference in observational studies—the synthetic control method—to estimate the effect of the European Monetary Union (EMU) on the current account balances of individual member states. This counterfactuals approach provides strong evidence that the introduction of the EMU was responsible for the divergence in current account balances among member states. The second paper maps out the complex set of interrelationships between varieties of capitalism, growth models, and political systems in advanced democracies. The new approach to comparative political economy developed in the paper provides a theoretical framework that helps explain the current account divergence between the export-led coordinated market economies (CMEs) and the consumption-led liberal market economies (LMEs). The third paper brings modern macroeconomics back into political science. The paper sets out a suite of simple open economy macroeconomic models and uses them to show how governments pursuing different demand-side policies can result in persistent current account imbalances between countries within a system of independent inflation-targeting central banking. Taken together, the papers provide important theoretical arguments and empirical evidence on the political (and political economic) drivers of the macroeconomic imbalances that were a crucial precursor to the worst global economic downturn since the Great Depression of the 1930s.

Thesis advisor: Fabio Ghironi<br>Thesis advisor: Susanto Basu<br>The present dissertation is composed by three essays. The first essay is titled ``Comparative Advantage, Service Trade, and Global Imbalances''. The large current account deficit of the U.S. is the result of a large deficit in the goods balance and a modest surplus in the service balance. The opposite is true for Japan, Germany and China. Moreover, I document the emergence from the mid-nineties of a strong negative relation between specialization in export of services and current account balances in a large sample of OECD and developing countries. Starting from these new stylized facts, I propose in this essay a ``service hypothesis'' for global imbalances, a new explanation based on the interplay between the U.S. comparative advantage in services and the asymmetric trade liberalization process in goods trade versus service trade that took place in the last 15 years. I use a structural gravity model to quantify the extent of this asymmetry. I show that a simple two-period model can rationalize the emergence of current account deficits in the presence of such asymmetric liberalization. The key inter-temporal mechanism is the asymmetric timing of trade policies, which affects savings decisions. Finally, I explore the quantitative relevance of this explanation for global imbalances. A multi-period version of the model, fed with the asymmetric trade liberalization path found in the data, generates a current account deficit of about 1% of GDP (roughly 20% of what was observed in the U.S. in 2006). The policy implications of the analysis proposed could be relevant for the evolution of the WTO DOHA Development Round. A major focus on services, in fact, could help expanding the ``policy space'' faced by the negotiators, possibly increasing the likelihood of a successful conclusion of the round. Moreover, this paper inform also the recent debate about the need of a revaluation of the yuan. Allowing the U.S. to increase its exports of services (not necessarily to China) might help alleviating global imbalances even without movements in the exchange rates. The second essay is titled ``Estimating Trade and Investment Flows: Partners and Volumes''. I present empirical evidence from a large sample of countries for the period 2000-2006. Bilateral foreign direct investment (FDI) flows are almost never observed in the absence of bilateral trade flows, thus configuring an order of trade and investment flows. I document a similar pattern using bilateral foreign affiliate sales (FAS), aggregating them up from a large firm level dataset (ORBIS), which includes over 45,000 firms. I propose a model where heterogeneous firms face a proximity-concentration tradeoff when they decide whether to serve foreign markets through export or FDI. I derive theory-based gravity-type equations for the aggregate bilateral trade and foreign affiliate sales (FAS) flows. I then suggest a two-stage estimation procedure. In the first stage, a ordered Probit model is used to retrieve consistent estimates of the terms needed to correct the flows equations for heterogeneity and selection. In the second stage, a maximum likelihood estimator is applied to the corrected trade and FAS equations. The main results of the analysis are as follows: 1) The impact of distance, border and regional trade agreements on bilateral foreign affiliate sales becomes substantially smaller after controlling for selection and firms' heterogeneity (hence separating the impact on the extensive versus the intensive margin). 2) The same ``attenuation'' result is found also for the trade equations, consistently with HMR. 3) When FAS are observed, failing to take this into account when correcting for heterogeneity and selection in the trade equations leads to differences in the estimated coefficients. The third essay is titled ``Some Evidence on the Importance of Sticky Wages'', and is co-authored with Susanto Basu and Peter Gottshalk. Nominal wage stickiness is an important component of recent medium-scale structural macroeconomic models, but to date there has been little microeconomic evidence supporting the assumption of sluggish nominal wage adjustment. We present evidence on the frequency of nominal wage adjustment using data from the Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP) for the period 1996-1999. The SIPP provides high-frequency information on wages, employment and demographic characteristics for a large and representative sample of the US population. The main results of the analysis are as follows. 1) After correcting for measurement error, wages appear to be very sticky. In the average quarter, the probability that an individual will experience a nominal wage change is between 5 and 18 percent, depending on the samples and assumptions used. 2) The frequency of wage adjustment does not display significant seasonal patterns. 3) There is little heterogeneity in the frequency of wage adjustment across industries and occupations 4) The hazard of a nominal wage change first increases and then decreases, with a peak at 12 months. 5) The probability of a wage change is positively correlated with the unemployment rate and with the consumer price inflation rate. To a certain extent, the three essays presented here are self-contained and deal with three different issues regarding international economics and macroeconomics. Going to a deeper level, however, the essays are linked by a common feature: they are three examples of economic research across fields. The first essay, in fact, is an example of the growing fields at the edge between international trade and international macroeconomics. While the trade of goods and services and the dynamics of macroeconomic variables such as the current account are highly interconnected in the real world, these two fields have been characterized by a large divide in the last thirty years in the economic literature. The second essay is an example of a joint study of international trade and investment flows. Also in this case, while conceptually clearly interconnected, these topics have been usually studied separately by the economic literature. Finally, the third essay is an example of research across fields (labor economics and macroeconomics) and techniques (micro-level analysis informing macroeconomic models). In this last case, macroeconomists were interested in estimating certain wage dynamics parameters highly used in macro models. However, they were largely unaware of the fact that labor economists had the data to answer those research questions. On the other hand, the labor economists had the data, but not the questions. I hope that these essays might help increasing further the awareness that more communication between economists working in different fields can bring to valuable insights<br>Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2011<br>Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences<br>Discipline: Economics

This paper investigates a new category of influential factors on business cycle synchronization (BCS), so far hardly regarded in the BCS literature: It provides an empirical assessment of the impact of macroeconomic imbalances, as monitored by the European Commission by the scoreboard indicators since 2011, on BCS in the Euozone. We use a quarterly data set covering the period 2002-2012 and estimate the direct and indirect effects of macroeconomic imbalances in the pre- and post-crisis period in a simultaneous equations model. Business cycle correlation between EA members is measured by the recently proposed dynamic conditional correlation of Engle 2002 which can better identify synchronous and asynchronous behaviour of BC than the commonly used measures. We find that appearing differences between EA members in the current account, in government deficit and public debt, in private debt and unit labor cost developments have reduced BCS in the EA, even more in the post-crisis period than before. Moreover, these explanatory factors of BCS, generally reinforce each other and are also influenced by other critical macro imbalances. Since BCS is essential in a monetary union, this paper provides clear support that a stronger, common economic governance would be important for the functioning and survival of the Eurozone. (authors' abstract)<br>Series: Department of Economics Working Paper Series

La phase la plus récente de la mondialisation, Chaînes de Valeur Mondiales (CVM), est datée du début des années 1990. La naissance de l'Organisation Mondiale du Commerce a abattu de nombreuses barrières commerciales et a conduit à la libéralisation dans des domaines tels que les télécommunications, les services financiers et les technologies de l'information. Cela a suscité l'émergence de nouveaux modèles d'affaires qui s'appuyaient sur de nouvelles opportunités pour développer des avantages comparatifs. Il s'est développé dans un flux constant d'investissement, de technologies, de biens intermédiaires et les services aux entreprises. C'est ce qu'on a appelé la «chaîne d'approvisionnement internationale». La principale caractéristique de ce phénomène est l'augmentation du commerce des biens finaux et intermédiaires entre les pays. Les biens intermédiaires ont généré la structure de production du réseau du commerce international et, donc, l'exposition à de nouveaux défis économiques qui ne sont pas saisis et pleinement compris par les statistiques commerciales bilatéraux. L'existence du réseau commercial international, liant les pays non seulement du côté de la consommation mais aussi de la production, fait que le contenu à valeur ajoutée du commerce diffère des exportations brutes. C'est précisément la valeur ajoutée qui est le principal objet d'intérêt économique parce qu'elle détermine l'activité économique et le niveau global de l'emploi dans un pays. La question principale est donc de savoir si les changements dans l'organisation du commerce mondial devraient conduire à une révision de nos intuitions économiques. C'est l'objet de cette thèse, dans laquelle je passe en revue de nombreux sujets et d'hypothèses économiques pressantes et les relie aux schémas de production mondiaux.Cette thèse couvre les thèmes suivants: (i) le rôle des accords de libre-échange et des technologies de l'information et de la communication "captés comme effet frontière"; (ii) les élasticités des exportations à valeur ajoutée; les déséquilibres commerciaux. Alors que les résultats pour de nombreux pays sont rapportés, j'accorde une attention particulière aux pays européens. D'une manière générale, les résultats montrent que (i) les accords de libre-échange augmentent le commerce bilatéral de 54% en moyenne après 10 ans ou plus, au tant pour les biens finaux que pour les biens intermédiaires. Le "border effect" est devenu moins contraignant avec le temps, les échanges de biens finaux ont augmenté de 443% par rapport au commerce intérieur depuis 1970, tandis que la hausse a été de 195% pour les biens intermédiaires. Ils fournissent également la preuve que l'effet des accords de libre-échange sur le commerce s'est renforcé avec le temps. (ii) Les conséquences de négliger la dimension des CVM pour l'élasticité des exportations à valeur ajoutée sont qu'elles ne sont pas constantes dans le temps et inférieures à celles des exportations brutes. Une contribution importante est ici de mettre en place un cadre souple qui lie les changements dans les exportations à valeur ajoutée aux changements dans le flux réel des biens finaux et intermédiaires. Cela rend plus facile de calculer d'autres outils qui ont été développés auparavant dans la littérature, comme les taux de change effectif réel (REER) en termes de valeur ajoutée. (iii) L'utilisation d'une approche à valeur ajoutée pour étudier les déséquilibres commerciaux montre que nous ne comprenons toujours pas complètement les causes et les conséquences de ces déséquilibres et que les CVM ne font que compliquer davantage les choses. Par conséquence, je démêle les différentes composantes de la dynamique de la balance commerciale (la performance commerciale et la croissance de la demande) tout en intégrant les liens internationaux du réseau de production entrées-sorties. Enfin, j'explique dans quelle mesure les dévaluations internes sont suffisantes pour compenser la rigidité des taux de change intra-Euro<br>The most recent phase of globalization, the so-called Global Value Chains (GVCs), is dated at the beginning of the 1990s. The birth of the World Trade Organization brought down many trade barriers and led to liberalization in areas like telecommunications, financial services, and information technologies. It meant the emergence of new business models that built on new opportunities to develop comparative advantages. With the opening of new markets, the technical revolution in IT and communications, and the closer harmonization of economic models worldwide, trade became much more than just a simple exchange of merchandise across borders. It developed into a constant flow of investment, of technologies, of goods for processing and business services. This is what has been called the "International Supply Chain". The key characteristic of this phenomenon is the increasing trade in final and intermediate goods among countries. Intermediate goods generated the network production structure of international trade and with it the exposure to new policy challenges that are not captured and fully understand by bilateral trade statistics. The existence of the international trade network, linking countries not only on the consumption side but also on production, makes the value-added content of trade to differ from gross exports. Nevertheless, it is precisely domestic value added the primary object of economic interest because it determines economic activity and the overall employment level in a country. The main question, therefore, is whether the changes in the organization of world trade should lead to a revision on our Economic intuitions. This is the purpose of this thesis, in which I review many pressing economic topics and hypotheses, and connect them with the global production patterns.This thesis covers the topics of (i) the trade-enhancing role of Free Trade Agreements (FTAs) and Information and Communication Technologies (ICT, "captured as a border effect"), (ii) value-added exports elasticities, and (iii) trade imbalances. While results for many countries are reported, I pay particular attention to the European countries. Broadly speaking, results show that (i) FTAs increase bilateral trade by 54% on average after 10 or more years, for both final goods and intermediate inputs. The border effect has become less binding over time, increasing trade in final goods an astounding 443%, relative to domestic trade since 1970, while the rise has been 195% for intermediate inputs. They also provide evidence that the trade effect of FTAs has strengthened over time. (ii) The implications of neglecting the GVC dimension for the value-added export elasticity are that it is not constant over time and lower than for gross exports. An important contribution here is to put in place a tractable framework that links changes in value-added exports to changes in the actual flow of final and intermediate goods. This makes easier to compute other tools that have been developed before in the literature like GVC Real Effective Exchange Rates (REERs). (iii) Using a value-added approach to study trade imbalances shows that we still do not have a full understanding of the causes and consequences of these imbalances and that GVC only makes it more challenging. Therefore, I disentangle the different components of the trade balance dynamics (trade performance and demand growth) while incorporating the international input-output production network linkages. Finally, I shed some light on to what extent internal devaluations are sufficient to offset the intra-Euro nominal exchange rigidity

This work is aimed to determine whether the Czech Republic is ready to enter to the third stage of European economic and monetary union which is associated with the adoption of the euro, and that regarding the fulfillment of the formal entry criteria and also in terms of alignment of the Czech economy with the rest of the eurozone. On that basis evaluate whether it is advantageous for the country to adopt the euro. The first part introduces the different stages of regional integration, as well as the theory of optimum currency areas and economic governance in the European Union. The second chapter is devoted to evaluate the readiness of the Czech Republic to join the euro zone from three perspectives. First, fulfillment of nominal convergence criteria is evaluated. Real convergence and macroeconomic imbalances within the euro area are assessed using cluster analysis. The second approach is to analyze whether EMU constitute an optimal currency area. At the end the experience, of three countries of the eastern enlargement, with changeover to a common currency are presented.

Flow of new information is what produces price changes, understanding if the market is unbalanced is fundamental to know how much inventory market makers should keep during an important economic release. After identifying which economic indicators impact the S&P and 10 year Treasuries. The Volume Synchronized Probability of Information-Based Trading (VPIN) will be used as a predictability measure. The results point to some predictability power over economic surprises of the VPIN metric, mainly when calculated using the S&P. This finding appears to be supported when analysing depth imbalance before economic releases. Inferior results were achieved when using treasuries. The final aim of this study is to fill the gap between microstructural changes and macroeconomic events.

The contribution of this dissertation is to empirically analyze the link between income distribution, sectoral financial balances, and the current account. Firstly, it examines the relationship between the personal and the functional income distribution which may have rather different implications for aggregate demand and the current account. Secondly, it analyzes the importance of different sectors of the economy for current account balances and tests whether households are able to fully pierce the institutional veils of the corporate and the government sector. Thirdly, it investigates how changes in the personal and the functional income distribution affect the saving and investment decisions of the household and the corporate sector, and hence the current account. Finally, it shows how different growth regimes are linked to different patterns of personal and functional income distribution, and how differences in wage bargaining institutions contribute to explaining these different patterns of income distribution<br>Der Forschungsschwerpunkt der vorliegenden Dissertation ist die empirische Analyse des Zusammenhangs zwischen Einkommensverteilung, sektoralen Finanzierungssalden und der Leistungsbilanz. Erstens untersucht die Dissertation die Beziehung zwischen der personellen Einkommensverteilung und der funktionalen Einkommensverteilung, welche unterschiedliche Implikationen für die aggregierte Nachfrage und die Leistungsbilanz haben können. Zweitens wird die Rolle der unterschiedlichen Sektoren innerhalb einer Volkswirtschaft für die Entwicklung von Leistungsbilanzsalden analysiert. Es wird getestet, inwiefern die Ersparnisbildung der privaten Haushalte von der Ersparnis der anderen inländischen Sektoren (Unternehmen, Staat) abhängt. Drittens wird der Einfluss von Veränderungen in der personellen und funktionalen Einkommensverteilung auf das Spar- und Investitionsverhalten des privaten Haushaltssektors und des Unternehmenssektors sowie auf den Leistungsbilanzsaldo untersucht. Schließlich zeigt die Dissertation, wie unterschiedliche Ausprägungen in der Einkommensverteilung in einzelnen Ländern zur Entstehung von unterschiedlichen Wachstumsmodellen beitragen und wie sich Unterschiede in der Koordinierung von Lohnverhandlungen auf die Einkommensverteilung auswirken

This thesis examined an ability of the scoreboard indicators created by the European Commission to capture macroeconomic imbalances expressed as the changes of GDP. We conducted an empirical analysis for panel data of 27 EU countries in the 1997-2011 period. We adopted three different dynamic panel data models based on the three estimators: the Arrelano- Bond, the Arrelano-Bover and the corrected LSDV estimator. Our results suggest that despite some bad characteristics of our dataset we can conclude that some of the indicators such as 3- year average of current account balance or percentage change in export market shares seem to be inadequate for measuring the imbalances. Moreover, the indicators were proved not to be able to predict an occurrence of imbalances.