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Three Essays on Empirical Analysis of Economic Policy
Baxa, Jaromír ; Vošvrda, Miloslav (advisor) ; Vašíček, Osvald (referee) ; Hančlová, Jana (referee) ; Slačálek, Jiří (referee)
This dissertation thesis is focused on the empirical analysis of monetary and fiscal policy using nonlinear models. In the first part, I examine the evolution of monetary policy rules in a group of inflation targeting countries. I apply a moment-based estimator in a time-varying parameter model with endogenous regressors. The main findings are twofold. First, with adoption of inflation targeting, coefficients in the monetary policy rules changed rather gradually. Second, the response of interest rates to inflation is particularly strong during periods when central bankers want to break a record of high inflation. Contrary to common view, the response of interest rates to inflation becomes less aggressive after the adoption of inflation targeting, suggesting a positive anchoring effect of this regime on inflation expectations. The second part discusses whether and how the selected central banks responded to episodes of financial stress over the last three decades. The time-varying monetary policy rule is extended for an indicator of financial stress, in order to show the departures of policy rules under financial instability. The findings suggest that central banks often decrease policy rates in the face of high financial stress. However, the size of the policy response varies substantially over time as well...
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Kvantitativní analýza interakcí fiskální politiky a reálné ekonomiky v České republice
Valenta, Vilém ; Hronová, Stanislava (advisor) ; Arlt, Josef (referee) ; Slačálek, Jiří (referee)
After many decades, macroeconomic effects of fiscal policy have returned to the centre of the economic policy debate. Both automatic fiscal stabilizers and discretionary fiscal stimuli have been used to support aggregate demand during the recent global economic crisis with a subsequent need for large-scale fiscal consolidations. In this context, a proper assessment of the size of automatic fiscal stabilizers and fiscal multipliers represents a key input for fiscal policymaking. This dissertation provides a quantitative analysis of the interactions between fiscal policy and real economy in the Czech Republic. The impact of real economy developments on public finances is assessed based on the methods of the OECD, the European Commission and the ESCB for the identification of general government structural balances, i.e. balances adjusted for effects of the economic cycle and net of one-off and other temporary transactions. I find that the underlying fiscal position, as approximated by the government structural balance, was mostly below the level stabilising the debt-to-GDP ratio since mid-1990s. An indistinct improvement in the structural balance can be identified in the period 2004--2007, which was subsequently reversed by the adverse structural impact of the world economic crisis. At the same time, dynamics of unadjusted fiscal balance was largely determined by one-off transactions in the past. The effects of fiscal policy on real economy are analysed using the structural VAR approach. I find that an increase in government spending has a temporary positive effect on output that peaks after one to two years with a multiplier of around 0.6. Tax multiplier appears to be small and, in contrast to standard Keynesian assumptions, positive. Government spending is supportive to private consumption, contradicting the hypothesis of Ricardian equivalence, but it crowds out private investment in the short run. The results should be interpreted with caution, as the analysis is complicated by rapidly changing economic environment in the period of the economic transition, relatively short available time series and a large number of one-off fiscal transactions.
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