Long-run inflation-growth relationship: nominal rigidities, unemployment and financial frictions

The issue tackled in this thesis is the long-run relationship inflation/growth in neo-Keynesian DSGE models with endogenous growth, considering the coherence of the inflation targets of the central banks.The results obtained are related to the type of wage considered, the existence of frictions in labor and credit markets and the empirical implications for six advanced countries. They can be summarized in the following four points: The consideration of the wage per unit of labor (per worker or per hour) is the reason for obtaining negative optimal trend inflation, while that inflation is zero with wage per unit of human capital. Both results come from a dynamic mechanism that reaches a situation which is equivalent to wage flexibility. The same results on optimal inflation are confirmed once unemployment is introduced in the models and it is found an extension of the Friedman critique to the de Phillips curve in the long run which generalizes the usual version of the mainstream macroeconomic models.The extension maintains the inflation/unemployment independence (natural rate), adding a protagonist role of employment and labor force participation rates, that are maximal for the optimal inflation rate. The inflation rate value that coincides with the natural unemployment rate is not indifferent, as in Friedman’s critique, because it can be accompanied by different growth, employment and labor force participation rates. The frictions of the financial sector confirm the same results on the optimal trend inflation and not always have a negative impact on the achievable economic growth because it depends on the type of friction. Finally, the empirical application explores in what extent the six considered countries could improve their growth, employment and labor force participation rates according to the obtained inflation/growth relationship in every case. The growth gain, after adjusting their inflation targets, would come for the USA, Australia and Spain from an increase of the employment and labor force participation rates, while in the case of Japan, France y Germany it would come from a productivity increase. <br /

Unconventional monetary policies and the credit market

We propose a theoretical model based on the bank lending channel to assess the ability of lending facilities and swap programs to affect the credit interest rate. The model predicts the success of both unconventional monetary measures in reducing the credit interest rate under very general conditions. The comparison between measures reveals the outperformance of lending facilities over swap programs if i) the risk premium on the interbank money market is sizeable and the yield on government bonds is low, ii) the share of bank lending obtained from the central bank is below some specific threshold, iii) the interest rate offered by the central bank on excess reserves is high, and iv) the default rate on loans is high. The quantitative assessment of the model with real data confirms the appropriate response of the Federal Reserve in recent crisis episodes but sheds some doubts on the European Central Bank intervention

The impact of the American Civil War on city growth

This paper analyzes the persistence of the shock caused by the American Civil War on the relative city size distribution of the United States. Our fi�ndings suggest that the effects of this shock were permanent, which sharply contrasts with previous results regarding World War II for Japanese and German cities. It should be taken into account that the conflict considered in this paper took place at an earlier stage of the industrialization and urbanization processes. Moreover, our results are determined by the fact that the battles were fought in the open �field, not in urban areas. Some related evidence regarding the presence of a safe harbour effect is reported.

Non-linearities in regional growth: A non-parametric approach

This paper analyses the determinants of regional economic growth in the European Union adopting a non-parametric approach. Although the local-linear kernel estimator applied does not explicitly take into account the spatial dimension of the data, it is found to be consistent in our context. In addition, the geographically weighted regression turns out to be less efficient. We obtain evidence of a non-linear relationship between regional growth and its determinants in the form of parameter heterogeneity and threshold effects. These non-linearities mainly affect the initial productivity of labour, the human capital endowment and, as a novelty, the level of infrastructures

Terrorism Determinants, Model Uncertainty and Space in Colombia

This paper studies the determinants of terrorism at the sub-national level in Colombia during 2001–2014. In order to establish robust relationships, a Bayesian model averaging framework has been implemented using departmental data. We find that the violence suffered by this country is linked to economic factors, especially labor market outcomes. The results obtained are not significantly altered by the use of relative measures of terror, the specification of alternative parameters and model priors or the presence of spatial dependence. The main conclusion drawn from our analysis is that an appropriate strategy to fight against terrorism in similar contexts is to increase its opportunity cost. This might be achieved through the promotion of inclusive socioeconomic development, primarily in rural areas

Gibrat’s law for countries

A re-assessment of Gibrat's Law in the context of country size is carried out in this paper. In addition, how similarly population is distributed in cities and countries is analyzed from a temporal perspective. Although evidence of Gibrat's Law is found, it is weaker than that previously established in Rose (2006). This is due to the methodology applied and is especially appreciable in very small countries. Nonetheless, we observe that the population growth process in countries is similar to that of cities. As a result, the similarities between how the population is distributed in these two geographical categories have increased over time

Crecimiento Económico y Desarrollo Financiero, 2000-2020

En los últimos años, se han vivido sucesivas etapas cíclicas en la economía, por lo que el PIB de los países del mundo ha seguido una senda de inestabilidad. Ello pone al crecimiento económico y sus determinantes en el foco de atención y preocupación para las distintas economías. Nos encontramos con una amplia literatura tanto teórica como empírica demostrando los efectos de distintos factores sobre el crecimiento económico. Así, en la misma línea, con este estudio se pretende analizar en detalle uno de los muchos propuestos, el desarrollo del sistema financiero. A través de un marco empírico de análisis de crecimiento económico, se va a analizar lo ocurrido en el periodo 2000-2020 para una muestra formada por 112 países. utilizando las medidas que proporciona el FMI. Se va a demostrar que, para los años 2010-2020, el desarrollo financiero estimula el crecimiento económico. <br /

Análisis Empírico de la ley de Zipf en las empresas españolas

La ley de Zipf es una ley empírica utilizada para describir la distribución del tamaño de una población. Para el caso del tamaño empresarial, el cumplimiento de esta ley implica que la empresa más grande duplica el tamaño de la segunda, triplica el de la tercera, cuatriplica el de la cuarta y así sucesivamente. Este Trabajo de Fin de Grado tiene como objetivo comprobar si se cumple esta ley para el caso del tamaño empresarial de España en 2019. Observando a las 139.557 empresas españolas que tienen más de 8 empleados primero, se rechaza su validez. Al segmentar por comunidades autónomas esta muestra, también se rechaza esta ley en todas ellas. Después, se observa a las 20.743 empresas más grandes del país segmentando por sectores de actividad y, aunque en la mayoría se rechaza, en algunos sí que se acepta. Por último, se observa que cuanto más grande es la muestra, el parámetro de la distribución es mayor.<br /

DETERMINANTES DEL CRECIMIENTO EN LAS REGIONES EUROPEAS, 2002-2017

Uno de los principales objetivos que pretenden alcanzar los gobiernos es el de generar crecimiento económico ya que, en principio, conlleva un mayor nivel de bienestar social. En este trabajo se analizan los determinantes del crecimiento económico en una muestra de regiones europeas – a nivel NUTS 2 - tomando como marco empírico un modelo de Solow aumentado. Sobre el mismo, se han incluido también variables relativas a la innovación tecnológica, la estructura del empleo, nivel de infraestructuras, condiciones sociales, indicadores geográficos. Además, se han considerado diferentes submuestras dentro del periodo temporal que abarca los años 2002-2017. Los resultados obtenidos muestran evidencia de la relevancia de las condiciones del mercado laboral a la hora de explicar las diferencias en el crecimiento experimentado por las regiones. Sin embargo, no parecen mostrar un patrón claro de convergencia, salvo al final del periodo analizado, que es aquel que muestra un mejor grado de ajuste.<br /

Gibrat’s law for countries

If the population of a given country evolves according to Gibrat'�s Law, its growth rate will be independent of its initial size. This short paper further investigates this empirical regularity by the application of a suitable panel unit root test and non-parametric methods. The evidence regarding its fulfilment is weaker than that previously found