Three Essays on the Dynamics of Consumption and Investment

Three Essays on the Dynamics of Consumption and Investment PDF Author: David E. Cook
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 440

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Three Essays on the Dynamics of Consumption and Investment

Three Essays on the Dynamics of Consumption and Investment PDF Author: David E. Cook
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 440

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Investment, Dynamics and Development

Investment, Dynamics and Development PDF Author: Aashish Sunil Mehta
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 168

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קבר הגולגלות החוורות

קבר הגולגלות החוורות PDF Author:
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages :

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Three Essays in Macroeconomic Dynamics

Three Essays in Macroeconomic Dynamics PDF Author: Hammad Qureshi
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Autoregression (Statistics)
Languages : en
Pages : 97

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Abstract: This dissertation examines theoretical and empirical topics in macroeconomic dynamics. A central issue in macroeconomic dynamics is understanding the sources of business cycle fluctuations. The idea that expectations about future economic fundamentals can drive business cycles dates back to the early twentieth century. However, the standard real business cycle (RBC) model fails to generate positive comovement in output, consumption, labor-hours and investment in response to news shocks. My dissertation proposes a solution to this puzzling feature of the RBC model by developing a theoretical model that can generate positive aggregate and sectoral comovement in response to news shocks. Another key issue in macroeconomic dynamics is gauging the performance of theoretical models by comparing them to empirical models. Some of the most widely used empirical models in macroeconomics are level vector autoregressive (VAR) models. However, estimated level VAR models may contain explosive roots, which is at odds with the widespread consensus among macroeconomists that roots are at most unity. My dissertation investigates the frequency of explosive roots in estimated level VAR models using Monte Carlo simulations. Additionally, it proposes a way to mitigate explosive roots. Finally, as macroeconomic datasets are relatively short, empirical models such as autoregressive models (i.e. AR or VAR models) may have substantial small-sample bias. My dissertation develops a procedure that numerically corrects the bias in the roots of AR models. This dissertation consists of three essays. The first essay develops a model based on learning-by-doing (LBD) that can generate positive comovement in output, consumption, labor-hours and investment in response to news shocks. I show that the one-sector RBC model augmented by LBD can generate aggregate comovement in response to news shock about technology. Furthermore, I show that in the two-sector RBC model, LBD along with an intratemporal adjustment cost can generate sectoral comovement in response to news about three types of shocks: i) neutral technology shocks, ii) consumption technology shocks, and iii) investment technology shocks. I show that these results hold for contemporaneous technology shocks and for different specifications of LBD. The second essay investigates the frequency of explosive roots in estimated level VAR models in the presence of stationary and nonstationary variables. Monte Carlo simulations based on datasets from the macroeconomic literature reveal that the frequency of explosive roots exceeds 40% in the presence of unit roots. Even when all the variables are stationary, the frequency of explosive roots is substantial. Furthermore, explosion increases significantly, to as much as 100% when the estimated level VAR coefficients are corrected for small-sample bias. These results suggest that researchers estimating level VAR models on macroeconomic datasets encounter explosive roots, a phenomenon that is contrary to common macroeconomic belief, with a very high frequency. Monte Carlo simulations reveal that imposing unit roots in the estimation can substantially reduce the frequency of explosion. Hence one way to mitigate explosive roots is to estimate vector error correction models. The third essay proposes a numerical procedure to correct the small-sample bias in autoregressive roots of univariate AR(p) models. I examine the median-bias properties and variability of the bias-adjusted parameters relative to the least-squares estimates. I show that the bias correction procedure substantially reduces the median-bias in impulse response functions. Furthermore, correcting the bias in roots significantly improves the median-bias in half-life, quarter-life and up-life estimates. The procedure pays a negligible-to-small price in terms of increased standard deviation for its improved median-bias properties.

Essays on the Consumption and Investment Decisions of Households in the Presence of Housing and Human Capital

Essays on the Consumption and Investment Decisions of Households in the Presence of Housing and Human Capital PDF Author: Sebastien Betermier
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 252

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This dissertation consists of three essays in which I study the consumption and investment decisions of households in the presence of two major asset classes: housing and human capital. In the first essay, I analyze how the dual consumption-investment nature of housing affects the consumption dynamics of households. A key feature of the housing market is that for most households, the consumption and investment benefits of housing are non-separable. I propose a tractable theoretical framework to understand the impact of this constraint on the consumption allocation of homeowners who would ideally like to own just a fraction of their home. For these homeowners, the relative cost of living in their home is not just the imputed rental cost. It also includes an opportunity cost of having an unbalanced financial portfolio. This cost varies substantially over time, and it is especially high in good times, when available investment opportunities yield high returns and homeowners allocate a high fraction of their wealth to current consumption. As a result, this cost dampens variations in the level of their housing consumption, and it amplifies variations in both their level of non-housing consumption and the composition of their consumption baskets. I then test empirically this theory in the second essay. Using household-level data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID), I test the hypothesis that homeowners who face a high opportunity cost choose ceteris paribus a low housing consumption volatility. I also develop a method to identify these constrained homeowners by comparing their characteristics to those of a subset of unconstrained homeowners: the landlords. The results are consistent with the predictions of the model. First, the characteristics of homeowners that determine how constrained they are in the model are strong predictors of those homeowners who choose to be landlords in the data. For example, homeowners with a low level of risk aversion, little value for housing consumption, and a long horizon are relatively more likely to be landlords. Second, I find evidence that the more constrained homeowners adjust their level of housing consumption much less over time. In the third essay, which was developed in collaboration with Thomas Jansson, Christine Parlour, and Johan Walden, we investigate the relationship between workers' labor income and their investment decisions. Using a detailed Swedish data set on employment and portfolio holdings we estimate wage volatility and labor productivity for Swedish industries and, motivated by theory, we show that highly labor productive industries are more likely to pay workers variable wages. We also find that both levels and changes in wage volatility are significant in explaining changes in household investment portfolios. A household going from an industry with low wage volatility to one with high volatility will ceteris paribus decrease its portfolio share of risky assets by 25%, i.e., 7,750 USD. Similarly, a household that switches from a low labor productivity industry to one with high labor productivity decreases its risky asset share by 20%. Our results suggest that human capital risk is an important determinant of household portfolio holdings.

Three Essays in International Macroeconomics and Finance

Three Essays in International Macroeconomics and Finance PDF Author: Enrique Martinez-Garcia
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 198

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Three Essays on Skill Premium, College Choice, and Investment-specific Technological Change

Three Essays on Skill Premium, College Choice, and Investment-specific Technological Change PDF Author: Hui He
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 276

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Three Essays on Consumer Behavior and Asset Prices

Three Essays on Consumer Behavior and Asset Prices PDF Author: Jeon-Hyeok Cho
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 282

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Selected Essays on the Dynamics of the Capitalist Economy 1933-1970

Selected Essays on the Dynamics of the Capitalist Economy 1933-1970 PDF Author: Michal Kalecki
Publisher: CUP Archive
ISBN: 9780521079839
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 216

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Three Essays on Consumption and Saving

Three Essays on Consumption and Saving PDF Author: Kiseok Hong
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Consumption (Economics)
Languages : en
Pages : 182

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