Type
Text
Type
Dissertation
Advisor
Conesa, Juan Carlos | Azzimonti, Marina | Carceles-Poveda, Eva | Bai, Yan.
Date
2017-05-01
Keywords
Default, Eurobonds, Joint Liability Debt, Optimal Taxation, Risk Aversion Heterogeneity | Economics
Department
Department of Economics
Language
en_US
Source
This work is sponsored by the Stony Brook University Graduate School in compliance with the requirements for completion of degree.
Identifier
http://hdl.handle.net/11401/77409
Publisher
The Graduate School, Stony Brook University: Stony Brook, NY.
Format
application/pdf
Abstract
This thesis uses quantitative and computational macroeconomic methods to analyze policies in the presence of financial and economic frictions. The thesis consists two chapters. In particular, the second chapter focuses on finding instruments that mitigate financial crises and stabilize sovereign bond yields, while the third chapter focuses on the optimal capital taxation under the presence of heterogeneity in risk aversion. In Chapter 2, I assess the consequences of implementing a joint liability debt system in a two-country small open economy model. With joint liability a default of one country makes the other participant liable for its debt. The results highlight a trade-off between the contagion risk, in the sense that this instrument may push some member states to default even though they are individually solvent, and cheaper access to credit on average, since lenders are at risk only if no participating sovereign is willing to service the debt. The findings suggest that the welfare consequences of this policy proposal hinge critically on the timing of its introduction: Introducing such instruments at the peak of the Eurozone crisis would have helped the Periphery and harm the Core member states, while its adoption during normal times has the potential to make all participants better-off. In Chapter 3, I introduce risk aversion heterogeneity based on empirical results, in an otherwise standard heterogeneous agents macroeconomic model with incomplete markets, in order to analyze the optimal level of taxation. The heterogeneity in risk aversion affects the precautionary motives on capital and therefore the optimal level of taxation. In the exercise I quantify the welfare implications that occur, because of different tax levels, during the transition period to the long-run equilibrium. The results predict that the optimal capital taxation is increasing when I introduce heterogeneity in risk aversion. This is happening for two reasons, (i) higher precautionary motives compare to the standard case produce higher welfare effects, (ii) agents with lower risk aversion are in favor of a higher capital taxation, since they accumulate less capital. | 80 pages
Recommended Citation
Tsiropoulos, Vasileios, "Joint-Liability Debt and Fiscal Policies" (2017). Stony Brook Theses and Dissertations Collection, 2006-2020 (closed to submissions). 3224.
https://commons.library.stonybrook.edu/stony-brook-theses-and-dissertations-collection/3224