Essays in International Macroeconomics

This dissertation is composed of three chapters covering various topics in international macroeconomics. The first explores the effects of a US monetary tightening on Emerging Markets' monetary policies. Combining quantitative and qualitative empirical methods, I show that most Emerging Market Central Banks tend to raise rates when the Federal Reserve does, but countries with floating exchange rates do so in response to rising domestic inflation, while countries with managed exchange rates place more importance on preventing capital outflows. The second chapter, based on joint work with Olivier Blanchard and Michael Kister, provides a model of sovereign default that focuses on the importance of self-fulfilling crises. I show that, for a large range of plausible values of public debt, sudden changes in investor confidence can be just as important, if not more, than macroeconomic fundamentals in determining whether debt is sustainable. The final chapter, coauthored with Alexis Meyer-Cirkel, explores the interaction between sectoral balance sheets and the probability of undergoing a debt crisis; we find that both private sector wealth, particularly that of the banking sector, is a significant predictor of future debt distress.

Author

• Huertas, Gonzalo

Date created

• 2022

Type of Work

• Dissertation

License

• All rights reserved

Rights statement

• In Copyright

GW Unit

• Economics

Degree

• Ph.D.

Advisor

• Tomás Williams

Committee Member(s)

• Tomás Williams, Assistant Professor of International Finance and International Affairs; Roberto Samaniego, Professor of Economics and International Affairs; Graciela Kaminsky, Professor of Economics and International Affairs.

Persistent URL

•  https://scholarspace.library.gwu.edu/etd/9880vr62j