http://hdl.handle.net/1974/793 2013-06-19T13:47:29Z 2013-06-19T13:47:29Z ARMSTRONG, ALEXANDER http://hdl.handle.net/1974/8070 2013-06-08T05:08:50Z 2013-06-07T04:00:00Z

Title: Essays on the Economics of Language and Language Policy Authors: ARMSTRONG, ALEXANDER Abstract: This thesis concerns the economic dimensions of second language knowledge and acquisition and the economic implications of language policies. The value of the ability to speak and understand a second language depends on the extent to which it enlarges one's communicative sphere which, in turn, depends on the language abilities of others. This implies that second language acquisition decisions are associated with strategic considerations and spillover effects. Consequently, the equilibrium distribution of language skills may not be socially efficient and policy remedies may be called for. The first essay of the thesis investigates the relationship between earnings, second language knowledge and the distribution of language skills in local labour markets in Canada using census data. We estimate the elasticity of local language complementarity in earnings: a parameter that measures the importance of the linguistic environment in the earnings of the individual as well as the importance of language in the economy generally. The second essay addresses the efficiency of second language acquisition decisions in a theoretical model where bilingualism is rewarded with a higher wage for two reasons. First, language skills constitute a form of human capital in the sense that a worker's productivity is positively related to the proportion of the population with whom she shares a language. Second, language skills serve as a signal of productivity to employers. In general, the private and social benefits of bilingualism do not align due to counteracting network and signalling welfare effects. The third essay concerns the role of language policy in improving social outcomes. A tax-subsidy system is considered under various assumptions about the ability of the government or planner to discriminate between individuals and groups. A Pareto improvement is possible if the government can condition the tax-subsidy system on language acquisition costs but not otherwise. The fourth essay considers the optimal provision of public services when individuals' effective consumption of the services depends on their proficiency in the language they are provided in. The planner faces a trade-off between compensating minority language speakers for their lower wages and encouraging their integration by rewarding higher levels of dominant language proficiency. Description: Thesis (Ph.D, Economics) -- Queen's University, 2013-06-06 12:06:34.747

2013-06-07T04:00:00Z Rouillard, JEAN-FRANCOIS http://hdl.handle.net/1974/7989 2013-04-30T22:50:30Z 2013-04-30T04:00:00Z

Title: National and International Business Cycles : the Role of Financial Frictions and Shocks Authors: Rouillard, JEAN-FRANCOIS Abstract: This dissertation investigates the effects of frictions that emerge from financial markets on business-cycle fluctuations. The purpose of Chapter 1 is to situate my work in the literature and to stress its contributions. In Chapter 2, I reassess the role of financial frictions in amplifying the impacts of productivity shocks using a framework in which a fraction of firms are borrowing-constrained and land is a collateral asset. A first finding is that amplification effects are much lower when land is supplied elastically. However, financial shocks that affect the maximum allowable ratio of loans to collateral have greater effects on output. Another result pertains to the role of the elasticity of substitution between land and capital in responses to financial shocks: lower values generate greater output responses. While Chapter 2's environment is set up to be in a closed-economy, the last two chapters involve two-country settings. Chapter 3 still intersects with Chapter 2 on some dimensions, in particular, land dynamics and financial frictions that feature borrowing-constrained firms. The borrowing mechanism brings about a distortion in labour markets that interacts with a class of preferences that are non-separable between consumption and leisure. Technology shocks contribute to explain international co-movements, whereas financial shocks allow the model to replicate the lack of international risk sharing that is characterized by the quantity anomaly and the Backus-Smith puzzle. In Chapter 4, I apply Chari, Kehoe and McGrattan’s (2007) business cycle accounting method to a two-country, two-good real business cycle model. Using their approach, I measure the same closed-economy time-varying wedges and I introduce an international wedge that accounts for discrepancies between the growth in real exchange rates and in the stochastic discount factors ratio. In fact, the effects of financial frictions embedded in Chapter 3's framework can be retrieved from a combination of labour and investment wedges. The volatility of the international wedge corresponds to a metric of bilateral risk sharing. An important finding is that, from a non-separable preferences specification of the baseline model, the investment wedge partly accounts for the Backus-Smith puzzle. This suggests that distortions in national capital markets are important to consider for international risk sharing. Description: Thesis (Ph.D, Economics) -- Queen's University, 2013-04-29 22:56:23.03

2013-04-30T04:00:00Z Jain, MONICA http://hdl.handle.net/1974/7713 2013-01-04T16:51:43Z 2013-01-04T05:00:00Z

Title: Measuring Forecasters' Perceptions of Inflation Persistence Authors: Jain, MONICA Abstract: This dissertation presents a new measure of U.S. inflation persistence from the point of view of a professional forecaster. In chapter 2 I explore two different measures that give insight into the views of professional forecasters and link their views with U.S. inflation data. One of these measures, given by the persistence implied by forecast revisions, appears to have similarities with actual inflation persistence over the 1981–2008 sample period. Chapter 3 explores forecast revisions in a more general setting allowing forecasters to have their own views on inflation persistence as well as a unique information set. This chapter builds a measure of perceived inflation persistence via the implied autocorrelation function that follows from the estimates obtained using a forecaster-specific state-space model. When compared to the autocorrelation function for actual inflation, forecasters tend to react less to shocks that hit inflation than the actual inflation data would suggest. This could be due to increased credibility of the Federal Reserve, but it could also be a result of a bias in the underlying inflation forecasts. Chapter 4 focuses on this issue and finds that the reluctance of forecasters to make revisions to their previously announced forecasts causes their estimates of perceived inflation persistence to be understated as their announced inflation forecasts differ from their true inflation expectations. This chapter also presents a method to undo this bias by retrieving their true inflation expectations series. Description: Thesis (Ph.D, Economics) -- Queen's University, 2012-12-21 15:39:23.616

2013-01-04T05:00:00Z Garon, JEAN-DENIS http://hdl.handle.net/1974/7690 2012-12-12T19:47:00Z 2012-12-12T05:00:00Z

Title: Essays on Commitment and Optimal Public Policies Authors: Garon, JEAN-DENIS Abstract: We focus on the design of optimal policies in the event of commitment problems. In the first essay, we characterize how income should be redistributed within and across generations. The time-inconsistency problem arises when the government cannot commit to the future retirees' nonlinear tax schedule. Because retired individuals have revealed their private information during the active period of their lives, the government has an incentive to misuse it and to implement more redistribution than a regular second-best policy would prescribe. We study the set of equilibria that can be sustained if the government is infinitely lived, and the households are short-lived. Second, we derive an optimal linear pension scheme when individuals need forced savings as a commitment device. We do so with time-inconsistent preferences, whereby forced savings are the outcome of a paternalistic social welfare maximization process. We then derive the optimal scheme when individuals have self-control preferences.In both cases, we study the conflict between the forced-savings and redistributive roles of public pensions. We show that the non-paternalistic pension system may exhibit more forced savings and be less redistributive than the paternalistic one. The third essay analyzes whether centralizing or decentralizing the provision of public goods may influence the threats of secessions in a federation. We use a simple model with two regions, in which one of them may decide to secede even if it would be socially optimal, from the standpoint of the whole federation, to keep it united. Centralization offers both benefits and costs for individual regions. We show how centralizing generates a cost to secede if centralizing the provision of public goods requires an investment in joint institutions that cannot be perfectly recovered if the federation is dissolved. However, because a centralized provision of public goods does not match local preferences as well as a decentralized one, it also generates a long-run cost to remain in the federation. Description: Thesis (Ph.D, Economics) -- Queen's University, 2012-12-12 14:37:20.574

2012-12-12T05:00:00Z