Real exchange rate, distribution and the external balance: Essays on debt, cycles and alternative macromodels.

摘要

The purpose of the dissertation is to provide a contribution to the analysis of factors' employment, income distribution and real exchange rate, and their role as potential sources of trade and capital account imbalances, debt accumulation, and current account cycles.;The first essay of the dissertation provides a broad overview on the definition and determination of the real exchange rate and on its adjustment role for the internal and external equilibrium, in a wide range of alternative macromodels. Different frameworks belonging to the Keynesian, Structuralist, and Neoclassical tradition can be jointly analyzed by applying a method of the "alternative closures". Traditional models are reformulated in an alternative and original way not only to allow for their classification, but also to highlight the mutual consistency and the impact of the various closures on the model predictions and its policy prescriptions. In particular, the assay shows the role of price competitiveness and terms of trade in the international adjustment mechanism, the hidden linkages and real contribution of dynamic models compared to static models.;The second essay aims at contributing to the everlasting debate on foreign debt accumulation, growth and the policies to achieve debt sustainability and growth. The model focuses in particular on the depressing effect of high foreign debt levels on economic activity and growth via aggregate demand. It allows to take into consideration the employment and distributional effects of alternative policies - such as wages and expenditure reduction together with concessional rescheduling and debt relief measures - not only on one country's solvency, but also on a broader concept of sustainability.;The third essay adopts a similar modeling structure to investigate different features of developed or emerging market economies characterized by high levels of capacity utilization and growth. The focus is on mechanism through which distributional relations between broadly defined actors can generate various forms of structuralist-Goodwin cyclical growth patterns involving not only employment, distribution and growth, but also foreign debt accumulation, terms of trade, and wealth in a stock-flow consistent framework.