Essays in open economy macroeconomics

This thesis is a collection of two essays on open economy macroeconomics. The first essay is on imperfect asset substitutability and current account dynamics. It is divided into four chapters. The first chapter in this essay is a preface for the chapters to follow. The second chapter lays out a model of the current account in which assets are perfectly substitutable, and investigates the nature of wealth dynamics in the presence of exogenous shocks. The third chapter extends the model of the second chapter to the case where assets are imperfectly substitutable and once again investigates the model's response to exogenous shocks. In particular, the differences that arise from valuation effects, which were absent in the perfect substitutability case, are highlighted. The fourth chapter applies the model of the third chapter to the question of what lies behind the U.S. current account deficit and dollar appreciation for the period 1996-2004. I show that a reasonable explanation of these phenomena should include a key role for shocks to foreigners' portfolio preferences.

Department dc:contributor.department

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dept. of Economics.

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2007

Author dc:creator

• Ghosh, Indradeep, Ph. D. Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Olivier Blanchard and Roberto Rigobon.

• Economics.

Statement dc:rights

• M.I.T. theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from this source for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission. See provided URL for inquiries about permission.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/38611

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/38611