Effects of quantitative easing on the USA economy: A test for policy effectiveness

The catastrophic disruption in the USA financial system in the wake of the financial crisis prompted the Federal Reserve to launch a Quantitative Easing (QE) programme in late 2008. In line with Pesaran and Smith (2014), I use a policy effectiveness test to assess whether this massive asset purchase programme was effective in stimulating the economic activity in the USA. Specifically, I employ an Autoregressive Distributed Lag Model (ARDL), in order to obtain a counterfactual for the USA real GDP growth rate. Using data from 1983Q1 to 2009Q4, the results show that the beneficial effects of QE appear to be weak and rather short-lived. The null hypothesis of policy ineffectiveness is not rejected, which suggests that QE did not have a meaningful impact on output growth.

Portuguese stagnation in the 2001-2012 period

The 2001-2012 period has been one of very low growth for Portugal. This work project tries to find reasons for this slowdown. Growth in real GDP will be explained by several variables ranging from education, capital, government and world markets. Compensation of employees, capital per worker and the exports of competitors seem to explain a significant part of the slowdown. The ratio of non-tradables to tradables is also included but not significant, maybe due to a poor sample size. Stagnation then seems to be caused both by low growth in input accumulation and productivity as predicted by Amador and Coimbra in 2007.

Macroeconomic impacts of politics and policy: Applications to financial and real markets

A PhD Dissertation, presented as part of the requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy from the NOVA - School of Business and Economics