Date of Award

Spring 4-1-2021

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Department

Management

First Advisor

Gorton, Gary

Abstract

My dissertation consists of three essays exploring how economic agents' reception of updatedinformation about macroeconomic developments impacts their actions and investment choices and the effect this has on asset prices and macroeconomic fluctuations. The first essay provides evidence that variations in the treasury supply and foreign demand for safe assets have been a source of priced predictability in domestic consumer credit and consumption growth. In the second essay I set out to explain the sequential order of devaluations during contagious currency crises employing a Global Games model featuring informational cascades where individual currencies share a common exposure to adverse macroeconomic factors. In my third essay I argue that shocks to the slope of aggregate uncertainty rather than the level lead to declines in aggregate economic activity through a "wait and see" channel.

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