Three essays in applied financial economics and macroeconomics

This dissertation is comprised of three essays in the areas of financial economics and macroeconomics. The general equilibrium nature of the macroeconomy is seen through the ways in which firms, governments, and households interact in the labor, output, financial, and money markets. This dissertation focuses on two of the markets that comprise the macroeconomy; namely, the financial markets and the labor market. The essays examine how different sectors within the financial sector react to changes in the overall financial market, how movements in financial variables such as interest rates provide information on changes in economic activity, and how labor market conditions respond to unanticipated changes in real economic activity. Each essay also incorporates time series econometric techniques that allow me to analyze the interactions and responses of some macroeconomic variable(s) to changes in other macroeconomic variables.