| The thesis consists of 3 essays on the economic and political consequences of institutional and policy reforms.;In the first chapter, I evaluate the effect of the introduction of the regime of Inflation Targeting (IT) on the inflation rate. I use a sample of 21 OECD countries during the 1985--2003 period. Using the Difference In Difference estimator, I show that the effect is relevant and statistically significant. However, the product market deregulation has an important role in both the successful IT experience and the generalized OECD disinflation. I find that the disinflation in the IT countries starts before the adoption of the new regime, coinciding with the beginning of the deregulation process. In order to analyze this mechanism, I propose an extension of the basic New Keynesian Phillips Curve with time varying elasticity of substitution to account for the role of deregulation in the product market.;In the second chapter, I analyze how an office motivated incumbent strategically chooses to disclose information on some policy outcome in order to manage his public image and win reelection. He can select the precision of the information at an increasing cost, but the report always reveals his ability imperfectly because the policy outcome also depends on luck. I find that, in any equilibria, with disclosure, the high type always discloses while the low type discloses with some probability. Both types disclose in the case of sufficiently high prior. Higher electoral competition is beneficial because the equilibrium strategy partially reveals the incumbent's ability. Moreover, it increases the probability of reelecting an high ability candidate.;In the third chapter, I analyze the effect of transparency in the international financial markets. I study whether transparency enhancement reduces the borrowing costs for the Emerging Markets Economies. I use the publication of Article IV, the IMF country Reports, and the compliance with the Reports on the Observance of Standards and Codes (ROSC) as indexes of transparency. I find that the effect of publishing Article IV is negligible while the compliance with ROSC is important and statistically significant. |
