In this dissertation, I contribute to the growing body of evidence on the behavior and impacts of direct government intervention in finance through government ownership of banks.<br/> <br/> Chapter 1 uses data from Brazil to analyze the lending by government and private banks at the national and local-level and then assesses whether this lending translated into the real economy (e.g. to employment and output). I find that government banks did, indeed, provide counter-cyclical lending at both the national and the local level, and this lending translated into locations with an above median share of bank branches that are government-owned experiencing a roughly 2% relative increase in output and 1.5% in employment.<br/> <br/> Chapter 2 develops a theoretical model of lending by government and private banks. Then, informed by the political science literature, I create a proxy for political-connectedness of borrowers and test the model using the World Bank Enterprise Surveys with firms and banks around the world. This chapter expands the literature on the lending behavior of government banks by providing a cross-country analysis. The cited studies either have loan-level data within a single country or have loan volume data across many countries. While I interpret my result as consistent with the previous literature, I am able to connect firms to banks from a large cross-section of countries through the World Bank Enterprise Surveys.<br/> <br/> Chapter 3 calculates spillover effects of government transfers using data on Brazil's (government-bank facilitated) Bolsa Familia conditional-cash transfer program. This chapter uses household surveys and data on Brazil's Bolsa Familia program to assess labor market spillovers, but it has broad implications. Understanding the general equilibrium effects of government transfer programs, whether they are conditional-cash transfer programs in developing countries or welfare payments in the United States, is vital to understanding both the decisions that people make and the expected policy implications. This chapter attempts to understand the effects of a government transfer program in a locality to both the recipients and the non-recipients.<br/>
Coleman, Nicholas S.,
"Essays in Government Finance"
(2013).
Economics Theses and Dissertations.
Brown Digital Repository. Brown University Library.
https://doi.org/10.7301/Z0057D80
