| Summary: | This dissertation presents three studies: the first on the macroeconomics of advertising, the second on growth and the role of competition, and the third on comparative statics.
The first study develops a new general equilibrium model to examine the aggregate effects of advertising. The model captures the two traditional views of advertising—informative and persuasive—and introduces a novel anticompetitive motive. We find that advertising has a significant positive aggregate effect through its role in spreading product awareness.
The second study explores the role of competition in shaping the long-run effect of fiscal policy on growth and the complementarity of fiscal and competition policies. To address these, we develop a step-by-step growth model with endogenous market structure, and we find that the market structure response amplifies the effect of fiscal policy.
The last study, which lies outside the field of macroeconomics, is motivated by the limited tools available to get analytical results in models frequently used in macroeconomics and other fields. It introduces a novel approach to comparative statics, building on Farkas' Lemma, and derives sufficient conditions under different assumptions. An application to an oligopoly model with differentiated goods under CES preferences illustrates the method.
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