Essays on Contemporary Issues in Macroeconomics

This PhD thesis is the result of a three-year research process carried out as part of the completion of the PhD program in Economics and Political Economy at the University of Genoa. The thesis is composed of three chapters/essays, and the common link that ties them together is their relevance in the field of contemporary macroeconomics. Each chapter addresses from a different macroeconomic perspective, theoretical or applied, a high impact topic identified in the literature. More precisely, each essay of this thesis builds on a contemporary and relevant issue in the field of macroeconomics and, in particular, in the subfields of environmental economics, monetary economics and at the intersection between monetary economics and finance. The issue covered in each essay is approached from an original and novel perspective, contributing to the advancement of knowledge and providing specific policy recommendations. The last two chapters are highly related, since they are applied essays and both of them analyze the asymmetric effects of monetary policy across business cycle phases and resort to the same macroeconometric empirical strategy (i.e. local projections). Specifically, the thesis consists of the following three essays/chapters: 1. Economic growth, environmental constraints and convergence: the declining growth premium for developing economies. 2. Asymmetric responses of the markup to monetary shocks over the business cycle 3. Uncertainties under monetary tightening and easing shocks and different market states.