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Working Paper
The stability of large external imbalances: the role of returns differentials
Were the U.S. to persistently earn substantially more on its foreign investments (?U.S. claims?) than foreigners earn on their U.S. investments (?U.S. liabilities?), the likelihood that the current environment of sizeable global imbalances will evolve in a benign manner increases. However, utilizing data on the actual foreign equity and bond portfolios of U.S. investors and the U.S. equity and bond portfolios of foreign investors, we find that the returns differential of U.S. claims over U.S. liabilities is essentially zero. Ending our sample in 2005, the differential is positive, whereas ...
Working Paper
New Evidence on the US Excess Return on Foreign Portfolios
We provide new estimates of the return on US external claims and liabilities using confidential, high-quality, security-level data. The excess return is positive on average, since claims are tilted toward higher-return equities. The excess return is large and positive in normal times but large and negative during global crises, reflecting the global insurance role of the US external balance sheet. Controlling for issuer's nationality, we find that US investors have a larger exposure to equity issued by Asia-headquartered corporations than reported in the aggregate statistics. Finally, equity ...
Journal Article
U.S. Cross-Border Derivatives Data: A User's Guide
The global derivatives market has grown rapidly in the past decade. By one measure of market size--the notional value, which is used to determine the payments made on a derivatives contract--the derivatives market expanded from $87 trillion in June 1998 to $454 trillion in June 2006. Measured by the price at which a derivatives contract can be purchased in a current transaction, or the market value, the derivatives market grew from $3 trillion in June 1998 to $10 trillion as of June 2006.
Working Paper
The Global (Mis)Allocation of Capital
The allocative efficiency of capital flows is one of the oldest and most contentious questions. We answer it by matching cross-border securities holdings reported in the US external statistics from 1995 to 2022 with the corresponding firm-level measures of allocative efficiency. We find that US investors tilt their international equity investment toward firms with high MRPK and markups, thereby fostering their potential for growth. Foreign investors tilt their holdings toward US firms with high productivity and intangible capital. A horse race shows that productivity is the best predictor of ...
Working Paper
Measuring Monetary Policy Spillovers between U.S. and German Bond Yields
In this paper we estimate the magnitude of spillovers between bond markets in the U.S. and Germany following monetary policy communications by the FOMC and the ECB. The identification of policy-related co-movements following FOMC announcements, in particular, can be difficult because many foreign bond markets, including those in Germany, are closed at the time of the announcement. To address this issue we use intraday futures market data to estimate spillovers during a narrow and overlapping event window. We find that about half of the reaction in German domestic yields spills over to U.S. ...
Working Paper
Cross-border returns differentials
Were the U.S. to persistently earn substantially more on its foreign investments ("U.S. claims") than foreigners earn on their U.S. investments ("U.S. liabilities"), the likelihood that the current environment of sizeable global imbalances will evolve in a benign manner increases. However, using a monthly dataset on the foreign equity and bond portfolios of U.S. investors and the U.S. equity and bond portfolios of foreign investors, we find that the returns differential for portfolio securities is near zero, far smaller than previously reported. Examining all U.S. claims and liabilities ...
Working Paper
On returns differentials
Estimates of U.S. returns differentials have ranged from exorbitant to quite small, in part because of their volatility coupled with the relatively short time series available. We shed light on underlying drivers of returns differentials by presenting a number of decompositions: a by-asset-class decomposition into yields and capital gains, the Gourinchas and Rey (2007a) composition and return effects, and further decompositions of capital gains that focus on exchange rate effects. While each decomposition informs thinking about returns differentials, one constant is evident throughout: to ...
Working Paper
Cross-border returns differentials
Were the U.S. to persistently earn substantially more on its foreign investments ("U.S. claims") than foreigners earn on their U.S. investments ("U.S. liabilities"), the likelihood that the current environment of sizeable global imbalances will evolve in a benign manner increases. However, we find that the returns differential of U.S. claims over U.S. liabilities is far smaller than previously reported and, importantly, is near zero for portfolio equity and debt securities. ; > For portfolio securities, we confirm our finding using a separate dataset on the actual foreign equity and bond ...
Discussion Paper
Non-Financial Corporate Credit and Recessions
The global financial crisis of 2008-09 (GFC) followed an extended period of growth in non-financial corporate (NFC) sector debt. NFC corporate debt resumed its climb a few years after the GFC, and the pace of growth picked up in 2020, as firms took on debt to cover revenue lost during the pandemic or to build up precautionary liquidity buffers.