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Working Paper
On the solvency of nations: are global imbalances consistent with intertemporal budget constraints?
Theory predicts that a nation's stochastic intertemporal budget constraint is satisfied if net foreign assets (NFA) are integrated of any finite order, or if net exports (NX) and NFA satisfy an error-correction specification with a residual integrated of any finite order. We test these conditions using data for 21 industrial and 29 emerging economies for the 1970-2004 period. The results show that, despite the large global imbalances of recent years, NFA and NX positions are consistent with external solvency. Country-specific unit root tests on NFA-GDP ratios suggest that nearly all of them ...
Working Paper
An anatomy of credit booms: evidence from macro aggregates and micro data
This paper proposes a methodology for measuring credit booms and uses it to identify credit booms in emerging and industrial economies over the past four decades. In addition, we use event study methods to identify the key empirical regularities of credit booms in macroeconomic aggregates and micro-level data. Macro data show a systematic relationship between credit booms and economic expansions, rising asset prices, real appreciations, widening external deficits and managed exchange rates. Micro data show a strong association between credit booms and firm-level measures of leverage, firm ...
Working Paper
How do trade and financial integration affect the relationship between growth and volatility
The influential work of Ramey and Ramey (1995) highlighted an empirical relationship that has now come to be regarded as conventional wisdom?that output volatility and growth are negatively correlated. We reexamine this relationship in the context of globalization?a term typically used to describe the phenomenon of growing international trade and financial integration that has intensified since the mid-1980s. We employ various econometric techniques and a comprehensive new dataset to analyze the link between growth and volatility. Our findings suggest that, while the basic negative ...
Working Paper
Precautionary demand for foreign assets in sudden stop economies: an assessment of the new mercantilism
Financial globalization had a rocky start in emerging economies hit by Sudden Stops. Foreign reserves have grown very rapidly since then, as if those countries were practicing a New Mercantilism that views foreign reserves as a war-chest for defense against Sudden Stops. This paper conducts a quantitative assessment of this argument using a stochastic intertemporal equilibrium framework in which precautionary foreign asset demand is driven by output variability, financial globalization, and Sudden Stop risk. In this framework, credit constraints produce endogenous Sudden Stops. We find that ...
Conference Paper
How do trade and financial integration affect the relationship between growth and volatility?
The influential work of Ramey and Ramey (1995) highlighted an empirical relationship that has now come to be regarded as conventional wisdom - that output volatility and growth are negatively correlated. We reexamine this relationship in the context of globalization - a term typically used to describe the phenomenon of growing international trade and financial integration that has intensified since the mid-1980s. We employ various econometric techniques and a comprehensive new dataset to analyze the link between growth and volatility. Our findings suggest that, while the basic negative ...