Search Results
Report
Borders and business cycles
We document that business cycles of U.S. Census regions are substantially more synchronized than those of European Union countries, both over the past four decades and the past two decades. Data from regions within the four largest European countries confirm the presence of a European border effect ? within-country correlations are substantially larger than cross-country correlations. These results continue to hold after controlling for exogenous factors such as distance and size. We consider the role of four factors that have received a lot of attention in the debate about EMU: sectoral ...
Discussion Paper
Alternative specifications for consumption and the estimation of the intertemporal elasticity of substitution
This paper documents several advantages associated with using state level consumption data to examine consumption behavior and especially to estimate the Intertemporal Elasticity of Substitution (IES). In contrast to the results of Hall (1988) and Campbell and Mankiw (1989), we provide substantial evidence indicating that the IES is significantly different from zero and probably close to one. Since the overidentifying restrictions of the standard Euler equation are generally rejected, we use these data to explore the nature of these rejections and evaluate an alternative specification of ...
Working Paper
Globalization and the Increasing Correlation between Capital Inflows and Outflows
The correlation between capital inflows and outflows has increased substantially over time in a sample of 128 advanced and developing countries. We provide evidence that this is a result of an increase in financial globalization (stock of external assets and liabilities). This dominates the effect of an increase in trade globalization (exports plus imports), which reduces the correlation between capital inflows and outflows. In the context of a two-country model with 14 shocks we show that the theoretical impact of financial and trade globalization on the correlation between capital inflows ...
Conference Paper
Incomplete information processing: a solution to the forward discount puzzle
The uncovered interest rate parity equation is the cornerstone of most models in international macro. However, this equation does not hold empirically since the forward discount, or interest rate differential, is negatively related to the subsequent change in the exchange rate. This forward discount puzzle implies that excess returns on foreign currency investments are predictable. In this paper we investigate to what extent incomplete information processing can explain this puzzle. We consider two types of incompleteness: infrequent and partial information processing. We calibrate a ...
Working Paper
Dollar Shortages, CIP Deviations and the Safe Haven Role of the Dollar
Since 2007, an increase in risk or risk aversion has resulted in a U.S. dollar appreciation and greater deviations from covered interest parity (CIP). In contrast, prior to 2007, risk had no impact on the dollar, and CIP held. To explain these phenomena, we develop a two-country model featuring (i) market segmentation, (ii) limited CIP arbitrage (since 2007) and (iii) global dollar dominance. During periods of heightened global financial stress, dollar shortages in the offshore market emerge, leading to increased CIP deviations and a dollar appreciation. The appreciation occurs even in the ...
Report
Risksharing within the United States: what have financial markets and fiscal federalism accomplished?
We document aggregate income growth uncertainty at the state level, and the extent to which this uncertainty is reduced by risksharing through financial markets and federal fiscal policy. A methodology is adopted that is closely connected to the empirical growth literature. It does not rely on assumptions about a model or stochastic process of income. This is important because estimated gains from international risksharing have been found to be very sensitive to the assumed model or income process. We only make assumptions about the information set used to predict growth, which is sufficient ...
Report
Growth uncertainty and risksharing
We propose a new methodology to evaluate the gains from global risksharing that is closely connected to the empirical growth literature. We obtain estimates of residual risk (growth uncertainty) at various horizons from regressions of country-specific deviations from world growth on a wide set of variables in the information set. Since this residual risk can be entirely hedged, we use it to obtain a measure of welfare gain that can be achieved by a representative country. We find that nations can reap very large benefits from engaging in such risksharing arrangements. Using post-war data, the ...
Asset Prices, Leverage and Portfolio Rebalancing Drive Global Capital Flows Cycle
The amount of leverage—borrowed funds relative to the value of underlying assets—increases for risky holdings during downturns, motivating their ultimate sale to achieve a more secure financial position. The opposite occurs during upswings, as risky assets gain favor.
Working Paper
A Theory of the Global Financial Cycle
We develop a theory to account for changes in prices of risky and safe assets and gross and net capital flows over the global financial cycle (GFC). The multi-country model features global risk-aversion shocks and heterogeneity of investors both within and across countries. Within-country heterogeneity is needed to account for the drop in gross capital flows during a negative GFC shock (higher global risk-aversion). Cross-country heterogeneity is needed to account for the differential vulnerability of countries to a negative GFC shock. The key vulnerability is associated with leverage. In ...
Working Paper
A theory of the currency denomination of international trade
Nominal rigidities due to menu costs have become a standard element in closed economy macroeconomic modeling. The "New Open Economy Macroeconomics" literature has investigated the implications of nominal rigidities in an open economy context and found that the currency in which prices are set has significant macroeconomic and policy implications. In this paper we solve for the optimal invoicing choice by integrating this microeconomic decision at the firm level into a general equilibrium open economy model. Strategic interactions between firms play a critical role in the analysis. We find ...