Search Results
Showing results 1 to 10 of approximately 15.
(refine search)
Working Paper
The Global Financial Cycle and Capital Flows During the COVID-19 Pandemic
We estimate the heterogeneous effect of the global financial cycle on exchange rates and cross-border capital flows during the COVID-19 pandemic, using weekly exchange rate and portfolio flow data for a panel of 48 advanced and emerging market economies. We begin by estimating the global financial cycle at a weekly frequency with data through 2021 and observe the two standard deviation fall in our global financial cycle index over a period of four weeks in March 2020. We then estimate the country-specific sensitivities of exchange rates and capital flows to fluctuations in the global ...
Working Paper
A Theory of Net Capital Flows over the Global Financial Cycle
We develop a theory to account for changes in net capital flows of safe and risky assets over the global financial cycle. We show empirically that countries that have a net debt of safe assets experience a rise in net outflows of safe assets (reduced accumulation of safe debt) during a downturn in the global financial cycle. This is accomplished through a rise in total net outflows and a drop in net outflows of risky assets. We develop a multi-country portfolio choice model that can account for these facts. The theory relies on cross-country heterogeneity in the share of an investor's ...
Working Paper
The Global Financial Cycle and Capital Flows During the COVID-19 Pandemic
We estimate the heterogeneous effect of the global financial cycle on exchange rates and cross-border capital flows during the COVID-19 pandemic, using weekly exchange rate and portfolio flow data for a panel of 59 advanced and emerging market economies. We begin by estimating a global financial cycle (GFC) index at the weekly frequency with data through the end of 2021, and observe an outsized decline in the index over a period of just four weeks during February and March 2020. We then estimate the country-specific sensitivities of exchange rates and capital flows to fluctuations in the GFC. ...
Working Paper
Bad Investments and Missed Opportunities? Postwar Capital Flows to Asia and Latin America
Since 1950, the economies of East Asia grew rapidly but received little international capital, while Latin America received considerable international capital even as their economies stagnated. The literature typically explains the failure of capital to flow to high growth regions as resulting from international capital market imperfections. This paper proposes a broader thesis that country-specific distortions, such as domestic labor and capital market distortions, also impact capital flows. We develop a DSGE model of Asia, Latin America, and the Rest of the World that features an ...
Report
The Global Financial Resource Curse
Since the late 1990s, the United States has received large capital flows from developing countries and experienced a productivity growth slowdown. Motivated by these facts, we provide a model connecting international financial integration and global productivity growth. The key feature is that the tradable sector is the engine of growth of the economy. Capital flows from developing countries to the United States boost demand for U.S. non-tradable goods. This induces a reallocation of U.S. economic activity from the tradable sector to the non-tradable one. In turn, lower profits in the ...
Journal Article
The global saving glut and the fall in U.S. real interest rates: A 15-year retrospective
The authors revisit Ben Bernanke’s global saving glut (GSG) hypothesis from 2005—which links low long-term real interest rates in the United States to excess saving in a number of non-Western countries, including, but not limited to, China. Using an analytical framework and empirical data, they find that the ability of the GSG hypothesis to explain the fall in long-term real rates between 2002 and 2006 is likely much greater than its ability to account for the further fall in these rates from the Great Recession onward.
Report
Liquidity traps, capital flows
Motivated by debates surrounding international capital flows during the Great Recession, we conduct a positive and normative analysis of capital flows when a region of the global economy experiences a liquidity trap. Capital flows reduce inefficient output fluctuations in this region by inducing exchange rate movements that reallocate expenditure toward the goods it produces. Restricting capital mobility hampers such an adjustment. From a global perspective, constrained efficiency entails subsidizing capital flows to address an aggregate demand externality associated with exchange rate ...
Report
The shifting drivers of global liquidity
The post-crisis period has seen a considerable shift in the composition and drivers of international bank lending and international bond issuance, the two main components of global liquidity. The sensitivity of both types of flows to U.S. monetary policy rose substantially in the immediate aftermath of the global financial crisis, peaked around the time of the 2013 Federal Reserve ?taper tantrum,? and then partially reverted toward pre-crisis levels. Conversely, the responsiveness of international bank lending to global risk conditions declined considerably after the crisis and became similar ...
Report
International capital flow pressures
This paper presents a new measure of capital flow pressures in the form of a recast exchange market pressure index. The measure captures pressures that materialize in actual international capital flows as well as pressures that result in exchange rate adjustments. The formulation is theory-based, relying on balance of payments equilibrium conditions and international asset portfolio considerations. Based on the modified exchange market pressure index, the paper also proposes a global risk response index, which reflects the country-specific sensitivity of capital flow pressures to measures of ...
Working Paper
International Dollar Flows
Using confidential Federal Reserve data, we study the factors driving U.S. banknote flows between the United States and other countries. These flows are a significant component of capital flows in emerging market economies, where physical U.S. currency functions as a safe asset and precautionary demand for U.S. banknotes is a form of flight to quality. Prior to the global financial crisis, country-specific factors, including local economic uncertainty, largely explain the volume and heterogeneity of the flows. Since the crisis, global factors, particularly, global economic uncertainty, ...