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on International Finance |
| By: | Eduardo Levy Yeyati |
| Abstract: | Since the early 2000s exchange-traded funds (ETFs) have grown to become an important in- vestment vehicle worldwide. In this paper, we study how their growth affects the sensitivity of international capital flows to the global financial cycle. We combine comprehensive fund- level data on investor flows with a novel identification strategy that controls for unobservable time-varying economic conditions at the investment destination. For dedicated emerging mar- ket funds, we find that the sensitivity of investor flows to global financial conditions for equity (bond) ETFs is 2.5 (2.25) times higher than for equity (bond) mutual funds. In turn, we show that in countries where ETFs hold a larger share of financial assets, total cross-border equity flows and prices are significantly more sensitive to global financial conditions. We conclude that the growing role of ETFs as a channel for international capital flows amplifies the global financial cycle in emerging markets. |
| Keywords: | exchange-traded funds; mutual funds; global financial cycle; global risk; pull and pull factors; capital flows; emerging markets |
| JEL: | F32 G11 G15 G23 |
| Date: | 2019–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cid:wpfacu:351&r=all |
| By: | Zhengyang Jiang (Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University) |
| Abstract: | I document a new pattern unique to the US: When the US fiscal condition is strong, the dollar is strong and continues to appreciate in the next 3 years. This pattern makes the dollar an extraordinary asset, because most assets have lower prices when their expected returns increase. A stylized model accounts for this pattern, provided that the US fiscal cycle comoves with the US investors' risk premium. This model further predicts that the US fiscal cycle explains the forward premium puzzle, the term premium, the dollar carry trade, and currency return momentum, all confirmed in the data. What makes this fiscal-currency comovement unique to the US? I conjecture its exceptional external balance sheet and its special role as the hegemon issuer of the world's reserve assets are contributing factors, and provide suggestive evidence from cross-border capital flows and official foreign reserves. |
| Date: | 2019 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:red:sed019:667&r=all |
| By: | Colacito, Ric; Riddiough, Steven; Sarno, Lucio |
| Abstract: | We find a strong link between currency excess returns and the relative strength of the business cycle. Buying currencies of strong economies and selling currencies of weak economies generates high returns both in the cross section and time series of countries. These returns stem primarily from spot exchange rate predictability, are uncorrelated with common currency investment strategies, and cannot be understood using traditional currency risk factors in either unconditional or conditional asset pricing tests. We also show that a business cycle factor implied by our results is priced in a broad currency cross section. |
| Keywords: | business cycles; currency risk premium; Exchange Rates; Long-run risk |
| JEL: | F31 G12 G15 |
| Date: | 2019–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:14015&r=all |
| By: | Furceri, Davide; Loungani, Prakash; Ostry, Jonathan D. |
| Abstract: | We take a fresh look at the aggregate and distributional effects of policies to liberalize international capital flows-financial globalization. Both country- and industry-level results suggest that such policies have led on average to limited output gains while contributing to significant increases in inequality. The country-level results are based on 228 capital account liberalization episodes spanning 149 advanced and developing economies from 1970 to the present. Difference-in-difference estimation using industry-level data for 23 advanced economies suggests that liberalization episodes reduce the share of labor income, particularly for industries with higher external financial dependence, higher natural propensity to use layoffs to adjust to idiosyncratic shocks, and higher elasticity of substitution between capital and labor. |
| Keywords: | Capital account openness; Globalization; inequality |
| JEL: | F13 G32 O11 |
| Date: | 2019–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:14001&r=all |
| By: | Demir, Ishak |
| Abstract: | While Federal Reserve continues to normalize its monetary policy on the back of a strengthening U.S. economy, the possibility of mimicking U.S. policy actions and so the debate of monetary autonomy has been particularly heated in the most of developing countries, even in advanced economies. We analyse the role played by country-specific characteristics in domestic monetary policy autonomy to set short-term interest rates in the face of spillovers from of U.S. monetary policy as global external shocks. First, we extricate the non-systematic (non-autonomous) component of domestic interest rates which is related to business cycle synchronisation across countries. Then we employ an interacted panel VAR model, which allows impulse response functions to vary by country characteristics for a broad sample of countries. We find strong empirical evidence for the role of exchange rate flexibility, capital account openness in line with trilemma, but also a significant role for other country characteristics, such as dollarisation in the financial system, the presence of a global bank, use of macroprudential policies, and the credibility of fiscal and monetary policy. |
| Keywords: | monetary policy autonomy,global financial cycle,international spillovers,trilemma,country-specific characteristics,cross-country difference,dilemma |
| JEL: | C38 E43 E52 E58 F42 G12 |
| Date: | 2019 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:leafwp:1901&r=all |
| By: | Dani Rodrik (Center for International Development at Harvard University) |
| Abstract: | In a world economy that is highly integrated, most policies produce effects across the border. This is often believed to be an argument for greater global governance, but the logic requires scrutiny. There remains strong revealed demand for policy and institutional diversity among nations, rooted in differences in historical, cultural, or development trajectories. The canonical case for global governance is based on two set of circumstances. The first occurs when there is global public good (GPG) and the second under “beggar-thy-neighbor” (BTN) policies. However, the world economy is not a global commons, and virtually no economic policy has the nature of a global public good (or bad). And while there are some important BTN policies, much of our current discussions deal with policies that are not true BTNs. The policy failures that exist arise not from weaknesses of global governance, but from distortions of domestic governance. As a general rule, these domestic failures cannot be fixed through international agreements or multilateral cooperation. The paper closes by discussing an alternative model of global governance called “democracy-enhancing global governance.” |
| Keywords: | Global Governance |
| JEL: | F50 |
| Date: | 2019–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cid:wpfacu:359&r=all |