Dynamics and Heterogeneity of Inter‐ and Intranational Risk Sharing

This study extends the empirical model of incomplete risk sharing developed by Crucini ( 1999 ) by allowing unequal income pooling and explores the implications of using an alternative measure for aggregate risk. Based on samples from Canadian provinces, G‐7, and OECD countries spanning the years 1961–2008, we show that the empirical procedure used by Crucini tends to overstate the average degree of risk sharing and understate the dispersion of risk sharing, when compared to our unequal income pooling model. The empirical results from our unequal pooling model show that (i) the degree and dispersion of risk sharing across Canadian provinces, G‐7 countries, and OECD countries remain stable over time; (ii) the degree of risk sharing across Canadian provinces is higher than that across the G‐7 and OECD countries; and (iii) the degree of risk sharing seems positively related to equity and trade diversification.     

我国城镇居民消费的风险分担与跨期平滑——基于1985~2011年的实证研究

应用我国1985~2011年的省级数据,构建面板数据模型实证分析了城镇家庭消费的风险分担和跨期平滑情况。研究结果显示：我国城镇家庭消费的跨期平滑是不完全的。无论是从我国整体情况来看,还是从不同地区或者不同收入组家庭来考察,城镇家庭消费的跨期平滑系数γ均介于0~1之间。此外,城镇家庭消费的风险分担程度很低,消费风险分担机制很不完善。进一步的分析显示：各个地区内部和不同收入组内部的风险分担系数要高于全国总体的风险分担系数,这说明我国城镇家庭在进行消费风险分担时具有显著的“本地偏好”和“阶层效应”。     

On International Consumption Risk Sharing,Financial Integration and Financial Development

This article investigates the empirical link between international consumption risk sharing, financial integration, and financial development for a group of twenty-nine developed and developing countries in the G7, the Euro area, and the OECD. Estimation results indicate that (1) risk sharing in the Euro area is higher than those in the G-7 and the OECD, and (2) a higher degree of risk sharing is associated with a greater degree of financial integration and a lower level of financial development. These results suggest that more financially integrated countries might be better able to insure themselves against idiosyncratic income shocks and countries with more developed financial markets might tend to engage in less consumption risk sharing with other countries thanks to their own sophisticated financial markets. Holding financial integration and financial development equal, countries in the Euro area engage in significantly more risk sharing than the ones in the G7 and the OECD.     

Understanding the Backus–Smith puzzle: It's the (nominal) exchange rate,stupid

Backus, Kehoe and Kydland (BKK 1992) demonstrated that if international capital markets are complete, consumption growth correlations across countries should be higher than their corresponding output growth correlations. In stark contrast to the theory, however, in actual data the consumption growth correlation is lower than the output growth correlation. By assuming trade imperfections due to non-traded goods, Backus, D.K., Smith, G.W. [1993 Consumption and real exchange rates in dynamic economies with non-traded goods. Journal of International Economics 35(3–4), 297–316] showed that there is an additional impediment at work that can lower the consumption growth correlation. While their argument was successful in partially explaining the puzzlingly low cross country correlation of consumption growth rates, it contributed to generating another puzzle because the data forcefully show that consumption growth is negatively correlated with the real exchange rate, which is also a violation of the theory. Using data for OECD countries, we decompose real exchange rate growth into its nominal exchange rate growth and inflation differential components, and find that nominal exchange rate movements are the main source for the Backus-Smith puzzle. We demonstrate the robustness of this finding by examining sub-samples of the data, by allowing for imperfect risk sharing due to ‘rule of thumb’ consumers, and by examining intranational data across the U.S. states where the nominal exchange rate is fixed.     

Incentive problems and the pattern of international risk sharing

This paper analyzes the implications of moral hazard and a lack of contract enforcement for risk sharing across countries and regions. We demonstrate that both incentive problems can considerably restrict efficient risk sharing. However, we show that the cross-sectional risk sharing component is much more affected than the intertemporal component. We argue that this may help to explain several stylized facts of international risk sharing, such as the low degree of insurance against permanent shocks.     

Evaluating international consumption risk sharing gains: An asset return view

International consumption risk sharing studies often generate counterfactual implications for asset return behavior with potentially misleading results. We address this contradiction using data moments of consumption and asset returns to fit a canonical international consumption risk sharing framework. Introducing persistent consumption risk, we find that its correlation across countries is more important for risk sharing than that of transitory risk. To identify these risk components, we jointly exploit the comovement of equity returns and consumption. This identification implies high correlations in persistent consumption risk, suggesting a strong degree of existing risk sharing despite low consumption correlations in the data.     

The impact of international portfolio composition on consumption risk sharing

Recent empirical work has shown that ongoing international financial integration facilitates cross-country consumption risk sharing. These studies typically find that countries with high equity home bias exhibit relatively low international consumption risk sharing. We extend this line of research and demonstrate that it is not only a country's equity home bias that prevents consumption risk sharing. In addition, the composition of a country's foreign asset portfolio plays an important role. Using panel-data regression for a group of OECD countries over the period 1980–2007, we show that foreign investment bias has additional explanatory power for consumption risk sharing.     

External balance adjustment: An intra-national and international comparison

Large external imbalances have become a policy concern. This study investigates the determinants of external balances for regions within a single country—Canadian provinces—as well as for a sample of 18 OECD countries. External balance adjustment may differ for provinces since there are few intra-national barriers to the mobility of capital, goods and labour within Canada. Also, because Canada is a monetary union, there is no currency risk associated with lending and borrowing across provinces, and this may promote inter-provincial financial flows. The estimates show that the short run response of the external balance to disturbances, such as a deterioration in the terms of trade, is typically larger for Canadian provinces than for OECD countries. There is also a much greater speed of adjustment of the external balance in the Canadian provinces. This faster adjustment speed, combined with the larger response of the external balance, means that provinces may see a quicker resolution of external imbalances, but larger deficits or surpluses may emerge before adjustment occurs.     

Quantifying the risk-sharing welfare gains of social security

The welfare effects of intergenerational risk sharing through a pay-as-you-go social security system that is efficiently indexed to wages or interest rates are quantified. Comparing steady states, there are large welfare gains of being born into an economy with efficient risk sharing as compared to the current U.S. system. Efficient policy involves an increasingly risky net of tax income over the life cycle. When adjustment to steady state is taken into account, the welfare gains largely turn negative. The results are also compared and contrasted to the first best allocation.     

Labour market rigidities and international risk sharing across OECD countries

In this paper we examine the role of labour market rigidities in the context of international consumption risk sharing. Stronger labour market regulation may make it easier to borrow against future income, thus allowing shocks to be smoothed to a greater extent. In addition, rigid labour markets may help to enforce implicit contracts that shift risk from employees to owners of firms, who, in turn, may diversify risk internationally. Using data for 19 OECD countries we show that labour market rigidities significantly increase consumption correlations and reduce the exposure to country-specific shocks. These results suggest that labour market rigidities improve the international sharing of consumption risks by fostering a more efficient intra-national allocation of risk.     

Consumption smoothing channels in open economies

Many intertemporal open economy macro models imply a theory of consumption smoothing channels; thus we build an empirical model to analyze the intertemporal smoothing role of saving components (fixed investments, inventories and trade balance) through the use of VAR impulse responses to different types of shocks. We find that for the OECD countries the bulk of intertemporal smoothing has been carried out domestically, via gross fixed investments and inventories, but the trade balance has also played a relevant – albeit volatile – smoothing role. We also characterize the dynamic behavior of each component: the trade balance and inventories are mostly used as short-run smoothing tools while fixed investment provides more and more smoothing over time. We can also address some empirical puzzles, such as the “excess sensitivity of investment” anomaly (Glick, R., Rogoff, K., 1995. Global versus country-specific productivity shocks and the current account. Journal of Monetary Economics, 35, 159–192) and the “saving-investment correlation puzzle” (Feldstein, M., Horioka, C., 1980. Domestic saving and international capital flows. Economic Journal, 90, 314–329).     

Dynamic Consumption and Portfolio Choice with Stochastic Volatility in Incomplete Markets

This paper examines the optimal consumption and portfolio-choiceproblem of long-horizon investors who have access to a risklessasset with constant return and a risky asset ("stocks") withconstant expected return and time-varying precision—thereciprocal of volatility. Markets are incomplete, and investorshave recursive preferences defined over intermediate consumption.The paper obtains a solution to this problem which is exactfor investors with unit elasticity of intertemporal substitutionof consumption and approximate otherwise. The optimal portfoliodemand for stocks includes an intertemporal hedging componentthat is negative when investors have coefficients of relativerisk aversion larger than one, and the instantaneous correlationbetween volatility and stock returns is negative, as typicallyestimated from stock return data. Our estimates of the jointprocess for stock returns and precision (or volatility) usingU.S. data confirm this finding. But we also find that stockreturn volatility does not appear to be variable and persistentenough to generate large intertemporal hedging demands.     

Within and between-country variances in inflation rates : Are they similar?

This paper critiques the test which led Hans Genberg to the widely cited finding that the variance in inflation rates across OECD countries under fixed exchange rates was not significantly different from the variance in inflation rates across U.S. cities. It offers a more appropriate test which indicates that, in fact, there is a highly significant difference in the variance of inflation rates within and among countries.     

How important is intra-household risk sharing for savings and labor supply?

While it is recognized that the family is a risk-sharing institution, little is known about the quantitative effects of this source of insurance on savings and labor supply. In this paper, we present a model where workers (females and males) are subject to idiosyncratic employment risk and where capital markets are incomplete. A household is formed by a female and a male, who decide on consumption, savings and labor supplies. In a calibrated version of our model we find that intra-household risk sharing has its largest impact among wealth-poor households. While the wealth-rich use mainly savings to smooth consumption across unemployment spells, wealth-poor households rely on spousal labor supply. For instance, for low-wealth households, average hours worked by wives of unemployed husbands are 8% higher than those worked by wives of employed husbands. This response in wives’ hours makes up 9% of lost family income. We also study consumption losses upon an unemployment spell, precautionary savings and the crowding out effects of the public unemployment insurance program on the extent of risk sharing within the household.     

Dividend Imputation Systems in Industrialized Countries: An Examination of Relative Tax Burdens

Dividend taxation has been a controversial issue especially since the enactment of the 2003 U.S. legislation entitled “Jobs and Growth Tax Relief Reconciliation Act” (JGTRRA). This paper presents taxonomy of dividend tax systems and illustrates dividend relief practices in the OECD (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development) countries. None of the OECD countries follow the conduit (i.e., full imputation) system, and the classical system (where double taxation of dividends occurs) prevailed only in one country (Ireland) other than U.S. in 2003. Dividend imputation in most of the OECD countries is only partial and takes place at the shareholder level in the form of tax credit or split rate. The paper also demonstrates a method to compute the effective tax rates (corporate plus individual taxes) on dividends, and presents such rates for the OECD countries. In comparison with the average dividends tax rate of 39.6% in other OECD countries, the U.S. had a rate of 60.7%, which JGTRRA has brought down to 44.8%.     

International risk sharing is better than you think, or exchange rates are too smooth

Exchange rates depreciate by the difference between domestic and foreign marginal utility growth or discount factors. Exchange rates vary a lot, as much as 15% per year. However, equity premia imply that marginal utility growth varies much more, by at least 50% per year. Therefore, marginal utility growth must be highly correlated across countries: international risk sharing is better than you think. Conversely, if risks really are not shared internationally, exchange rates should vary more than they do: exchange rates are too smooth. We calculate an index of international risk sharing that formalizes this intuition. We treat carefully the realistic case of incomplete capital markets. We contrast our estimates with the poor risk sharing suggested by consumption data and home-bias portfolio calculations.     

How did a domestic housing slump turn into a global financial crisis?

The global financial crisis clearly started with problems in the U.S. sub-prime sector and spread across the world from there. But was the direct exposure of foreigners to the U.S. financial system a key driver of the crisis, or did other factors account for its rapid contagion across the world? To answer this question, we assessed whether countries that held large amounts of U.S. mortgage-backed securities (MBS) and were highly dependent on dollar funding experienced a greater degree of financial distress during the crisis. We found little evidence of such direct spillovers from the United States to abroad. Although CDS spreads generally rose higher and bank stocks generally fell lower in countries with more exposure to U.S. MBS and greater dollar funding needs, these correlations were not robust, and they fail to explain the lion’s share of the deterioration in asset prices that took place during the crisis. Accordingly, less tangible channels of contagion may have played a more important role in the global spread of the crisis: a generalized run on global financial institutions, given the opacity of their balance sheets; excessive dependence on short-term funding; vicious cycles of mark-to-market losses driving fire sales of MBS; the realization that financial firms around the world were pursuing similar (flawed) business models; and global swings in risk aversion. The U.S. sub-prime crisis, rather than being a fundamental driver of the global crisis, may have been merely a trigger for a global bank run and for disillusionment with a risky business model that already had spread around the world.     

Securitized markets,international capital flows,and global welfare

We study the effect of collateralized lending and securitization on international capital flows and welfare in a two-country general equilibrium model with idiosyncratic investment risk. The low-margin country (Home) endogenously supplies more safe assets and enables more risk sharing. Upon financial integration, capital flows from Foreign (high-margin country) to Home, leading to lower interest rates and a larger global supply of safe assets. Unlike in standard models with partial equity issuance, in our model, Home can lose from financial integration due to the endogenous reduction in risk sharing and aggregate shocks can generate large gross capital flows.     

Capital Controls and the International Transmission of U.S. Money Shocks

We assess whether capital controls effectively insulate countries from U.S. monetary shocks, examining a large range of country experiences in a unified estimation framework. We estimate the effect of identified U.S. monetary shocks on the exchange rate and foreign country interest rates, and test whether countries with less open capital accounts exhibit systematically smaller responses. We find essentially no evidence of this. Other country factors such as the exchange rate regime or degree of dollarization explain more of the cross-country differences in responses. The significant differences in responses we do find are more pronounced at short horizons.     

An international look at the lawsuit avoidance hypothesis of IPO underpricing

We examine the relationship between IPO underpricing and litigation risk in an international setting using a sample of 13,759 firms that went public across 40 countries between 1991 and 2011. While the majority of single-country studies do not find support for the lawsuit avoidance hypothesis, we find a significant positive relationship between litigation risk and underpricing in a cross-country framework. Contrary to all single-country legal liability studies outside the U.S. and consistent with the U.S. studies of Tiniç (1988) and Lowry and Shu (2002), our empirical results support the insurance effect of the lawsuit avoidance hypothesis in an international context. Our findings imply that the degree of litigation risk in a given country affects the level of underpricing for firms that go public in that country. We conclude that differences in legal risk factors can partially explain differences in underpricing across countries.