Dynamic risksharing in the United States and Europe

We use a panel VAR model to improve upon the existing methodologies to analyze interregional risksharing and consumption smoothing channels. First, we endogenize the output process within a more general multi-equation framework, capturing the dynamic feedback between output and various smoothing channels. Second, in line with dynamic general equilibrium open economy models of risksharing, we exploit impulse response functions to trace the role of each smoothing channel over time, in the presence of different structural shocks (temporary vs. permanent and output vs. smoothing channels). In the application to the US and OECD countries, we find different dynamic properties of different smoothing channels. We compare our results with the predictions of standard risksharing and consumption theories, and tackle some of the puzzles in the literature, such as the “international risksharing puzzle” and the “consumption-output correlation puzzle.” We are also able to address such policy issues as whether fiscal stabilizers have been substitutes or complements for financial market diversification activities and whether further financial market integration is likely to provide countries with more shock-absorption tools. A key result is the strong substitutability between capital and credit smoothing in the US, and between fiscal and credit smoothing in the OECD.     

On the empirics of international smoothing

By fully exploiting the statistical properties of panel data, this paper improves upon existing methodologies to estimate consumption smoothing at least in three respects. First, we model explicitly incomplete risksharing as well as incomplete intertemporal smoothing, and couch the two mechanisms in a unified framework. Second, we fully exploit simple panel data analysis in order to measure degrees of both risksharing and intertemporal smoothing taking place in a given set of economic regions. In particular, we are able to measure not only the smoothing of idiosyncratic shocks, but also the dependence on aggregate (non-diversifiable) shocks. Third, we distinguish neatly between the effects of temporary vs. permanent shocks. This can be done by taking advantage of the complementarity between the “within” estimator and the “between” estimator in a panel regression.     

Heterogeneity in risk aversion and risk sharing regressions

Heterogeneity in risk attitudes, if not properly accounted for, may induce a bias on the income coefficient of standard consumption insurance regressions. We show that, extending the theoretical analysis and empirical findings in Schulhofer‐Wohl (Journal of Political Economy, 2011, 119, 925–958), the sign of the bias is ambiguous, and depends on cycle‐related variables and on the covariances of both aggregate and idiosyncratic risk with individual risk aversion.     

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).     

Coalitional instability of the distributive Lindahl equilibrium

Summary Bergstrom [3] has showed that the Lindahlian approach to the analysis of public goods may also be used to analyze a model of wide-spread externalities in which agents have preferences defined on allocations rather than on individual commodity bundles. He has provided versions of the first and second welfare theorem for adistributive Lindahl equilibrium and also presented sufficient conditions for its existence. However, we shall show that, in contrast to Foley's [4] result on the core stability of a Lindahl equilibrium, a distributive Lindahl equilibrium need not satisfy coalitional stability. We will provide a robust example in which the unique, distributive Lindahl equilibrium does not belong to the -core defined either as in Scarf [11] or as in Yannelis [12].I would like to thank F. Canova, R. Serrano, M. Spagat, R. Vohra at Brown University, P. C. Padoan at University of Rome and an anonymous referee for their comments. I am also grateful to the participants at the Third Annual MeetingColloquia on Economic Research at I.G.I.E.R. in Milan, Italy, and to the participants at the Citibank Workshop in Economic Theory at Brown University.