Has the Feldstein-Horioka puzzle waned? Evidence from time series and dynamic panel data analysis

This objective of this paper is to examine the Feldstein-Harioka puzzle by using both time series analysis that accommodates structural breaks, and dynamic panel error-correction method. Our sample consists of 118 countries over the period 1981–2013. Results from ARDL model suggest that long-run capital is highly mobile in high-income countries (HIC), moderately mobile for both middle- and low-income countries. Our finding of the low long-run saving coefficient for HICs shows that failure to account for a structural break may overstate the long-run saving coefficient. Findings from the pooled mean group estimators suggest that capital is moderately mobile in the middle-income countries, and highly immobile in the high- and low-income countries in the long run. Our findings highlight that ignoring structural break, the type of data (time series/panel), and econometric method used can affect the conclusion about capital mobility. The adjustment coefficient in the time series analysis is comparatively higher than the panel data analysis. We also test whether country size and openness affect the saving–investment correlation. While the effect of country size on the saving coefficient is mixed, the saving estimate is found to be a function of the degree of openness. We also discuss policy implications of our findings on the current account sustainability.     

Current account dynamics and capital mobility in the newly industrialized countries

This paper examines the current account dynamics in a group of ten newly industrialized countries (NICs) during the period 1980–2012 using a panel error-correction model. The model is also used to empirically test whether the degree of capital mobility is positively related to financial openness. The Chin-Ito (2006, 2008) financial openness index is used to classify the countries into different groups, and we place the countries in one group that are similar to each other in terms of their financial openness. Furthermore, to evaluate the extent of capital mobility over the different period from 1980 to 2012, the total period under study is divided into three sub-periods. The estimation results indicate that there exist long-run equilibrium relationships between domestic saving, investment, and current account in all groups regardless of their degree of financial openness. We find that more openness in terms of the capital account is associated with a higher degree of capital mobility in the case of NICs. The empirical result also indicates that the degree of capital mobility is higher in the first and third sub-period.     

Testing the Saving-Investment correlations in India: An evidence from single-equation and system estimators

This study tests the Saving-Investment correlations in India using both single-equation and system estimators. All the estimators suggest the cointegrating relationship between saving and investment, and the results are robust to the choice of estimator. The conventional and new CUSUM tests show long-run stability of equilibrium residuals and reinforce the cointegrating relationship between the model series. The slope parameter on saving is significantly different from zero, but not from one. These results support the FH hypothesis and suggest the imperfect mobility of capital and home-bias in the asset portfolio of domestic investors. The heavy reliance of investment on domestic saving also reinforces the ‘Lucas Puzzle’ on the lack of capital flows from the developed countries to the developing countries with scare capital and higher marginal product of capital.     

The relationship between saving and finance: theory and evidence from E.U. countries

This paper investigates the relationship between saving and investment in an effort to shed light on the issue of mobility of capital and whether or not this is prevented by the presence of any barriers. The data of our analysis are annual and come from 14 E.U. countries during the 1960–1994 period. The econometric analysis shows that for the E.U. countries, saving and the provision of credit are two cointegrated variables, which means that for each E.U. country (Belgium was the only exception) the amount of money saved is closely related to the amount of money that is ultimately invested. This result lends support to the view that in E.U. countries the degree of capital mobility plays a minor role in investment, which is primarily influenced by the conditions affecting the domestic provision of savings. In addition, the econometric analysis shows that the causal linkage is in most countries from savings to investment.     

Financial openness and capital mobility: a dynamic panel analysis

Does unrestricted control on the movement of capital increase capital mobility? Theoretically, the answer is yes. This paper uses the Feldstein–Horioka savings–investment methodology to examine the impact of financial openness on the degree of capital mobility in 104 countries. Our estimates suggest that financial openness has increased capital mobility in developing countries, while its effect is statistically insignificant in OECD countries. This also implies that a developing country with more financial openness can have more access to external capital markets for borrowings. Foreign aid also appears to supplement domestic savings for investment in developing countries. In line with the previous findings, our study also confirms that capital is more mobile for developing countries.     

Financial development and openness: Evidence from panel data

This paper addresses the empirical question of whether trade and financial openness can help explain the recent pace in financial development, as well as its variation across countries in recent years. Utilising annual data from developing and industrialised countries and dynamic panel estimation techniques, we provide evidence which suggests that both types of openness are statistically significant determinants of banking sector development. Our findings reveal that the marginal effects of trade (financial) openness are negatively related to the degree of financial (trade) openness, indicating that relatively closed economies stand to benefit most from opening up their trade and/or capital accounts. Although these economies may be able to accomplish more by taking steps to open both their trade and capital accounts, opening up one without the other could still generate gains in terms of banking sector development. Thus, our findings provide only partial support to the well known Rajan and Zingales hypothesis, which stipulates that both types of openness are necessary for financial development to take place.     

Saving, Investment, and Capital Mobility in LDCs

The Coakley, Kulasi, and Smith current-account solvency model ( Economic Journal , 1996, pp. 620–7) is used to investigate saving and investment in LDCs. This model implies that saving and investment cointegrate with a unit coefficient irrespective of the degree of capital mobility. Panel and conventional unit-root tests indicate that LDC current accounts are stationary. The Feldstein–Horioka cross-section regression coefficient for LDCs is lower than the corresponding OECD coefficient, indicating different policy responses in these countries rather than higher capital mobility. Finally, adjustment toward solvency is slower in LDCs, reflecting their vulnerability to external shocks and the impact of financial repression.     

Terrorism,openness and the Feldstein–Horioka paradox

This paper investigates how terror threats and international openness affect the savings retention coefficient in the Feldstein–Horioka equation. We find that terrorism marginally increases the size of this coefficient, which may result from an increase in the precautionary saving motives. However, even a small increase in openness offsets this effect and significantly lowers the propensity to retain domestic savings for investment. This suggests that, given more channels, capital leaves domestic boundaries to land in safe places abroad. At least partly, the results explain the paradoxical finding in the literature that capital is more mobile in developing countries, even though they are less open. We also find that all types of terrorism reduce investment.     

Capital Mobility, Consumption Substitutability and the Effects of Monetary Policy in Open Economies

Abstract. I use a dynamic general equilibrium two‐country optimizing model to analyze the implications of international capital mobility for the short‐run effects of monetary policy in an open economy. The model implies that the substitutability of goods produced in different countries plays a central role for the impact of changes in the degree of international capital mobility on the effects of monetary policy. Paralleling the results of the traditional Mundell–Fleming model, a higher degree of international capital mobility magnifies the short‐run output effects of monetary policy only if the Marshall–Lerner condition, which is linked to the cross‐country substitutability of goods, holds.     

The long-run effect of foreign direct investment on total factor productivity in developing countries: a panel cointegration analysis

This paper examines the long-run effect of the level of foreign direct investment (FDI) on the level of total factor productivity (TFP) for 49 developing countries for the period 1981–2011 using panel cointegration and causality techniques. It is found that (i) FDI has, on average, a negative long-run effect on TFP in developing countries, (ii) long-run causality runs in only one direction, from FDI to TFP, (iii) in the short run, TFP has a negative effect on FDI, and (iv) the long-run effect of FDI of TFP differs between selected groups of countries: While the estimated long-run FDI–TFP coefficients are always relatively large, negative, and significant for countries with lower levels of human capital, financial development, and trade openness, the estimated effects are relatively small, insignificant, or even significantly positive for subgroups of countries with higher levels of human capital, financial development, and trade openness.     

Sudden stops, banking crises and investment collapses in emerging markets

We evaluate whether financial openness leaves emerging market economies vulnerable to the adverse effects of capital reversals (“sudden stops”) on domestic investment. We investigate this claim in a broad sample of emerging markets during the period 1976–2002. If the banking sector does not experience a systemic crisis, sudden stop events fail to have a significant impact on investment. Bank crises, on the other hand, have a significant negative effect on investment even in the absence of a contemporaneous sudden stop crisis. We also find that openness to capital flows worsens the adverse impact of banking crises on investment. Our results provide statistical support for the policy view that a strong banking sector which can withstand the negative fallout of capital flight is essential for countries that open their economies to international financial flows.     

Saving,investment and capital mobility in EU member countries: a panel data analysis of the Feldstein–Horioka puzzle

ABSTRACT

In this paper, we reexamine the long-standing and puzzling correlation between national saving and investment in 14 European Union (EU) countries. We employ a panel data set for the period 1970–2015 and we apply recently developed maximum likelihood panel cointegration methodologies. We find that there exists a long-run relationship between savings and investment for this panel of EU member countries, with the savings retention coefficient being low in magnitude but statistically different than zero. Therefore, we argue that there is weak evidence in favour of the Feldstein–Horioka puzzle and that the long-run international solvency condition is maintained in most of these countries. This evidence implies a moderate degree of capital mobility which is consistent with the macroeconomic experience of these countries during the period under investigation.     

Dynamic effects of trade openness on financial development

This paper employs the Pooled Mean Group (PMG) approach of Pesaran et al. (1999) to study the dynamic effects of trade openness on financial development. The advantage of the PMG estimator over other dynamic panel econometric techniques is that it allows short-run coefficients, speeds of adjustment and error variances to vary across countries, with cross-country homogeneity restrictions only on long-run parameters. Our results spanning 88 countries over 1960–2005 show that a positive long-run relationship between trade openness and financial development coexists with a negative short-run relationship. But when splitting the data into different income or inflation groups, this finding is observed only in relatively low-income countries or high-inflation economies.     

De facto financial openness and capital mobility

This paper shows that de facto financial openness does (does not) increase capital mobility in developing (developed) countries and that capital is (is not) freely mobile in the most financially open developing (developed) countries.     

Assessing the Impacts of Capital Inflows on Domestic Economy across the Sub-Saharan Africa Countries

Using GMM models, this paper analyzes the impacts of capital inflows on domestic investment in 44 Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) countries from 2003–2012. It is found that foreign direct investment across the SSA remains to be the largest percentage share, accounting for 35% of the total capital inflows. FDI inflows have significant positive impacts on domestic investment across the SSA in both short term and long term. Other key macroeconomic factors such as age dependency ratio, domestic economic growth, terms of trade, real effective exchange rate and trade openness also play vital roles in determining domestic investment.     

The Feldstein–Horioka Puzzle and structural breaks: Evidence from EU members

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the level of capital mobility in European Union members using the Feldstein–Horioka puzzle proposed by Feldstein and Horioka (1980) in order to investigate relations between saving and investment flows. In this paper, data for 23 European countries were used over the period of 1995–2009 on the quarterly basis. Two different tests were used to estimate the stationarity of the model variables, which are the Ng and Perron (2001) unit root test procedure and approach proposed by Zivot and Andrews (1992) for unit root test allowing for a structural shift. Then the Kejriwal and Perron (2008, 2010) structural break test was applied to determine the presence of structural breaks in series. In most countries except Belgium and Finland UDmax and WDmax tests rejected the hypothesis of no breaks. To test the cointegration relationships between investment and saving flows of European Union members three different cointegration techniques were applied to the data. Firstly, the Johansen (1988) cointegration approach was used for the case of no cointegration shifts, then the Gregory and Hansen (1996) cointegration test was applied, which allows for one structural shift. Finally, again the Johansen' cointegration approach was used; however, this time with the inclusion of dummy variables related to earlier selected structural break locations. The empirical results provided stronger evidence of cointegration between investment and saving variables in the case of structural break accommodation compared to the case where the presence of structural breaks was ignored. The estimated saving retention coefficient in the presence of structural breaks using the Kejriwal and Perron (2008, 2010) approach appeared relatively low in many cases, illustrating by this the openness of estimated countries. In general, world and European countries with time have a tendency to a higher level of their capital market openness. Estimations of a saving retention coefficient in the presence of structural changes do not support the existence of the Feldstein–Horioka Puzzle in the considered EU countries, except Belgium.     

贸易开放与发展中国家收入差距扩大——基于中国的理论与实证分析

文章将人力资本结构因素纳入到贸易开放与发展中国家内部收入差距关系的分析框架之中,通过理论推理和实证检验考察了贸易开放、人力资本结构对发展中国家收入差距扩大的影响机制、条件与力度.研究表明,贸易开放对发展中国家收入差距扩大的影响不但与其所带来的技术进步类型有关,还与该国的产业发展战略和人力资本(人才供给)结构密切相关.就我国而言,人力资本结构升级速度慢于贸易产品结构升级速度,是贸易尤其是出口导致收入差距扩大的重要条件.     

Threshold effect of economic openness on bank risk-taking: Evidence from emerging markets

This paper investigates the non-linear effects of two aspects of economic openness, namely, trade openness and financial openness, on banking system stability. We use a panel of 42 emerging markets from 2000 to 2014 to test whether bank risk-taking behaviour varies with the level of openness. We find that a higher degree of trade openness promotes bank stability linearly. Conversely, the non-linear effect of financial openness on bank risk-taking is evident. When the financial system is not sufficiently open, the impact of financial openness on bank stability is insignificant. However, as the domestic financial market becomes more open, financial openness can help discipline the behaviour of banks, making them more stable. We also find evidence that these effects are transmitted through the market discipline channel. Our findings highlight the importance of strengthening the domestic regulatory framework and transparency as the economy becomes more integrated.     

Globalization and labor market outcomes: Wage bargaining, search frictions, and firm heterogeneity

We introduce search unemployment into Melitz's trade model. Firms' monopoly power on product markets leads to strategic wage bargaining. Solving for the symmetric equilibrium we show that the selection effect of trade influences labor market outcomes. Trade liberalization lowers unemployment and raises real wages as long as it improves average productivity. We show that this condition is likely to be met by a reduction in variable trade costs or by entry of new trading countries. Calibrating the model shows that the long-run impact of trade openness on the rate of unemployment is negative and quantitatively significant.