The two-sided effect of financial globalization on output volatility

This paper provides evidence for a significant relation between international financial markets integration and output volatility. In the framework of a threshold model, it is empirically shown that this relation depends on the financial risk of a country as perceived by investors. In order to proxy financial risk, a financial risk rating employed by multinational firms, banks, and equity and currency traders is used. This rating relies on debt to GDP ratios amongst other indicators. In countries with low financial risk, financial openness decreases output volatility while financial openness increases output volatility in countries with high financial risk. Extensive robustness checks confirm this result.