Corrélations investissement-épargne et mobilité internationale des capitaux

Investment-Saving Correlations and International Capital Mobility, by Jean-Pierre Berdot, Gérard Kébabdjian and Jacques Léonard According to conventional wisdom, international capital mobility has increased at an accelerating rate due to financial globalization for the last twenty years. Surprisingly, the Feldstein-Horioka work and most of subsequent research fail to confirm this increase in capital mobility. However, when econometric results are reconsidered, new evidence appears and challenges usual empirical findings. On the one hand, Feldstein-Horioka related regressions suggest that international mobility has actually increased in the long run ; on the other hand, the early 1980s exhibit an acceleration in this upward trend. It is the case for all of industrialized countries, whatever their size. Nevertheless, for emerging countries saving and investment rates are still highly correlated. Taken as a whole, a lower investment-saving correlation is related to higher independence of international capital flows with respect to domestic savings. We find that the linear relationship between investment and saving rates turns around a ?pivotal point? defined as the world saving rate. This criterion allows us to classify countries according to their respective situations. So, it appears that countries have not equally benefited from financial markets liberalization.