How do countries hold their financial wealth? We construct a new database of countries' claims on capital located at home and abroad, and international borrowing and lending, covering 68 countries from 1966-97. We find that a small amount of capital flows from rich countries to poor countries. Countries' foreign asset positions are remarkably persistent, and mostly take the form of foreign loans rather than foreign equity. To interpret these facts, we build a simple model of international capital flows that highlights the interplay between diminishing returns, production risk and sovereign risk. We show that in the presence of reasonable diminishing returns and production risk, the probability that international crises occur twice a century is enough to generate a set of country portfolios that are roughly consistent with the data.
Download Info
To download:
If you experience problems downloading a file, check if you have the
proper application to
view it first. Information about this may be contained
in the File-Format links below. In case of further problems read
the IDEAS help
page. Note that these files are not on the IDEAS
site. Please be patient as the files may be large.
As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version under "Related research" (further below) or search for a different version of it.
Publisher Info
Paper provided by C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers in its series CEPR Discussion Papers with number
2974.
Aart Kraay & Norman Loayza & Luis Servén & Jaume Ventura, 2000.
"Country portfolios,"
Economics Working Papers
913, Department of Economics and Business, Universitat Pompeu Fabra.
[Downloadable!]
Aart Kraay & Norman Loayza & Luis Serven & Jaume Ventura, 2000.
"Country Portfolios,"
NBER Working Papers
7795, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
[Downloadable!] (restricted)
Find related papers by JEL classification: F32 - International Economics - - International Finance - - - Current Account Adjustment; Short-term Capital Movements F34 - International Economics - - International Finance - - - International Lending and Debt Problems
References listed on IDEAS Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:
Eaton, Jonathan & Fernandez, Raquel, 1995.
"Sovereign debt,"
Handbook of International Economics,
in: G. M. Grossman & K. Rogoff (ed.), Handbook of International Economics, edition 1, volume 3, chapter 3, pages 2031-2077
Elsevier.
[Downloadable!] (restricted)
Other versions:
Eaton, J. & Fernandez, R., 1995.
"Sovereign Debt,"
Papers
37, Boston University - Department of Economics.
Jonathan Eaton & Raquel Fernandez, 1995.
"Sovereign Debt,"
NBER Working Papers
5131, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
[Downloadable!] (restricted)
Reinhart, Carmen & Rogoff, Kenneth & Savastano, Miguel, 2003.
"Debt intolerance,"
MPRA Paper
13932, University Library of Munich, Germany.
[Downloadable!]
Other versions:
Carmen M. Reinhart & Kenneth S. Rogoff & Miguel A. Savastano, 2003.
"Debt Intolerance,"
NBER Working Papers
9908, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
[Downloadable!] (restricted)
Carmen M. Reinhart & Kenneth S. Rogoff & Miguel A. Savastano, 2003.
"Debt Intolerance,"
Brookings Papers on Economic Activity,
Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 34(2003-1), pages 1-74.
[Downloadable!]
Aart Kraay & Norman Loayza & Luis Servén & Jaume Ventura, 2000.
"Country portfolios,"
Economics Working Papers
913, Department of Economics and Business, Universitat Pompeu Fabra.
[Downloadable!]
Other versions:
Aart Kraay & Norman Loayza & Luis Serven & Jaume Ventura, 2000.
"Country Portfolios,"
NBER Working Papers
7795, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
[Downloadable!] (restricted)
Cited by: (explanations, Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.) This item has more than 25 citations. To prevent cluttering this page, these citations are listed on a separate page.