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Return Volatility and International Portfolio Choice

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  • Nicolas Coeurdacier

    (ESSEC and Paris School of Economics)

  • Robert Kollmann

    (ECARES, Free University of Brussels & CEPR)

  • Philippe Martin

    (University Paris I & CEPR)

Abstract

Despite the liberalization of international capital flows during the last decades, typical investors continue to hold most of their wealth in domestic assets. International RBC models can explain that 'portfolio home bias', if consumption home bias is incorporated, i.e. the fact that the bulk of consumption consists of locally produced goods (Obstfeld (2006)). However RBC models fail to explain the high volatility of equity returns and real exchange rates, and predict excessive cross-country risk sharing. This paper develops a model that simultaneously generates realistic portfolio holdings and return volatilities, and imperfect risk pooling. In the structure here, there are supply shocks, aggregate demand shocks (variations in government purchases, taste shocks), and exogenous shocks to equity risk premia. There is trade in domestic and foreign stocks and bonds. Demand shocks and risk premium shocks generate realistic return volatility, and create a strong bias towards holding local equity. Intuitively, a country-specific demand increase raises the relative price of the locally produced good, if there is consumption home bias, and it thus raises the relative return on local equity; local equity thus has a high return, in states of the world in which the household wishes to consume a lot. By biasing their portfolios toward local equity, countries can also insulate their net foreign assets and consumption spending, from exogenous risk premium shocks. When taste shocks follow random walks, there are sunspot equilibria characterized by sizable departures from full risk sharing.

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Bibliographic Info

Paper provided by Society for Economic Dynamics in its series 2007 Meeting Papers with number 474.

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Date of creation: 2007
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Handle: RePEc:red:sed007:474

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  1. Maurice Obstfeld & Kenneth Rogoff, 2000. "The Six Major Puzzles in International Macroeconomics: Is There a Common Cause?," NBER Working Papers 7777, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  2. Fabrizio Perri & Jonathan Heathcote, 2007. "The International Diversification Puzzle Is Not as Bad as You Think," Working Papers 2007-3, University of Minnesota, Department of Economics, revised 08 Oct 2007.
  3. Kollmann, R., 1992. "Consumption, Real Exchange Rates and the Structure of International Asset Markets," Cahiers de recherche 9232, Centre interuniversitaire de recherche en économie quantitative, CIREQ.
  4. Fabio Ghironi & Jaewoo Lee & Alessandro Rebucci, 2009. "The valuation channel of external adjustment," Working Papers 09-18, Federal Reserve Bank of Boston.
  5. Anna Pavlova & Roberto Rigobon, 2003. "Asset Prices and Exchange Rates," NBER Working Papers 9834, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  6. P Martin & H Rey, 2000. "Financial Super-Markets: Size Matters for Asset Trade," CEP Discussion Papers dp0450, Centre for Economic Performance, LSE.
  7. Chari, V V & Kehoe, Patrick J & McGrattan, Ellen R, 2002. "Can Sticky Price Models Generate Volatile and Persistent Real Exchange Rates?," Review of Economic Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 69(3), pages 533-63, July.
  8. Charles Engel & Akito Matsumoto, 2006. "Portfolio Choice in a Monetary Open-Economy DSGE Model," NBER Working Papers 12214, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  9. Jonathan Heathcote & Fabrizio Perri, 2001. "Financial Globalization and Real Regionalization," Working Papers 01-11, New York University, Leonard N. Stern School of Business, Department of Economics.
  10. Hélène Rey & Philippe Martin, 2006. "Globalization and Emerging Markets: With or Without Crash?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 96(5), pages 1631-1651, December.
  11. Robert Kollmann, 1996. "Incomplete asset markets and the cross-country consumption correlation puzzle," ULB Institutional Repository 2013/7640, ULB -- Universite Libre de Bruxelles.
  12. Ghironi, Fabio, 2006. "Macroeconomic interdependence under incomplete markets," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 70(2), pages 428-450, December.
  13. Robert Kollmann, 2006. "A dynamic general equilibrium model of international portfolio holding: comment," ULB Institutional Repository 2013/7622, ULB -- Universite Libre de Bruxelles.
  14. Kollmann, Robert, 2006. "International Portfolio Equilibrium and the Current Account," CEPR Discussion Papers 5512, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
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