Consolidated Foreign Wealth of Nations: Nationality-based measures of international exposure

This paper presents novel estimates of foreign holdings from a consolidated-by-nationality perspective for a sample of fourteen developed countries over multiple years. It describes the stylized facts that emerge from this new data-set on the international exposure of countries. It shows that aggregate international financial integration is larger from a nationality-based approach relative to the conventional residence-based data. These novel data are used to analyze (1) profit shifting activities and (2) spillovers from U.S. monetary policy shocks. I find evidence suggesting that nationals of relatively high-tax countries may shift assets to low-tax countries in ways not fully captured in residence-based statistics. I also find that a tightening in U.S. monetary policy is associated with a decline in consolidated-by-nationality foreign asset holdings by non-financial multinational enterprises. Such findings highlight the usefulness of this new data-set in international macroeconomics.