IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/jimfin/v95y2019icp212-227.html

Home country interest rates and international investment in U.S. bonds

Author

Listed:
  • Ammer, John
  • Claessens, Stijn
  • Tabova, Alexandra
  • Wroblewski, Caleb

Abstract

We analyze how interest rates affect cross-border portfolio investments. Data on U.S. bond holdings by foreign investors from 31 countries for the period 2003–2016 and a large variety in movements in interest rates in these countries provide for a unique way to analyze shifts in investment behavior in response to interest rates. We find that low(er) interest rates, now prevailing in many advanced countries, lead to greater investment in general into the United States, with the effects generally driven by investment in (higher yielding) corporate bonds, rather than in Treasury bonds. In addition to affecting overall investments, lower interest rates at home are associated with a greater weight on corporate bonds, consistent with search-for-yield. The results are economically important and robust to controlling for a number of country-specific macroeconomic and financial conditions as well as to sample restrictions and choices of interest rate. Our findings have important policy implications in that they suggest that low interest rates can lead to shifts in the volume and composition of overseas investments.

Suggested Citation

  • Ammer, John & Claessens, Stijn & Tabova, Alexandra & Wroblewski, Caleb, 2019. "Home country interest rates and international investment in U.S. bonds," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 95(C), pages 212-227.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:jimfin:v:95:y:2019:i:c:p:212-227
    DOI: 10.1016/j.jimonfin.2018.06.010
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0261560618303917
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.jimonfin.2018.06.010?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version below or

    for a different version of it.

    Other versions of this item:

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Tri Wahyu Adi & Eri Prabowo & Oetami Prasadjaningsih, 2022. "Influence of Electricity Consumption of Industrial and Business, Electricity Price, Inflation and Interest Rate on GDP and Investments in Indonesia," International Journal of Energy Economics and Policy, Econjournals, vol. 12(3), pages 331-340, May.
    2. Christoph Kaufmann, 2023. "Investment Funds, Monetary Policy, and the Global Financial Cycle," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 21(2), pages 593-636.
    3. Salisu, Afees A. & Vo, Xuan Vinh, 2021. "The behavior of exchange rate and stock returns in high and low interest rate environments," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 74(C), pages 138-149.
    4. repec:pra:mprapa:116209 is not listed on IDEAS
    5. Kirik, Alper & Ulusoy, Veysel, 2022. "Winds of tapering, financial gravity and COVID-19," The North American Journal of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 62(C).
    6. Conterius, Simeon & Akimov, Alexandr & Su, Jen-Je & Roca, Eduardo, 2023. "Do foreign investors have a positive impact on the domestic government bonds market? A panel pooled mean group approach," Economic Analysis and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 77(C), pages 863-875.
    7. Youngjin Yun, 2022. "Cross‐border bank flows through foreign branches and the effect of a macroprudential policy," Pacific Economic Review, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 27(2), pages 83-104, May.
    8. Afees A. Salisu & Abdulsalam Abidemi Sikiru, 2023. "Stock returns and interest rate differential in high and low interest rate environments," International Journal of Finance & Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 28(2), pages 1713-1728, April.
    9. Maximilian Konradt, 2023. "Interest Rates and Pension Fund Risk-Taking: New Cross-Country Evidence," IHEID Working Papers 01-2023, Economics Section, The Graduate Institute of International Studies, revised 23 Oct 2025.
    10. Faris Alshubiri, 2022. "The Impact of the Real Interest Rate, the Exchange Rate and Political Stability on Foreign Direct Investment Inflows: A Comparative Analysis of G7 and GCC Countries," Asia-Pacific Financial Markets, Springer;Japanese Association of Financial Economics and Engineering, vol. 29(3), pages 569-603, September.
    11. Galvez, Julio & Gambacorta, Leonardo & Mayordomo, Sergio & Serena, Jose Maria, 2021. "Dollar borrowing, firm credit risk, and FX-hedged funding opportunities," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 68(C).
    12. Boermans, Martijn A. & Burger, John D., 2023. "Fickle emerging market flows, stable euros, and the dollar risk factor," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 142(C).
    13. Huang, Siqi & Cheng, Manli & Shu, Zhenzhu, 2024. "Role of social capital and financial inclusion in sustainable economic growth," Research in International Business and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 72(PA).
    14. Kaufmann, Christoph & Leyva, Jaime & Storz, Manuela, 2024. "Insurance corporations’ balance sheets, financial stability and monetary policy," Working Paper Series 2892, European Central Bank.
    15. Choi, Sangyup & Havel, Jiri, 2025. "Geopolitical risk and U.S. foreign portfolio investment: A tale of advanced and emerging markets," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 151(C).
    16. Ahmed, Rashad, 2023. "Flights-to-safety and macroeconomic adjustment in emerging markets: The role of U.S. monetary policy," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 133(C).
    17. Youngjin Yun, 2020. "Post-crisis changes in the pattern of capital flows - The case of Korea," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 40(1), pages 601-611.
    18. Gylych Jelilov & Bilal Celik & Yusuf Adamu, 2020. "Foreign Portfolio Investment Response to Monetary Policy Decisions in Nigeria: A Toda-Yamamoto Approach," International Business Research, Canadian Center of Science and Education, vol. 13(3), pages 166-166, March.
    19. Wei, Xiaobo & Mohsin, Muhammad & Zhang, Qiongxin, 2022. "Role of foreign direct investment and economic growth in renewable energy development," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 192(C), pages 828-837.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    JEL classification:

    • F21 - International Economics - - International Factor Movements and International Business - - - International Investment; Long-Term Capital Movements
    • F34 - International Economics - - International Finance - - - International Lending and Debt Problems
    • G11 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Portfolio Choice; Investment Decisions
    • G20 - Financial Economics - - Financial Institutions and Services - - - General

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:jimfin:v:95:y:2019:i:c:p:212-227. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/inca/30443 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.