IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/nbr/nberwo/27048.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Elusive Safety: The New Geography of Capital Flows and Risk

Author

Listed:
  • Laura Alfaro
  • Ester Faia
  • Ruth A. Judson
  • Tim Schmidt-Eisenlohr

Abstract

A confidential dataset with industry-level disaggregation of U.S. cross-border claims and liabilities, shows U.S. securities to be increasingly intermediated by tax-haven-financial-centers (THFC) and less regulated funds. These securities are risky, in intangible-intensive sectors, requiring higher Sharpe ratios; while the foreign-official sector mainly holds Treasuries. Facts on private securities are rationalized through a model where firms with heterogeneous default probabilities, and funded by global intermediaries, endogenously locate affiliates in THFCs. A decline in the cost of funds or in THFC's taxes/regulation, raises profits and firms' incentives to enter THFCs. Firms appear elusively safe, intermediaries reduce monitoring incentives and debt risk increases.

Suggested Citation

  • Laura Alfaro & Ester Faia & Ruth A. Judson & Tim Schmidt-Eisenlohr, 2020. "Elusive Safety: The New Geography of Capital Flows and Risk," NBER Working Papers 27048, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:27048
    Note: CF IFM ITI
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.nber.org/papers/w27048.pdf
    Download Restriction: Access to the full text is generally limited to series subscribers, however if the top level domain of the client browser is in a developing country or transition economy free access is provided. More information about subscriptions and free access is available at http://www.nber.org/wwphelp.html. Free access is also available to older working papers.
    ---><---

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

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Erika Brandner & Fang Cai & Ruth Judson, 2012. "Improving the measurement of cross-border securities holdings: the Treasury International Capital SLT," Federal Reserve Bulletin, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.), issue May.
    2. Stefan Avdjiev & Mary Everett & Philip R Lane & Hyun Song Shin, 2018. "Tracking the international footprints of global firms," BIS Quarterly Review, Bank for International Settlements, March.
    3. Eugenio Cerutti & Ricardo Correa & Elisabetta Fiorentino & Esther Segalla, 2017. "Changes in Prudential Policy Instruments - A New Cross-Country Database," International Journal of Central Banking, International Journal of Central Banking, vol. 13(2), pages 477-503, March.
    4. Mihir A. Desai & C. Fritz Foley & James R. Hines, 2004. "A Multinational Perspective on Capital Structure Choice and Internal Capital Markets," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 59(6), pages 2451-2487, December.
    5. Erika Brandner & Fang Cai & Ruth Judson, 2012. "Improving the measurement of cross-border securities holdings: the Treasury International Capital SLT," Federal Reserve Bulletin, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.), vol. 98(May), pages 1-28.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Mary Everett & Jakob de Haan & David‐Jan Jansen & Peter McQuade & Anna Samarina, 2021. "Mortgage lending, monetary policy, and prudential measures in small euro‐area economies: Evidence from Ireland and the Netherlands," Review of International Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 29(1), pages 117-143, February.
    2. Nicodano, Giovanna & Regis, Luca, 2019. "A trade-off theory of ownership and capital structure," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 131(3), pages 715-735.
    3. Asmund Rygh & Gabriel R. G. Benito, 2018. "Capital Structure of Foreign Direct Investments: A Transaction Cost Analysis," Management International Review, Springer, vol. 58(3), pages 389-411, June.
    4. Daniel Anarfi & Danuše Nerudová, 2018. "Profit Shifting and the Tax Response of Multinational Banks in Eastern Europe," Acta Universitatis Agriculturae et Silviculturae Mendelianae Brunensis, Mendel University Press, vol. 66(3), pages 729-736.
    5. Jennifer Blouin & Harry Huizinga & Luc Laeven & Gaëtan Nicodème, 2013. "Thin capitalization rules and multinational firm capital structure," Working Papers 1323, Oxford University Centre for Business Taxation.
    6. Fuest, Clemens & Spengel, Christoph & Finke, Katharina & Heckemeyer, Jost H. & Nusser, Hannah, 2013. "Profit shifting and 'aggressive' tax planning by multinational firms: Issues and options for reform," ZEW Discussion Papers 13-078, ZEW - Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research.
    7. Gugler, Klaus & Peev, Evgeni & Segalla, Esther, 2013. "The internal workings of internal capital markets: Cross-country evidence," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 20(C), pages 59-73.
    8. Suman Banerjee & Thomas H. Noe, 2017. "Legal-System Arbitrage and Parent–Subsidiary Capital Structures," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 63(11), pages 3809-3828, November.
    9. Marc Hofstetter & Jose Ignacio Lopez & Miguel Urrutia, 2018. "Limits to Foreign Exchange Net Open Positions and Capital Requirements in Emerging Economies," Documentos CEDE 015995, Universidad de los Andes - CEDE.
    10. Langenmayr, Dominika & Haufler, Andreas & Bauer, Christian J., 2015. "Should tax policy favor high- or low-productivity firms?," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 73(C), pages 18-34.
    11. Gresik, Thomas A. & Schindler, Dirk & Schjelderup, Guttorm, 2017. "Immobilizing corporate income shifting: Should it be safe to strip in the harbor?," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 152(C), pages 68-78.
    12. Subramanian Rangan & Metin Sengul, 2009. "Information technology and transnational integration: Theory and evidence on the evolution of the modern multinational enterprise," Journal of International Business Studies, Palgrave Macmillan;Academy of International Business, vol. 40(9), pages 1496-1514, December.
    13. Greene, William H. & Hornstein, Abigail S. & White, Lawrence J., 2009. "Multinationals do it better: Evidence on the efficiency of corporations' capital budgeting," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 16(5), pages 703-720, December.
    14. Fritz Foley, C. & Hartzell, Jay C. & Titman, Sheridan & Twite, Garry, 2007. "Why do firms hold so much cash? A tax-based explanation," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 86(3), pages 579-607, December.
    15. Akinci, Ozge & Olmstead-Rumsey, Jane, 2018. "How effective are macroprudential policies? An empirical investigation," Journal of Financial Intermediation, Elsevier, vol. 33(C), pages 33-57.
    16. Franz Reiter & Dominika Langenmayr & Svea Holtmann, "undated". "Avoiding Taxes: Banks' Use of Internal Debt," Working Papers 196, Bavarian Graduate Program in Economics (BGPE).
    17. Chen, Minghua & Wu, Ji & Jeon, Bang Nam & Wang, Rui, 2017. "Monetary policy and bank risk-taking: Evidence from emerging economies," Emerging Markets Review, Elsevier, vol. 31(C), pages 116-140.
    18. Arnt Ove Hopland & Petro Lisowsky & Mohammed Mardan & Dirk Schindler, 2014. "Income Shifting under Losses," CESifo Working Paper Series 5130, CESifo.
    19. Georg Wamser, 2014. "The Impact of Thin-Capitalization Rules on External Debt Usage – A Propensity Score Matching Approach," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 76(5), pages 764-781, October.
    20. Buettner, Thiess & Overesch, Michael & Schreiber, Ulrich & Wamser, Georg, 2009. "Taxation and capital structure choice--Evidence from a panel of German multinationals," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 105(3), pages 309-311, December.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • F2 - International Economics - - International Factor Movements and International Business
    • F3 - International Economics - - International Finance
    • F4 - International Economics - - Macroeconomic Aspects of International Trade and Finance
    • G15 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - International Financial Markets

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:nbr:nberwo:27048. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: (). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/nberrus.html .

    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.

    If CitEc recognized a reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with 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.

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

    IDEAS is a RePEc service hosted by the Research Division of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis . RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.