Publication Type

Working Paper

Version

publishedVersion

Publication Date

1-2013

Abstract

We develop a tractable two-country overlapping-generations model and show that cross-country differences in financial development can explain three recent empirical patterns of international capital flows: Financial capital flows from relatively poor to relatively rich countries, while foreign direct investment flows in the opposite direction; net capital flows go from poor to rich countries; despite its negative net international investment positions, the United States receives a positive net investment income. International capital mobility affects output in each country directly through the size of domestic investment and indirectly through the aggregate saving rate. Under certain conditions, the indirect effect may dominate the direct effect so that international capital mobility raises output in the poor country and globally, although net capital flows are in the direction to the rich country. We also explore the welfare and distributional effects of international capital flows and show that the patterns of capital flows may reverse along the convergence process of a developing country. Our model adds to the understanding of the benefits of international capital mobility in the presence of domestic financial frictions.

Keywords

Capital account liberalization, financial development, foreign direct investment, symmetry breaking

Discipline

Finance | International Economics

Research Areas

International Economics

First Page

1

Last Page

46

Copyright Owner and License

Authors

Comments

Published in Journal of Development Economics https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jdeveco.2013.08.010

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