Is there a world real interest rate?

This study uses panel data techniques to estimate a common compo­nent to the ex post real interest rates of nine countries with liberal capital markets over the past 15 years. We show that the residuals from such a regression have almost no serial correlation, and that each country's real interest rate is highly correlated with the estimated world real inter­est rate. The primary exception to these findings is the behavior of the U.S. real interest rate, which exhibits large and persistent deviations from the estimated world real interest rate.