The relative wealth hypothesis of Froot and Stein (1991), motivated by the aggregate correlation between real exchange rates and foreign direct investment (FDI) observed in the 1980s, cannot explain one of the major shifts in FDI in the 1990s: the continued decline in Japanese FDI during a...

There has been a significant correlation between inward foreign direct investment in the United States and the U.S. real exchange rate since the 1970s. Two alternative reasons for this relationship are that the real exchange rate affects the relative cost of production and that the real exchange...

Remarks by Eric S. Rosengren, President and Chief Executive Officer, Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, at the Global Interdependence Center's Conference on Capital Markets in the Post Crisis Environment, Stockholm, Sweden, September 29, 2011

We examine foreign acquisitions of United States banks around the time of the ownership change to determine whether the observed poor performance of foreign subsidiaries is the result of changes in business strategy or the preexisting characteristics of the target bank. We find that many of the...

The enormous growth in both Social Security and private pension plans has stimulated much interest in the impact of these retirement programs on individual saving behavior and the level of national saving. The first issue is the extent to which employees covered by pension plans reduce their own...

This paper examines the effects of intergenerational transfers on saving behavior by examining private wealth transfers targeted toward first-time home purchases. The study of transfer behavior in the housing market is advantageous for a number of reasons: the down payment requirement associated...

How much should a family save for retirement and for the kids’ college education? How much insurance should they buy? How should they allocate their portfolio across different assets? What should a company choose as the default asset allocation for a mandatory retirement saving plan? We...

This paper uses panel data through 2011 to examine evidence of shifts in household balance sheet behavior following the financial crisis and Great Recession. The paper considers evidence of balance sheet repair through debt repayment as well as changes in the composition of households’ balance...

The U.S. household carries over $7,500 in uncollateralized debt and likely saves at a negative rate. There is a growing body of evidence that this borrowing and saving behavior may not, as assumed by standard economics, be the product of rational financial planning. This paper discusses insights...

This paper assesses the effects of insurance and capital requirements on assets' equilibrium returns in a capital-asset-pricing model in which intermediaries possess better information than the public about the yields on a set of assets. Equilibrium returns depend on two risk premiums that...