Economic theory predicts that the integration of financial markets lowers the volatility of consumption. In this paper, we study long-term trends in the consumption volatility of the G7 countries. Using different measures of financial openness, we find that greater financial openness has been...

Theoretical research on the determinants of business-cycle fluctuations implies that the degree of international financial integration can have important implications for the propagation of, e.g., macroeconomic policy shocks in an open economy. An important assumption underlying this research is...

We find that real interest rates paid on government debt depend significantly upon current and expected future levels of debt, in Europe as in the US. But this result only emerges when we condition on foreign interest rates, illustrating financial international integration. The previously strong...