Information costs and regulatory barriers are the main distinguishing features of international financial markets as compared to national financial markets. This paper presents a simple model of the impact of these factors on banks' cross-border activities and provides empirical evidence. Our...

One key focus of the on-going debate on the integration of international financial markets have been measures to lengthen the maturity of foreign debt. Short-term debt is typically considered to be volatile and thus a potential trigger of currency crises. In contrast to the vivid policy debate...

The Eastern enlargement of the European Union (EU) is likely to give a further boost to trade and capital flows, yet empirical evidence on the possible magnitudes is still scarce. This paper uses four different datasets to estimate the determinants of international asset holdings and trade...

Pecking order models of international finance suggest that countries should become less reliant on international bank lending as they develop. Reduced information costs are one of the factors behind this trend towards disintermediation. This paper presents a simple model on the choice between...

The EU has recently entered accession talks with five transition economies of eastern Europe. Membership in the EU would require inter alia the full liberalization of capital flows. This paper provides empirical evidence on the openness towards foreign capital that the accession states have...

This paper discusses whether the integration of international financial markets affects business cycle fluctuations. In the framework of a new open economy macro-model, we show that the link between financial openness and business cycle volatility depends on the nature of the underlying shock....

The debate on the risks and benefits of the globalisation of international capital markets has focused on the volume and the volatility of the main capital flows - foreign direct investment (FDI), portfolio investment, and foreign bank lending. Financial transfers in the form of worker...

The globalization of international financial markets has renewed interest in the measurement of capital mobility. Consumption-based tests such as the Euler equation test are commonly used. These tests, however, are derived under restrictive assumptions on consumer behavior. In this paper, we ask...