There is a large literature showing that fiscal policy is either acyclical or countercyclical in industrial countries and procyclical in developing countries. Most of this literature is based on OLS regressions that focus on the correlation between a fiscal variable (usually the budget balance...

This paper explores the link between default risk and fiscal procyclicality. We show that countries with higher sovereign risk have a more procyclical fiscal expenditure policy, which is driven mostly by transfers. We build a small open economy model with income inequality, social transfers, and...

We analyze persistence in patterns of bilateral financial investment using data on US investors’ holdings of foreign bonds. We document a “history effect” in which the pattern of holdings seven decades ago continues to influence holdings today. 10 to 15% of the cross-country variation in...

Does distance matter for the volatility of international real and financial transactions? We show that it does, in addition to its well-established relevance for the level of trade. A simple model of trade with endogenous markups shows that demand shocks have a larger impact on trade between...

This paper examines how UK banks channel capital inflows to the individual sectors of the domestic economy and to overseas residents. Information on the source country of foreign capital deposited with UK banks allows us to construct a novel Bartik instrument for capital inflows. Our results...

Does distance matter for the volatility of international real and financial transactions? We show that it does, in addition to its well-established relevance for the level of trade. A simple model of trade with endogenous markups shows that demand shocks have a larger impact on trade between...

This paper examines how UK banks channel capital inflows to the individual sectors of the domestic economy and to overseas residents. Information on the source country of foreign capital deposited with UK banks allows us to construct a novel Bartik instrument for capital inflows. Our results...

Using transaction-level data on foreign exchange (FX) forward contracts, we document large demand-driven heterogeneity in banks' dollar hedging costs. For identification, we exploit regulatory end-of-quarter reporting that penalizes banks' currency exposure with capital surcharges. Contracts...

We examine the impact of the last five decades of financial globalization on world GDP and income distribution, using a novel multi-country dynamic general equilibrium model that incorporates a demand system for international assets. We introduce, estimate and validate new country-level measures...