We model the motives for residents of a country to hold foreign assets, including the precautionary motive that has been omitted from much previous literature as intractable. Our model captures many of the principal insights from the existing specialized literature on the precautionary motive,...

In this paper, we show that Adam Smith pointed out the existence of the Feldstein-Horioka Paradox or Puzzle and even gave an explanation for it more than 200 years before the publication of Feldstein and Horioka (1980). Smith argues that it is the pursuit of their own security that leads owners...

This paper shows that general equilibrium effects can partly rationalize the high correlation between saving and investment rates observed in OECD countries. We find that once controlling for general equilibrium effects the saving-retention coefficient remains high in the 70’s but decreases...

Cross-country regressions suggest little connection from foreign capital inflows to more rapid economic growth for developing countries and emerging markets. This suggests that the lack of domestic savings is not the primary constraint on growth in these economies, as implicitly assumed in the...

Economists have been interested in the degree of international capital mobility for a variety of reasons. E.g., the extent to which public deficits crowd out domestic investments depends on the ease with which domestic firms may access the international capital market. The welfare reduction due...

The paper provides a selective survey of the literature on the Feldstein-Horioka paradox. The observed high correlation between national savings and domestic investment emerges as a robust empirical regularity. If this regularity is to be attributed to low capital mobility (due to government...

The extent of capital mobility between the Bundesländer of West-Germany between 1975-1990 is investigated. The investigation is based on the approach first chosen by Feldstein and Horioka who estimated the correlation between national saving and Investment rates. It is shown that the...