Faced with income fluctuations, countries smooth their consumption by raising savings when income is high, and vice versa. How much of these savings do countries invest at home and abroad? In other words, what are the effects of fluctuations in savings on domestic investment and the current...

This paper argues that the 40-year-old Feldstein-Horioka “puzzle” (i.e., in a regression of the domestic investment rate on the domestic saving rate, the estimated coefficient is significantly larger than expected in a world with high capital mobility) should have never been labeled as such....

Before the crisis, there were strong arguments for reducing global imbalances. As a result of the crisis, there have been significant changes in saving and investment patterns across the world and imbalances have narrowed considerably. Does this mean that imbalances are a problem of the past?...

This paper studies the effect of demographic change on national saving, global interest rates, and international capital flows, focusing on the role of the public pension system. We develop a small open economy overlapping generations model to illustrate the channels through which demographic...

In 2007, countries in the euro periphery were enjoying stable growth, low deficits and low spreads. Then the financial crisis erupted and pushed them into deep recession, raising their deficits and debt levels. By 2010, they were facing severe debt problems. Spreads increased and, surprisingly,...

In 2007, countries in the Euro periphery were enjoying stable growth, low deficits, and low spreads. Then the financial crisis erupted and pushed them into deep recessions, raising their deficits and debt levels. By 2010,they were facing severe debt problems. Spreads increased and, surprisingly,...

We demonstrate that the correlation of saving and investment is measured best by an error correction model (ECM), because theory implies a cointegrating relation between these variables. The ECM comprises all previous specifications as special cases, which are shown to be potentially...

Intertemporal models of the current account suggest that temporary income shocks are fully reflected in a country's net foreign asset position, so that agents invest abroad any savings generated by a positive income shock. On the other hand, a stylised fact in international economics is that...

We use a panel of 14 European countries to take a fresh look at the so-called Feldstein-Horioka puzzle on the high correlations between savings and investment observed within countries. A large literature has emerged to investigate this issue, using both individual country-by-country data and...

Since the late-1990s, the global economy is characterised by historically low risk premia and an unprecedented widening of external imbalances. This paper explores to what extent these two global trends can be understood as a reaction to three structural shocks in different regions of the global...