We provide empirical evidence that risk sharing enhances specialization in production. First, we calculate an index of specialization for each of the European Community (EC) and non-EC OECD countries, U.S. states, Canadian provinces, Japanese prefectures, Latin American countries, and regions of...

We show empirically that regions with a more specialized production structure exhibit output fluctuations that are less correlated with those of other regions (less \symmetric fluctuations). Combined with the causal relation running from capital market integration to regional specialization...