Solving the Feldstein–Horioka Puzzle With Financial Frictions

Unlike the prediction of a frictionless open economy model, long‐term average savings and investment rates are highly correlated across countries—a puzzle first identified by Feldstein and Horioka (1980). We quantitatively investigate the impact of two types of financial frictions on this correlation. One is limited enforcement, where contracts are enforced by the threat of default penalties. The other is limited spanning, where the only asset available is noncontingent bonds. We find that the calibrated model with both frictions produces a savings–investment correlation and a volume of capital flows close to the data. To solve the puzzle, the limited enforcement friction needs low default penalties under which capital flows are much lower than those in the data, and the limited spanning friction needs to exogenously restrict capital flows to the observed level. When combined, the two frictions interact to endogenously restrict capital flows and thereby solve the Feldstein–Horioka puzzle.     

RELATIVE FACTOR ENDOWMENTS AND INTERNATIONAL PORTFOLIO CHOICE

We present a model of international portfolio choice based on cross‐country differences in relative factor abundance. Countries have varying degrees of similarity in their factor endowment ratios, and are subject to aggregate productivity shocks. Risk‐averse consumers can insure against these shocks by investing their wealth at home and abroad. In a many‐good setup, the change in factor prices after a positive shock in a particular country provides insurance to countries that have dissimilar factor endowment ratios, but is bad news for countries with similar factor endowment ratios, since their incomes will worsen. Therefore countries with similar relative factor endowments have a stronger incentive to invest in one another for insurance purposes than countries with dissimilar endowments. The importance of this effect depends on the size of countries. Empirical evidence linking bilateral international equity investment positions to a proxy for relative factor endowments supports our theory: the similarity of host and source countries in their relative capital–labor ratios has a positive effect on the source country’s investment position in the host country. The effect of similarity is enhanced by the size of host countries.     

金融资产投资对创新投入的挤出效应研究

基于我国经济“脱实向虚”的宏观背景，文章研究了微观企业金融资产投资对创新投入的消极影响，以及融资融券制度在其中的作用。以2007-2015年A股上市公司为样本的实证检验发现，金融资产投资阻碍了企业的创新投入。其机制在于，金融资产投资不仅引入了较多的外部风险，而且加剧了创新投入面临的融资约束，进而对创新投入表现为显著的挤出效应。以融资融券制度的实施为契机，进一步研究发现，融资融券业务通过增加上市公司的风险与融资约束，最终加剧了金融资产投资对创新投入的挤出效应。因此，应防止上市公司过度从事金融资产投资，同时对融资融券制度进行优化，促使资本市场更好地服务实体经济。     

JEEA‐FBBVA LECTURE 2013: THE NEW EMPIRICAL ECONOMICS OF MANAGEMENT

Over the last decade the World Management Survey (WMS) has collected firm‐level management practices data across multiple sectors and countries. We developed the survey to try to explain the large and persistent total factor productivity (TFP) differences across firms and countries. This review paper discusses what has been learned empirically and theoretically from the WMS and other recent work on management practices. Our preliminary results suggest that about a quarter of cross‐country and within‐country TFP gaps can be accounted for by management practices. Management seems to matter both qualitatively and quantitatively for performance at the level of the firm and the nation. Competition, governance, human capital, and informational frictions help account for the variation in management. We make some suggestions for both policy and future research.     

THE WELFARE GAINS OF FINANCIAL LIBERALIZATION: CAPITAL ACCUMULATION AND HETEROGENEITY

Research has shown that, absent individual heterogeneity and under complete markets, the welfare impact of financial openness is quantitatively limited. Not only are inequalities in wealth and labor productivity a feature of most societies, but also financial markets suffer from many well‐known frictions. This paper demonstrates that, when households face borrowing constraints and uninsurable idiosyncratic shocks to income, the welfare implications of financial liberalization are considerable. For instance, the average increase in welfare of a typical emerging market economy that switches from a closed capital market to perfect capital mobility is equivalent to a permanent increase in average consumption of roughly 5.4%. This is about 3.9 times more than the welfare gains of the same policy under a complete markets environment without any individual heterogeneity. We show that individual heterogeneity accounts for two thirds of this additional increase in the average welfare gain; market incompleteness accounts for the remaining third. In our calibration, the median household in capital‐scarce countries is in favor of international financial integration. However, if the pivotal voter is wealthy enough then such reform might not be implemented, since richer households have a vested interest in capital market closedness.     

Financial Globalization and the Governance of Domestic Financial Intermediaries

We model a small open economy in which both domestic financial intermediaries and entrepreneurs face incentive constraints, as in Holmstrom and Tirole (1997) , to study the general equilibrium impact of various types of capital inflows on the efficiency and governance of domestic banks. Banks have an advantage in monitoring firms, but the latter can collude with banks and offer side‐payments to reduce the intensity of monitoring. Opening up to international capital flows makes domestic banks’ capital scarcer relative to uninformed capital, thus increasing the relative cost of monitoring. We show that capital account liberalization has ambiguous effects on the governance of the domestic financial system by sometimes increasing firms’ incentives to collude with banks. We characterize the conditions under which governance is more likely to deteriorate after opening up the capital account, and discuss the effects on investment, productivity and output. We also analyze the effects of foreign direct investment in the corporate and banking sectors. Stylized facts are consistent with the predictions of the model.     

Endogenous Ranking and Equilibrium Lorenz Curve Across (ex ante) Identical Countries

This paper proposes a symmetry‐breaking model of trade with a (large but) finite number of (ex ante) identical countries and a continuum of tradeable goods, which differ in their dependence on local differentiated producer services. Productivity differences across countries arise endogenously through free entry to the local service sector in each country. In any stable equilibrium, the countries sort themselves into specializing in different sets of tradeable goods, and a strict ranking of countries in per capita income, TFP, and the capital‐labor ratio emerges endogenously. Furthermore, the distribution of country shares, the Lorenz curve, is unique and analytically solvable in the limit, as the number of countries grows unbounded. Using this limit as an approximation allows us to study what determines the shape of distribution, to perform various comparative statics, and to evaluate the welfare effects of trade.     

Internationalization of Developing Country Firms into Developed Countries: The Role of Host Country Knowledge-Based Assets and IPR Protection in FDI Location Choice

Foreign direct investment (FDI) from developing to developed countries is a widespread phenomenon in the global economy. The literature suggests that such investments frequently follow a motive to seek knowledge-based assets, with the goal of augmenting the firm's resource base through internationalization. We argue that the prevalence of this motive may direct developing country firms' FDI toward developed countries with relatively stronger knowledge-based assets and weaker intellectual property rights (IPR) protection and that this effect is amplified when both conditions coincide. Furthermore, we suggest that the respective importance of knowledge-based assets and IPR protection diminishes as developing countries augment their own knowledge-based assets and that the importance of asset seeking as an internationalization motive for the country's firms declines compared with other motives such as institutional escapism. We investigate our model with FDI data including investment flows from 85 developing countries to 35 developed countries during 2009–2014. We find that developing country firms prefer investing in developed countries with stronger knowledge-based assets and weaker IPR protection. These criteria attract even more FDI when both co-occur. Furthermore, the influence of weaker host country IPR protection on the location decision diminishes for firms originating from home countries with higher stocks of knowledge-based assets.     

COUNTRY PORTFOLIOS

Capital flows to developing countries are small and mostly take the form of loans rather than direct foreign investment. We build a simple model of North–South capital flows that highlights the interplay between diminishing returns, production risk, and sovereign risk. This model generates a set of country portfolios and a world distribution of capital stocks that resemble those in the data. (JEL: F32, F34)     

QUALITY LADDERS IN A RICARDIAN MODEL OF TRADE WITH NONHOMOTHETIC PREFERENCES

The North–South trade literature has traditionally explored conditions under which international trade might further magnify income disparities between the advanced North and the backward South. We show that even when no single country is initially more advanced than any other one and productivity changes are uniform and identical in all countries, trade may still be a source of income divergence when nonhomothetic preferences and quality ladders are jointly taken into account. Income divergence will be experienced when comparative advantages induce patterns of specialization that, although initially optimal for all countries, do not offer the same scope for quality upgrading of final products.     

SOVEREIGNS,UPSTREAM CAPITAL FLOWS,AND GLOBAL IMBALANCES

We construct measures of net private and public capital flows for a large cross‐section of developing countries considering both creditor and debtor side of the international debt transactions. Using these measures, we demonstrate that sovereign‐to‐sovereign transactions account for upstream capital flows and global imbalances. Specifically, we find that (i) international net private capital flows (inflows minus outflows of private capital) are positively correlated with countries' productivity growth, (ii) net sovereign debt flows (government borrowing minus reserves) are negatively correlated with growth only if net public debt is financed by another sovereign, (iii) net public debt financed by private creditors is positively correlated with growth, (iv) public savings are strongly positively correlated with growth, whereas correlation between private savings and growth is flat and statistically insignificant. These empirical facts contradict the conventional wisdom and constitute a challenge for the existing theories on upstream capital flows and global imbalances.     

THE INTERNATIONAL DIMENSION OF PRODUCTIVITY AND DEMAND SHOCKS IN THE US ECONOMY

This paper analyzes the cross‐country effects of productivity and demand disturbances in the United States identified with sign restrictions based on standard theory. Productivity gains in US manufacturing increase US consumption and investment vis‐à‐vis foreign countries, resulting in a trade deficit and higher international prices of US goods, despite the rise in their supply. Financial adjustment works via a higher global value of US equities, real dollar appreciation, and an expansion of US gross foreign liabilities as well as assets. Positive demand shocks to US manufacturing also increase investment and cause a real dollar appreciation, but have limited effects on the trade balance and net foreign assets. Our findings emphasize the importance for macroeconomic interdependence of endogenous fluctuations in aggregate demand across countries in response to business cycle shocks.     

CEO Duality,Agency Costs,and Internal Capital Allocation Efficiency

This study examines the impact of CEO duality on firms’ internal capital allocation efficiency. We observe that when the CEO is also chair of the board, diversified firms make inefficient investments, as they allocate more capital to business segments with relatively low growth opportunities over segments with high growth opportunities. The adverse impact of CEO duality on investment efficiency prevails only among firms that face high agency problems, as captured by high free cash flows, staggered board structure and low board independence. Depending on the severity of the agency problem, CEO duality is associated with a decrease in industry‐adjusted investment in high‐growth segments of 1% to 2.1% over the following year, relative to that in low‐growth segments. However, CEOs’ equity‐based compensation curbs the negative effect of CEO duality on internal capital allocation efficiency. Overall, the findings of this study offer strong support for the agency theory and postulate the internal capital allocation policy as an important channel through which CEO duality lowers firm value in diversified firms.     

对外直接投资对母国收入差距的影响效应——基于跨国面板数据的研究

本文将企业异质性理论引入内生增长模型，讨论对外直接投资（OFDI）对母国收入差距的影响机理，并基于1981~2015年85个国家（地区）的面板数据，同时运用静态模型与动态模型验证了二者间存在"倒U型"关系，即随着对外直接投资强度的提升，母国收入差距呈现先扩大再缩小的态势；OFDI一方面通过促进母国的技术进步与产业结构升级、挤出部分国内投资等渠道加剧了收入不平等程度，另一方面以推动母国的金融发展与教育拓展等方式对收入差距产生削减效果；OFDI对收入差距的影响在不同经济发展水平、不同地理区位的国家中具有异质性：当人均GDP小于5767.53美元时，对外直接投资强度显著地扩大了母国收入差距，当人均GDP超过5767.53美元时，二者之间不存在显著的线性关系；欧洲国家的OFDI与收入差距之间呈现出"倒U型"关系，美洲、亚洲国家的OFDI促进了母国收入差距的扩大，非洲国家的OFDI对收入差距无显著影响；此外，OFDI对母国收入差距的影响具有跨期效应，随着时间推移与OFDI存量增加，其间接效应的边际效果有所减弱。     

Idiosyncratic Shocks and the Role of Nonconvexities in Plant and Aggregate Investment Dynamics

We study a model of lumpy investment wherein establishments face persistent shocks to common and plant‐specific productivity, and nonconvex adjustment costs lead them to pursue generalized (S, s) investment rules. We allow persistent heterogeneity in both capital and total factor productivity alongside low‐level investments exempt from adjustment costs to develop the first model consistent with the cross‐sectional distribution of establishment investment rates. Examining the implications of lumpy investment for aggregate dynamics in this setting, we find that they remain substantial when factor supply considerations are ignored, but are quantitatively irrelevant in general equilibrium. The substantial implications of general equilibrium extend beyond the dynamics of aggregate series. While the presence of idiosyncratic shocks makes the time‐averaged distribution of plant‐level investment rates largely invariant to market‐clearing movements in real wages and interest rates, we show that the dynamics of plants' investments differ sharply in their presence. Thus, model‐based estimations of capital adjustment costs involving panel data may be quite sensitive to the assumption about equilibrium. Our analysis also offers new insights about how nonconvex adjustment costs influence investment at the plant. When establishments face idiosyncratic productivity shocks consistent with existing estimates, we find that nonconvex costs do not cause lumpy investments, but act to eliminate them.     

The Structure of Wages by Firm Size: A Comparison of Canada and the USA

Cross‐country comparisons of the skill premium between USA and Canada show differences in the returns to higher education between the two countries since the 1980s. This paper analyses whether such differences could be related to differences in skill distribution and worker sorting across firm size between the two countries. Estimation of the wage structure by size for male non‐unionized workers in the private sector reveals that selectivity effects on wages are present and similar in both countries. There are significant and substantial cross‐country differences in the returns to education among large firms, especially for younger workers.     

Permanent Disadvantage or Gradual Integration: Explaining the Immigrant–Native Earnings Gap in Sweden

Theoretical explanations suggest that wage differentials between immigrant and native workers are generated either by differences in the acquisition of human capital or by various forms of exclusion of immigrants from fair labour market rewards. We evaluate the labour quality and labour market discrimination hypotheses by using a large sample of Swedish employees in 1995. Our findings show that labour market integration is relatively unproblematic for immigrants from Western countries, whereas immigrants from other countries, especially from Africa, Asia and Latin America, face substantial obstacles to earnings progress when entering the Swedish labour market. For the latter group of countries, extensive controls for general and country‐specific human capital reduce the earnings differentials. However, the remaining gap is of a non‐trivial magnitude. Thus, the labour quality hypothesis accounts for a part of the observed native–immigrant wage gap, but the remaining differentials can be interpreted in terms of labour market discrimination.     

The influence of national culture and institutional voids on family ownership of large firms: A country level empirical study

There is considerable variation across countries in both the extent to which large publicly listed firms are family-owned and the dominance of such family-owned firms in stock markets. The literature presents competing theoretical viewpoints on what influences such country-level variation. On one hand, institutional economists suggest that institutional voids can have a strong influence. On the other hand, cultural sociologists suggest that a country's culture can have a strong influence. One type of institutional void is a lack of institutional norms and regulations needed for monitoring contracts (which can discourage owners from hiring professional agents for top management positions in their firms) and another type of institutional void is a lack of financial credit availability in the country. Cultural dimensions include collectivism (i.e. cohesion within in-groups/families) and power distance (i.e. inequalities in society). This country-level empirical study suggests that both national culture and institutional voids influence family ownership patterns around the world, and that institutional voids moderate the influence of national culture. National culture has a stronger influence when a country has institutional voids; however, the influence of national culture weakens when institutional voids are overcome.     

金融投资中的教育溢价及其性别异质性——基于P2P网贷投资的实证检验

通过匹配出来的P2P网贷投资中关于投资者个人特征和投资结果的数据,本文从投资的成功率、违约率、收益率三方面检验了P2P网贷投资中的教育溢价及教育溢价的性别异质性。研究首先发现在金融投资绩效上存在显著的性别差异和教育溢价,男性在投资成功率和投资收益率上占优,女性在违约风险识别上占优。教育溢价效应在提高投资成功率、降低违约风险和提高投资收益率上均有体现。进一步的检验结果表明,教育溢价效应存在性别异质性,受教育水平的提高进一步提升了女性投资者在违约风险识别上的能力和男性投资者对投资机会上的把握能力以及投资收益上的获取能力。这意味着教育在整体改善投资绩效的同时,强化了男女性各自的优势,使得原有的性别差异进一步扩大。这些结论对于理解教育在金融投资中的作用及其异质性效果具有一定启示意义。     

Ownership concentration and market value of European banks

This paper investigates the relationship between ownership concentration and market value of European banks, and the role of the institutional environment in shaping this relationship. Using GMM dynamic estimator on a sample of European banks over a 13-year period (1993–2005) we find on average a negative effect of ownership concentration on bank value, measured by Tobin's Q. However, this effect varies across different institutional settings; while higher ownership concentration results in a lower bank value particularly in the countries belonging to German legal family, the impact of ownership concentration is positive in Scandinavia. We propose that, besides the legal protection of small investors, the differences in the impact of ownership concentration across the countries could be due to the identity of the predominant owners, i.e. financial institutions in Germany and trusts and foundations in Scandinavia. This in turn implies that restrictions of shareholdings in banks could alleviate governance problems in some countries, but lower bank valuation in others.