DEEP FINANCIAL INTEGRATION AND VOLATILITY

We investigate the relationship between foreign direct ownership of firms and firm‐ and region‐level output volatility using a novel panel data set for European countries. We document a positive, highly robust, relationship between firm‐level foreign ownership and volatility of value added. This relationship holds cross‐sectionally and in panels with firm fixed effects where the relationship captures within‐firm variation over time. Considering domestic firms with assets in foreign countries, we document that it is international diversification, rather than the nationality of the owner, that explains this positive correlation. Our results can also be found at the aggregate level, where we show that region‐level volatility is correlated positively with foreign investment in the region. We show that this positive relation between aggregate volatility and foreign investment can be explained by the granularity of the firm size distribution and the fact that foreign ownership is concentrated among the largest firms.     

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.