موقعیت های سرمایه گذاری بین المللی: تجزیه و تحلیل به روش مقطعی

We explore some empirical properties of the level and composition of gross international investment positions. In a cross-section of countries, we find that more open countries with larger domestic financial markets tend to hold greater quantities of foreign assets and liabilities. There is some evidence that cross-holdings are positively correlated with inflation volatility but negatively correlated with terms of trade volatility.

This paper empirically studies gross international investment positions. Although much research has focused on the determinants of net capital flows and external debt, gross holdings of foreign assets and liabilities are arguably a better indicator of the extent of international capital market activity. An interesting aspect of gross international investment positions is that, as is shown in Section 3 below, there is considerable cross-country heterogeneity in the level of cross-holdings of foreign assets and liabilities.1 Our objective in this paper is to identify factors that explain this cross-sectional variation.

The evidence presented in this paper suggests that, in a cross-section of countries, gross international investment positions are positively associated with trade openness and a large domestic financial market. Although the openness result could be rationalized as providing a link between volatility and the propensity to hold foreign assets and liabilities, more direct explanations are that those factors that stimulate trade in goods also stimulate trade in assets and, moreover, trades in goods and in assets are complementary activities. A trade-based explanation is also supported by the positive relationship between the size of the domestic financial sector and the size of gross international investment positions, since a sophisticated domestic financial market almost surely reduces the transactions costs incurred in international asset trade. Cross-holdings of foreign assets and liabilities are positively correlated with inflation volatility but negatively correlated with terms of trade volatility. A noteworthy finding is that the importance of the determinants we have studied clearly varies across subcomponents of the overall international investment position — unsurprisingly, the weakest performance is in explaining FDI positions.