Home Bias in Open Economy Financial Macroeconomics / Nicolas Coeurdacier, Hélène Rey.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Coeurdacier, Nicolas.

Contributor:

National Bureau of Economic Research.

Rey, Hélène.

Series:

Working Paper Series (National Bureau of Economic Research) no. w17691.

NBER working paper series no. w17691

Language:

English

Physical Description:

1 online resource: illustrations (black and white);

Place of Publication:

Cambridge, Mass. National Bureau of Economic Research 2011.

Summary:

Home bias is a perennial feature of international capital markets. We review various explanations of this puzzling phenomenon highlighting recent developments in macroeconomic modelling that incorporate international portfolio choices in standard two-country general equilibrium models. We refer to this new literature as Open Economy Financial Macroeconomics. We focus on three broad classes of explanations: (i) hedging motives in frictionless financial markets (real exchange rate and non-tradable income risk), (ii) asset trade costs in international financial markets (such as transaction costs or differences in tax treatments between national and foreign assets), (iii) informational frictions and behavioural biases. Recent theories call for new portfolio facts beyond equity home bias. We present new evidence on crossborder asset holdings across different types of assets: equities, bonds and bank lending and new micro data on institutional holdings of equity at the fund level. These data should inform macroeconomic modelling of the open economy and a growing literature of models of delegated investment.

Notes:

Print version record

December 2011.