Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/77378 
Authors: 
Year of Publication: 
2012
Series/Report no.: 
Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies Working Paper No. 01/2012
Publisher: 
Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies, Geneva
Abstract: 
I develop an open economy portfolio model to study how leveraged investors' wholesale funding affects the international transmission of shocks. Under binding borrowing limits, there is a link between the international investment positions of integrated economies as investors diversify the asset side of their balance sheets. Building on this mechanism, I introduce the liability side, allowing investors sell domestic and foreign bonds and capturing changes in counterparty risk in a stylized way (i.e., debt-to-asset ratios are specific to each borrower and time-varying). I model and parameterize these ratios, conditional on portfolio choice. I can solve for portfolios taking advantage of the link between assets and liabilities which is implied by the borrowing constraints. Equilibrium portfolios feature home funding bias, which is justified by a crucial interaction between the terms of trade and the tightness of the borrowing constraints. Dynamically, this interaction implies that the source of debt which is most sensitive to shocks is foreign funding. In fact, any shock creates a wedge between the cost of funding in different countries; the value of collateral must adjust accordingly through asset prices. Yet, asset prices are mainly affected by financiers' concern for counterparty risk: impact effects are deep and in line with the terms of trade effect. Combined, these effects have somehow novel implications for the net foreign asset positions. The cumulative effects have instead more mixed results on fluctuations.
Subjects: 
borrowing limits
counterparty risk
financial flows
international financial markets
international
lending
macroeconomic interdependence
JEL: 
E21
F32
F34
F41
G15
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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