Deep Financial Integration and Volatility

Abstract

We investigate the relationship between financial integration and output volatility at micro and macro levels. Using a very large firm-level dataset from EU countries over time, we construct a measure of "deep" financial integration at the regional level based on foreign ownership at the firm level. We find a positive effect of foreign ownership on volatility of firms' outcomes. This effect survives aggregation and carries over to regional output. Exploiting variation in the transposition dates of EU-wide legislation, we find that high trust regions in countries who harmonized capital markets sooner have higher levels of financial integration and volatility.