Country Portfolios

63 Pages Posted: 19 Jul 2000 Last revised: 26 Oct 2022

See all articles by Aart Kraay

Aart Kraay

World Bank - Development Research Group (DECRG)

Norman Loayza

World Bank - Research Department

Luis Servén

CEMFI

Jaume Ventura

Universitat Pompeu Fabra - Centre de Recerca en Economia Internacional (CREI); Centre for Economic Policy Research (CEPR); National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)

Multiple version iconThere are 2 versions of this paper

Date Written: July 2000

Abstract

How do countries hold their financial wealth? We construct a new database of countries' claims on capital located at home and abroad, and international borrowing and lending, covering 68 countries from 1966 to 1997. We find that a small amount of capital flows from rich countries to poor countries. Countries' foreign asset positions are remarkably persistent, and mostly take the form of foreign loans rather than foreign equity. To interpret these facts, we build a simple model of international capital flows that highlights the interplay between diminishing returns, production risk and sovereign risk. We show that in the presence of reasonable diminishing returns and production risk, the probability that international crises occur twice a century is enough to generate a set of country portfolios that are roughly consistent with the data.

Suggested Citation

Kraay, Aart and Loayza, Norman and Servén, Luis and Ventura, Jaume, Country Portfolios (July 2000). NBER Working Paper No. w7795, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=236667

Aart Kraay (Contact Author)

World Bank - Development Research Group (DECRG) ( email )

1818 H. Street, N.W.
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Washington, DC 20433
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HOME PAGE: http://econ.worldbank.org/staff/akraay

Norman Loayza

World Bank - Research Department ( email )

1818 H Street, N.W.
Washington, DC 20433
United States

Luis Servén

CEMFI ( email )

Casado del Alisal 5
28014 Madrid
Spain

Jaume Ventura

Universitat Pompeu Fabra - Centre de Recerca en Economia Internacional (CREI) ( email )

Ramon Trias Fargas, 25-27
Barcelona, 08005
Spain

Centre for Economic Policy Research (CEPR)

London
United Kingdom

National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)

1050 Massachusetts Avenue
Cambridge, MA 02138
United States

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