generational accounting a meaningful way to evaluate fiscal policy this paper illustrates the technique of generational accounting a new way to evaluate fiscal policy that overcomes the inherent ambiguities of traditional deficit accounting the authors illustrate why there is no correct measure of the deficit and how generational accounting estimating the fiscal burdens current policy places on different generations provides a clearer picture of the intergenerational and macroeconomic effects of fiscal policy than any measure of the deficit their calculations suggest that despite recent changes u s fiscal policy is unsustainable in that it will ultimately require future generations to bear a much higher burden than those currently alive

a method for solving general equilibrium models with incomplete markets and many financial assets abstract this paper presents a numerical method for solving stochastic general equilibrium models with dynamic portfolio choice the method can be applied to models with heterogeneous agents time varying investment opportunity sets and incomplete asset markets we illustrate the method using a two country model with production we check the accuracy of our method by comparing the numerical solution to a complete markets version of the model against its known analytic properties we then apply the method to an incomplete markets version where no analytic solution is available in all versions the standard accuracy tests confirm the effectiveness of our method

a cointegrated structural var model of the canadian economy this paper implements a cointegrated structural var model of the canadian economy using quarterly data over the period 1964 1994 the dynamic properties of the estimated model are compared to the predictions of a simple textbook macro model four long run equilibrium relationships are tested i consumption income ii consumption wealth iii money demand and iv the fisher equation the empirical results obtained are generally consistent with the predictions of the textbook model s long run implications although level shifts are observed in the consumption income and the wealth income ratios similarly it is found that there was an increase in the ex post real interest rate implying a level shift in the fisher relation following the bank of canada s policy change towards a stable price level target

trying to explain home bias in equities and consumption investors hold a substantially larger proportion of their wealth portfolios in domestic assets than standard portfolio theory would suggest a phenomenon called equity home bias in the absence of this bias investors would optimally diversify domestic output risk using foreign equities therefore consumption growth rates would tend to co move across countries even when output growth rates do not empirically however consumption growth rates tend to have a lower correlation across countries than do output growth rates a phenomenon i call consumption home bias in this paper i discuss these two biases and their potential relationship as suggested by the literature

international portfolio nondiversification and exchange rate variability abstract incomplete international portfolio diversification is implied by an equilibrium models of exchange rates with nontraded goods the model can also explain the greater correlation between consumption and income within a country than between consumption across countries nontraded goods make more stringent the elasticity conditions required to explain exchange rate variability resulting from current productivity disturbances though not from disturbances to fiscal policies or the prospective return to investment the model is also consistent with international real interest rate differentials changes over time in the current account and relative wealth across nations and observed time series properties of exchange rates

the home bias in equities and distribution costs we show that incorporating distribution costs into a general equilibrium model of international portfolio choice helps to explain the home bias in international equity investment our model is able to replicate observed investment positions for a wide range of parameter values even if agents have an incentive to hedge labor income risk by purchasing foreign equity this is because the existence of a retail sector affects both the correlation of domestic returns with the domestic price level and the correlation between financial and non financial income

do trade costs in goods market lead to home bias in equities abstract two of the main puzzles in international economics are the consumption and the portfolio home biases we solve for international equity portfolios in a two country two good stochastic equilibrium model with trade costs in goods markets we show that introducing trade costs as suggested by obstfeld and rogoff obstfeld m rogoff k 2000a the six major puzzles in international macroeconomics is there a common cause nber macroeconomics annual 15 is not sufficient to explain these two puzzles simultaneously on the contrary we find that trade costs create a foreign bias in portfolios for reasonable parameter values this result is robust to the addition of non tradable goods for standard calibrations of the preferences

canadian consumption and portfolio shares in this paper we gauge consumption and portfolio shares rather than the traditional pricing implications we study both aggregated financial tangible and human and disaggregated deposits stocks insurance and pensions assets the empirical shares are computed from recent aggregate canadian data the theoretical shares are constructed from a flexible specification of both investors preferences and investment opportunities our results reveal that the theoretical shares statistically match observed consumption and aggregated assets but not disaggregated assets also our findings for corporate stocks are consistent with the empirical asset returns literature finally our findings for other assets highlight several new striking features jel classification g11 consommation et parts de porte feuille au canada cette recherche analyse la consommation et les parts de portefeuille plutot que les prix des actifs nous etudions les actifs agreges i e financiers tangibles et humains ainsi que desagreges i e depots actions et caisses de retraite et assurance les parts empiriques sont calculees pour des donnees agregees canadiennes recentes les parts theoriques sont construites a partir d un modele flexible en ce qui a trait aux preferences et aux possibilites d investissement nos resultats demontrent que les parts theoriques reproduisent la consommation et les parts agregees mais pas les parts desagregees aussi nos resultats sont coherents avec ceux de la litterature empirique sur les rendements nos resultats concernant les autres actifs identifient d autres aspects caracteristiques

risk external adjustment and capital flows abstract this paper studies the process of external adjustment i develop an open economy model with endowment and preference shocks that can account for the empirical behavior of real exchange rates interest rates and consumption in the u s and europe the model includes cross border holdings of bonds and equity and financial frictions that impede international risk sharing i find that external adjustment following endowment shocks predominantly takes place via trade flows consistent with the intertemporal approach to the current account in contrast preference shocks that change investors risk aversion induce adjustment via the trade and valuation channels where the latter includes the effects of unexpected capital gains and loss on existing cross border holdings and changes in the expected future return differentials between foreign assets and liabilities the model estimates imply that the valuation channel of external adjustment is more important for the u s than the trade channel consistent with this implication i show that forecasts of future return differentials contributed most to the volatility of the u s net foreign asset position in the post bretton woods era

repatriation of debt in the euro crisis with the beginning of the euro crisis the long standing trend of european financial integration reversed investors unwound cross border positions of debt obligations and increased holdings of locally issued debt in other words debt obligations were repatriated we use data on bank portfolios to document three new empirical regularities of the financial disintegration i repatriation affected mainly debt of crisis countries ii repatriation affected mainly public debt iii the public debt of crisis countries that was not repatriated was reallocated to large and politically influential countries within the euro area we read these results in light of standard theories of cross border portfolio allocation and argue that the sum of these patterns constitutes evidence for the secondary market theory of public debt

a dynamic equilibrium model of imperfectly integrated financial markets abstract this paper analyzes the determination of global equity portfolios and stock returns in the context of imperfectly integrated stock markets we consider a continuous time two country endowment economy where the level of financial integration is captured by a proportional tax on foreign dividends despite the investor heterogeneity induced by this tax we obtain approximate closed form expressions for asset prices and characterize equity holdings and the joint process followed by country level stock returns in equilibrium our model is consistent with a broad range of empirical findings on international financial integration when the endogenous cross country return correlation is high small frictions in equity markets can generate a substantial home bias in portfolios in the baseline version of our model the cross country return correlation is driven by the fundamental correlation and portfolio rebalancing in a two good extension of the model the adjustment of relative good prices can generate a high stock return correlation even for a low level of fundamental correlation magnifying the impact of the financial friction on portfolios we assess the quantitative performance of the model in a calibration exercise using data from g7 countries

nontraded goods nontraded factors and international non diversification abstract can the presence of nontraded consumption goods or nontraded factors of production explain the high degree of home bias displayed by investor portfolios we find that the answer is no so long as individuals have access to free international trade in financial assets in particular it is never optimal to exhibit home bias with respect to domestic traded good equities by contrast holdings of nontraded good equities in an optimal portfolio will depend sensitively on the elasticity of substitution between traded and nontraded goods

home bias in open economy financial macroeconomics standard theory would predict that investors hold a well diversified portfolio of equities across the world but despite the process of financial globalization investors still hold a disproportionate share of local equities in their portfolio the equity home bias french and poterba 1991 we review the various explanations of this puzzling phenomenon in the context of recent developments in macroeconomic modelling that have allowed to incorporate sophisticated international portfolio choices in standard two country general equilibrium models we refer to this 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 differences in tax treatments between national and foreign assets iii informational frictions and behavioural biases these recent developments raise the need for new portfolio facts beyond the equity home bias and we will present some new evidence on cross border asset holdings across different types of assets equities bonds and bank lending we also present some 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

tenure neutral and equitable housing taxation equity and neutrality are distinct concepts in housing taxation and weak and strong tenure neutrality should be distinguished when a tax system is tested for those criteria the taxes paid by landlords must be included as they affect the rents renters pay this paper defines appropriate tests applies them to a stylised tax system and proposes tax changes designed to restore tenure equity and or neutrality it shows how the homeowner s implicit income should be computed for taxes to be fundamentally tenure neutral or equitable or both it also shows the key role played by the cost differential in producing housing services under owner occupation and renting

aggregate wealth in canada this paper describes a comprehensive measure of aggregate private sector wealth in canada that includes both human and nonhuman wealth wealth and its components are measured at a quarterly frequency from 1963 to 1994 human wealth is computed as the expected present value of aggregate labor income net of government expenditures using a finite state markov approximation to an estimated bivariate var for the real interest rate and net income growth nonhuman wealth is constructed by consolidating the assets and liabilities of the various sectors of the economy to the extent possible assets and liabilities are measured at market value

dynamic risksharing in the united states and europe abstract we use a panel var model to improve upon the existing methodologies to analyze interregional risksharing and consumption smoothing channels first we endogenize the output process within a more general multi equation framework capturing the dynamic feedback between output and various smoothing channels second in line with dynamic general equilibrium open economy models of risksharing we exploit impulse response functions to trace the role of each smoothing channel over time in the presence of different structural shocks temporary vs permanent and output vs smoothing channels in the application to the us and oecd countries we find different dynamic properties of different smoothing channels we compare our results with the predictions of standard risksharing and consumption theories and tackle some of the puzzles in the literature such as the international risksharing puzzle and the consumption output correlation puzzle we are also able to address such policy issues as whether fiscal stabilizers have been substitutes or complements for financial market diversification activities and whether further financial market integration is likely to provide countries with more shock absorption tools a key result is the strong substitutability between capital and credit smoothing in the us and between fiscal and credit smoothing in the oecd

financial integration macroeconomic volatility and welfare this paper studies the effects of financial integration on macroeconomic volatility and welfare we examine a two sector tradable and nontradable twocountry world economy with production in which both stocks and bonds are traded internationally but markets are incomplete the effects of integration are examined by comparing the equilibrium properties of the model under three financial configurations autarky low integration and high integration the model predicts a non monotonic relationship between the degree of financial integration and the volatility of several macroeconomic variables greater integration is initially associated with more volatile consumption and output but as integration proceeds further volatility declines we also find that while increased integration allows for significantly greater risk sharing between countries the improvement in welfare can be very small

all λ separable demands and rationalizing utility functions abstract frisch demands depend on prices and a multiplier associated with the consumer s budget constraint the case in which demands are separable in has been the case of greatest empirical interest since latent variable methods can be adopted to control for consumer wealth when estimating demands subject only to standard modest regularity conditions we show that quantities demanded are separable if and only if the rationalizing utility function is additively separable in these quantities

the demand for foreign bonds this paper derives the demand for foreign bonds in a simple general equilibrium model in which the exchange rate is perfectly correlated with the terms of trade a necessary condition for the demand for foreign bonds to be an increasing function of the domestic currency value of imports is derived earlier work shows that the demand for foreign bonds is an increasing function of imports if the domestic investor s degree of relative risk tolerance is smaller than one the present paper shows that the demand for foreign bonds can be a decreasing function of imports if the degree of relative risk tolerance is smaller than one when the consumption expenditure elasticity of imports exceeds one

home asset preference and productivity shocks abstract this paper presents sufficient conditions for the domestic investor consumer to hold in equilibrium a disproportionate share of domestic assets the analysis is carried out in a general equilibrium framework of products and assets markets when the source of the uncertainty is productivity shocks in the nontraded goods industries in the asset markets we allow trade in instruments with a payoff which is not necessarily positively correlated with the price of the consumption good as the instruments considered in the existing literature consequently in our analysis in contrast to the existing literature hedging against price uncertainty is neither necessary nor sufficient for home asset preference

cost and income based measures of human capital human capital is increasingly believed to play an important role in the growth process however adequately measuring its stock remains controversial in this paper three general approaches to measurement are identified cost based income based and educational stock based this survey focuses on the first two approaches and provides a critical review of the theories and their applications to data from a range of countries particular emphasis is placed upon the work of jorgenson and fraumeni 1989 1992 and some new results for new zealand based upon their approach are also presented