Financial Integration in East Asia
Hiroshi Fujiki and Akiko Terada-Hagiwara

This paper examines the degree of integration into world financial markets
and the impacts on several key macroeconomic variables of selected East
Asian economies, and draws policy implications. According to our analysis,
the degrees of integration into world financial markets in those economies
are increasing. Regarding the impacts of increasing integration into world
financial markets on several macroeconomic variables, we find three results.
First, casual two-way plots among macroeconomic variables do not support
the theoretical prediction of reduction in relative consumption volatility.
Second, the saving-investment correlation is higher than those of the euroarea economies. Third, the degrees of smoothing of idiosyncratic shock by
cross-holding of financial assets are lower than in the euro area economies.
These results suggest two policy implications. First, there is some room for
improvement in welfare gains in those economies by means of further risk
sharing. Second, holding all other conditions equal, the increasing integration into world financial markets alone is unlikely to provide sound grounds
for a currency union in East Asia at this stage.
Keywords: Exchange rate regime; Financial integration; Risk sharing
JEL Classification: F33, F36

Hiroshi Fujiki: Director and Senior Economist, Institute for Monetary and Economic Studies, Bankof Japan (E-mail: hiroshi.fujiki@boj.or.jp)
Akiko Terada-Hagiwara: Institute for Monetary and Economic Studies, Bank of Japan (E-mail: akiko.
hagiwara@boj.or.jp)
The authors thank Eswar Prasad and his co-authors for sharing their dataset on de jure integration.
We also thank Maurice Obstfeld, Shaghil Ahmed, Masahiro Kawai, Sebnem Kalemli-Ozcan, Jing
Zhang, the participants of the 14th International Conference hosted by the Institute for Monetaryand Economic Studies, Bank of Japan (BOJ) and 2007 Annual Pacific Basin Conference at theFederal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, and the staff of the BOJ for their helpful comments.
Hiroyuki Ooi and Kiyoshi Watanabe provided excellent research assistance. Views expressed in thispaper are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official views of the BOJ.
MONETARY AND ECONOMIC STUDIES (SPECIAL EDITION)/DECEMBER 2007
DO NOT REPRINT OR REPRODUCE WITHOUT PERMISSION.

57

I. Introduction
The wave of financial liberalization since the mid-1980s facilitated massive capital
inflows to the Asian economies. The capital inflows helped those economies to take off,
but at the same time were blamed for the subsequent Asian currency and banking crisis.
Since the crisis, Asian economies have recorded remarkable economic growth
driven mainly by the region’s growth engine, the People’s Republic of China (hereafter,
China) (Figure 1), and regional trade integration seems to have increased. As distinct
Figure 1 Real GDP Growth Rate
[1] Panel 1
20

Percent

15
10
5
0
China
Hong Kong
Philippines
Singapore

–5
–10
–15
1980

82

84

86

88

90

92

94

96

98

2000

02

04

86

88

90

92

94

96

98

2000

02

04

[2] Panel 2
20

Percent

15
10
50Indonesia
Korea
Malaysia
Thailand

–5
–10
–15
1980

82

84

Source: International Monetary Fund (IMF) World Economic Outlook (WEO) database,gross domestic product, constant prices, annual percentage change.

58 MONETARY AND ECONOMIC STUDIES (SPECIAL EDITION)/DECEMBER 2007

Financial Integration in East Asia

from the pre-crisis period, not only the larger economies but also the smaller ones haverecorded fast growth with the expansion of the so-called vertical chain of production.
This expansion is contributing to the rising intra-regional trade intensity index in
the ASEAN and ASEAN+3 economies, despite the adverse effects of the East Asianfinancial crisis (Figure 2).
The export-led growth in those economies supported by the capital inflows led
to massive accumulation of gross foreign assets, especially in the form of foreign
reserves, and the accumulation of gross foreign liabilities, especially in the form of
foreign direct investment (FDI), as documented by Lane and Milesi-Ferretti (2006).
The accumulation of gross foreign assets and liabilities, and the significance of
valuation effects arising from exchange rate fluctuations, originally discussed in thecontext of “original sin,” constitute the core issues of global imbalance (see Obstfeld
and Rogoff [2005a, b] and Lane and Milesi-Ferretti [2002, 2004]).
Motivated by regional trade integration and the global imbalance in world financial
markets, we ask the following questions in this paper. First, have the degrees ofintegration into world financial markets in the Asian economies increased or not after
the Asian currency and banking crisis? Have the Asian economies benefited from theincreased integration into such markets? And which exchange rate regimes should
the Asian economies adopt, given the active capital inflows and outflows?
Figure 2 Intra-Regional Trade Intensity Index
2.10

6.0
ASEAN (left scale)
ASEAN+3 (right scale)

5.5

2.05

5.0

2.00

4.5

1.95

4.0

1.90

3.5

1.85

3.0

1.80
1990 91

92

93

94

95

96

97

98

99 2000 01

02

03

04

05

Note: An index of more than one indicates that trade flow within the region islarger than expected given the importance of the region in world trade.
The index is defined as the ratio of intra-regional trade share to the shareof world trade with the region. The index is calculated using export data,
and determines whether trade within the region is greater or smaller thanshould be expected on the basis of the region’s importance in world trade.
Source: Asian Development Bank, regional integration indicator database.

59

To answer these questions, we examine the degree of integration into world
financial markets and its impacts on several key macroeconomic variables, and draw
policy implications, paying special attention to the emerging market economies inthe Executives’ Meeting of East Asia-Pacific Central Banks (EMEAP) group.1
In examining the impact of integration, we will employ relatively simple empiricalmethods in reduced forms rather than a fully specified general equilibrium model.
Our approach has the advantages that it is comparable with many previous studies, andthat it can be reconciled with the lack of the consensus on the general equilibrium
model to analyze the issue of global imbalance.2
Our analysis shows the following results on the degree of integration into world
financial markets and its impacts on several key macroeconomic variables. The
degrees of integration into world financial markets in the EMEAP economies are
increasing, according to our analysis of the database compiled by Lane and MilesiFerretti (2006). Regarding the impacts of increasing integration into world financial
markets on several macroeconomic variables, we find three results. First, casual twoway plots among macroeconomic variables hardly support the theoretical predictionof reduction in relative consumption volatility. Second, the saving-investment
correlation is higher than those of the euro area economies. Third, the degrees ofsmoothing of idiosyncratic shock by cross-holding of financial assets are lower thanin the euro area economies.
These results suggest two policy implications. First, there is some room for
improvement in welfare gains by means of further risk sharing in the EMEAP
economies. Second, holding all other conditions equal, the increasing integration into
world financial markets alone is unlikely to provide sound grounds for a currency
union in East Asia at this stage.
The organization of this paper is as follows. Section II documents the degree of
integration into world financial markets through various measures. These include
the data on foreign assets and liabilities in Lane and Milesi-Ferretti (2006), a de juremeasure by Chinn and Ito (2006; data until 2003), and data on CoordinatedPortfolio Investment Survey by the International Monetary Fund (IMF). Section III
presents a series of tests to illustrate the effects of integration into world financial
markets. We begin by examining several hypotheses where integration into world
financial markets has some effects on key macroeconomic variables such as economic
growth and consumption volatilities. We then test the saving-investment nexus asclaimed by Feldstein-Horioka (1980) to see whether the degree of international
capital mobility has increased, especially after the Asian financial crisis. Further, we

1. EMEAP is a cooperative organization of central banks and monetary authorities in the East Asia and Pacificregion. Its primary objective is to strengthen the cooperative relationship among its members. It comprises
the central banks/monetary authorities of 11 economies: Reserve Bank of Australia, People’s Bank of China,
Hong Kong Monetary Authority, Bank Indonesia, Bank of Japan, The Bank of Korea, Bank Negara Malaysia,
Reserve Bank of New Zealand, Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas, Monetary Authority of Singapore, and Bankof Thailand.
2. Admittedly, the reduced-form approach does not allow us to conduct welfare analysis. See, for example, Athanasoulis
and van Wincoop (2000) and Gourinchas and Jeanne (2006) for discussion on this issue.

60 MONETARY AND ECONOMIC STUDIES (SPECIAL EDITION)/DECEMBER 2007

Financial Integration in East Asia

test a risk-sharing hypothesis as in Asdrubali, Sørensen, and Yosha (1996) (hereafter,
ASY [1996]) in the international context and Ravallion and Chaudhuri (1997) to see
whether consumption growth smoothing is taking place as integration into world
financial markets has been progressing in Asia. In Section IV, we discuss policy
implications, particularly on exchange rate regimes in the EMEAP economies. The
final section concludes the paper.

II. Integration into World Financial Markets in East Asia
This section examines trends of integration into world financial markets in the
EMEAP economies by looking at several measures. Particular attention is paid to the“EMEAP8” economies excluding the three high per capita income economies,
Australia, New Zealand, and Japan. We compare their trends of international
integration into world financial markets with those in the euro area economies andother advanced economies. In the following analysis, we refer to the euro area
economies excluding Luxembourg and Slovenia as the Euro11.3 Our broadest sample
of economies consists of the EMEAP economies, Euro11, Canada, Switzerland,
the United Kingdom, and the United States (see Table 1 for the availability of thedata series).
A. External Assets and Liabilities to GDP
Lane and Milesi-Ferretti (2006) propose two ways of measuring the degree of de facto
integration into world financial markets.4 The first measure is the ratio of the sum of
external assets and liabilities to GDP (IFIGDP ). The second measure, GDOGDP,
focuses on portfolio equity and direct investment:
GDOGDP = (PEQA + FDIA + PEQL + FDIL )/GDP,
where PEQA (PEQL ) denotes the stock of portfolio equity assets (liabilities) andFDIA (FDIL ) denotes the stock of direct investment assets (liabilities).
Figure 3 shows the first measure of integration into world financial markets,
IFIGDP over the period from 1970 to 2004. Consistent with Lane and MilesiFerretti (2006), IFIGDP accelerated its growth especially around the mid-1990s
across all regions.

3. Data on Luxembourg are available only after 2000, and thus excluded from the following analysis.
4. Lane and Milesi-Ferretti (2006) construct a consistent series of external assets and liabilities, as well as capital
inflows and outflows on the basis of residence principle for 145 economies over the period 1970–2004. The data
are classified in the following five broad categories: (1) portfolio investment (ownership of shares of companies
and mutual funds below 10 percent) subdivided into equity securities and debt securities (including bonds andmoney market instruments); (2) foreign direct investment (equity participations above 10 percent); (3) otherinvestment (which includes debt instruments such as loans, deposits, and trade credits); (4) financial derivatives(the value of the outstanding derivative’s contract); and (5) reserve assets (foreign exchange, holdings of Special
Drawing Rights, and reserve position in the IMF).

61

62 MONETARY AND ECONOMIC STUDIES (SPECIAL EDITION)/DECEMBER 2007

Table 1 Country Group and Data Availability
Group
EMEAP EMEAP8 Euro11
China
Hong Kong
Indonesia
Korea
Malaysia
Philippines
Singapore
ThailandAustralia
New ZealandJapan
Austria
Belgium
FinlandFranceGermany
GreeceIreland
Italy
Netherlands
Portugal
Spain
CanadaSwitzerland
United Kingdom
United States

Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes

Note: n.a. = not available.

Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes

Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes

All
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes

Portfolio
equityassetsPortfolio
equityliabilities

1980
1979

1980
1979

1980

1986

Data sample starting year (blank denotes 1970 unless indicated otherwise)
Debt assets Debt liabilities
Financial
FDI
FDI(portfolio debt (portfolio debt
derivatives
assetsliabilities
plus otherplus other(assets)
investment)
investment)
1981
1981
1981
1981
n.a.
1979
1979
1979
1979
2000
1979
2002
2001
2001
1980
2001
2001
2000
1986
1986
2000
2000
1995
1995
1994
1995
1993
1994
n.a.
2000
2001
2000
1999
1972
1972
1996
n.a.
n.a.
n.a.
n.a.
n.a.

Financialderivatives(liabilities)
n.a.
2000
2002
2001
2001
2001
2001
2000

1994
1995
1993
1994
n.a.
2000
2001
2000
1999
1996
n.a.
n.a.
n.a.
n.a.
n.a.

Total
reserves
minus
gold
1977

Financial Integration in East Asia

Does the increase of integration into world financial markets observed in the dataon aggregate EMEAP economies apply to individual EMEAP economies? To see thispoint, Table 2 shows the sample average of IFIGDP for each EMEAP economy forthe period from 1980–84, 1985–89, 1990–94, and 1995–99, and 2000–04. The Hong
Kong Special Administrative Region of China (hereafter, Hong Kong) and Singapore
have remarkably high ratios; however, they do not alter the overall trend indicatingthat IFIGDP increased irrespective of an economy’s initial degree of integration into
world financial markets.
Figure 3 Integration into World Financial Markets
4.5
EMEAP8EMEAP
Euro11
All

4.0
3.5
3.0
2.5
2.0
1.5
1.0
0.5
0.0
1970 72

74

76

78

80

82

84

86

88

90

92

94

96

98 2000 02

04

Note: The ratio of the sum of external assets and liabilities to GDP.

Table 2 Ratio of the Sum of External Assets and Liabilities to GDP
Period of the data
China
Hong Kong
Indonesia
Korea
Malaysia
Philippines
Singapore
ThailandAustralia
New ZealandJapan
EMEAP8EMEAP

1980–84
0.134
5.035
0.407
0.663
1.045
0.858
2.266
0.455
0.452
0.642
0.386
0.624
0.469

1985–89
0.230
11.233
0.716
0.532
1.397
1.070
3.473
0.626
0.861
1.218
0.790
1.243
0.905

1990–940.448
13.535
0.836
0.393
1.493
1.045
3.634
0.865
1.112
1.514
0.964
1.695
1.151

1995–990.707
11.883
1.297
0.737
1.780
1.192
6.050
1.042
1.453
1.823
1.042
1.930
1.333

2000–04
0.932
12.276
1.177
0.947
2.035
1.418
9.266
1.334
2.036
2.223
1.184
2.030
1.535

Note: (IFIGDP ): Five-year sample average.

63

Figure 4 shows the second measure: GDOGDP over the period from 1970–2004.
The second ratio aims at checking whether the general increase in the degree of
integration into world financial markets applies to the subgroup of portfolio equity
and FDI holdings, because the trend observed in the first measure might be driven by
special factors in international trade in debt instruments.
The ratio had been stable until 1978, but started to rise in 1985 followed by a sharp
acceleration beginning in 1996, except for 2001–02, replicating the finding in Lane
and Milesi-Ferretti (2006) for the industrialized countries, developing countries, andemerging countries. Again, Hong Kong and Singapore have remarkably high ratios,
but they do not alter the overall trend.
B. De Jure Measure
We see another measure of capital account openness based on the information oncontrols on financial flows to and from each economy, namely a de jure index, because
the de facto (e.g., IFIGDP or GDOGDP ) and de jure measures can deviate from eachother for several reasons. Indices measuring de jure integration into world financial
markets, such as those by Chinn and Ito (2006; data until 2003)5 and Kose et al.
(2006, data until 2004), are usually constructed using the disaggregated capital andFigure 4 International Equity Integration
1.4
EMEAP8EMEAP
Euro11
All

1.2
1.0
0.8
0.6
0.4
0.2
0.0
1970 72

74

76

78

80

82

84

86

88

90

92

94

96

98 2000 02

04

Note: The ratio of stock of portfolio equity assets and liabilities and stock of direct
investment assets and liabilities to GDP.

5. Their index is the first principal component of the four IMF binary variables on multiple exchange rates, capital
account, current account, and requirements to surrender export proceeds. For the extension of the four binaryclassifications after 1996, they follow Mody and Murshid (2005).

64 MONETARY AND ECONOMIC STUDIES (SPECIAL EDITION)/DECEMBER 2007

Financial Integration in East Asia

current account restrictions found in Annual Report on Exchange Arrangements andExchange Restrictions (AREAER), published by the IMF.6
Figure 5 shows two measures. As opposed to the persistent upward trend in thede facto measure, there appeared a reversal in the progress of the current and capital
account openness in the mid-1990s. According to Chinn and Ito (2006), the reversal
in the de jure measure is due to Indonesia and Malaysia. This might reflect the introduction of a monitoring system for capital flows in Indonesia and a reimposition ofcontrols on capital flows in Malaysia. Nonetheless, the capital accounts have generally
been kept open, and the de facto measure has continued to rise.
C. Bilateral Financial Flows
While both IFIGDP and GDOGDP exhibit clear upward trends, one could claim that
this is due to increasing intra-regional integration and not to world financial markets.
As data on bilateral financial flows are still limited, it is hard to determine this claim.
Nonetheless, the data series in the Coordinated Portfolio Investment Survey that the
IMF compiles provides some insights on this issue. The survey reports bilateral flows
in equity and debt securities for the years 1997 and 2001–05. The data are available
for all the EMEAP8 economies except China.
Figure 5 De Jure Versus De Facto Integration into World Financial Markets

2

Average de jure index(Chinn and Ito [2006])

De facto index(EMEAP8 aggregate IFIGDP)

2.5

De jure (left scale)
De facto (right scale)
2.0
1
1.5

1.0
0
0.5

–1

0.0
1970 72 74 76 78 80 82 84 86 88 90 92 94 96 98 2000 02 04
Note: The de jure measure is the one created by Chinn and Ito (2006). The
de facto measure is IFIGDP proposed by Lane and Milesi-Ferretti (2006).

6. Kose et al. (2006) use two financial openness variables. One variable is the financial openness variable as definedby Chinn and Ito (2006). The other variable is a binary indicator created by the authors based on data from the
AREAER line E2, which signifies “restrictions on payments for capital transactions.”

65

Table 3 reports, for the seven EMEAP8 economies, the average outward investment going to the EMEAP8 (minus the own-country) economies and to the G-7
countries as a percentage of total outward investment. On average, the EMEAP8
economies invested about 16 percent of the total within the region, while almost halfof the total investment went to the G-7 countries. Within the investment flowing
into the G-7 economies, the United States was the major recipient. Although theshort sample period does not allow us to generalize as to trends, at the very least it isclear that despite the geographical proximity and the increasingly tightened tradelink, the industrialized countries remain the major investment destinations for the
EMEAP8 economies rather than the latter’s neighbors.
D. Capital Structure
Given the increasing trend in the degree of integration into world financial markets,
Lane and Milesi-Ferretti (2006) also show that a measure of capital structure, the ratioof equity (portfolio plus FDI) liabilities to total financial liabilities, has been also rising
globally. Figure 6 shows that the ratio for the EMEAP8 economies was quite stable
until it started to increase in the 1990s. In the other regions, EMEAP, the Euro11, andall the sample economies, the ratio declined during the 1970s, but turned to anincreasing trend in the 1980s followed by a rapid increase in the 1990s, consistent withthe analysis by Lane and Milesi-Ferretti (2006). The trends in individual economies
shown in Figure 7 are similar to the trend in the EMEAP8 aggregate, although theratio for China did not drop even in 1997–98. Regarding the composition of equity
share, most of the increase in external liabilities in China was explained by the FDI
liabilities, rather than the portfolio equity liabilities. The increase in FDI liabilities has
been common in the EMEAP economies except for Indonesia and Korea, where thegrowth in FDI liabilities has been slow.
Table 3 Securities Issued by Nonresidents and Owned by Residents:
Outward Investment
Percent of total value of investment, five-year sample average, 2001–05
To
From
Hong Kong
Indonesia
Korea
Malaysia
Philippines
Singapore
ThailandAverage

EMEAP8

G-7

13
16
9
31
6
22
15
16

41
40
60
36
49
49
63
48

66 MONETARY AND ECONOMIC STUDIES (SPECIAL EDITION)/DECEMBER 2007

Financial Integration in East Asia

Figure 6 Equity Share in External Liabilities
0.60
EMEAP8EMEAP
Euro11
All

0.55
0.50
0.45
0.40
0.35
0.30
0.25
0.20
0.15
0.10
1970 72

74

76

78

80

82

84

86

88

90

92

94

96

98 2000 02

04

Note: Share of equity (portfolio plus FDI) liabilities in total financial liabilities.

Figure 7 Equity Share in External Liabilities in the EMEAP8 Economies
0.8
China
0.7
Singapore
0.6
Malaysia
0.5
Hong
Kong

0.4
Thailand
0.3
Philippines
0.2
0.1

Indonesia

Korea

0.0
1970 72

74

76

78

80

82

84

86

88

90

92

94

96

98 2000 02

04

Note: Share of equity (portfolio plus FDI) liabilities in total financial liabilities.

67

Behind the increase in equity share in total financial liabilities, we find a downward trend in debt liabilities, particularly in the 2000s (Figures 8 and 9).7 However,
Figure 10 shows that not all the EMEAP economies follow the downward trend in
Figure 8 Gross External Debt and Official Reserves to GDP
0.7
EMEAP8 (external debt/GDP)
EMEAP8 (reserves/GDP)
EMEAP (external debt/GDP)
EMEAP (reserves/GDP)

0.6
0.5
0.4
0.3
0.2
0.1
0.0
1970 72

74

76

78

80

82

84

86

88

90

92

94

96

98 2000 02

04

Figure 9 Gross External Debt and Official Reserves to Exports of Goods and Services
1.5
1.4
1.3
1.2
1.1
1.0
0.9
0.8

EMEAP8 (external debt/exports of goods and services)
EMEAP8 minus Hong Kong (external debt/exports ofgoods and services)
EMEAP8 (reserves/exports of goods and services)
EMEAP8 minus Hong Kong (reserves/exports of goods
and services)

0.7
0.6
0.5
0.4
0.3
0.2
1982

84

86

88

90

92

94

96

98

2000

02

04

7. Limitations of the data reported in the International Financial Statistics force us to take the sample periods from 1982
to 2004 for the EMEAP8 economies minus Hong Kong, and 1998 to 2004 for the EMEAP8 economies in Figure 9.

68 MONETARY AND ECONOMIC STUDIES (SPECIAL EDITION)/DECEMBER 2007

Financial Integration in East Asia

debt liabilities as in Figure 8. The ratio for Hong Kong generally increased until 1990
and decreased steadily thereafter. The ratio for Singapore increased steadily even fromthe mid-1990s. For China, the ratio has been almost constant since 1990. The ratio
for the crisis-hit economies, Indonesia, Korea, Malaysia and Thailand, shows a trend
similar to that observed in Figure 8, while a spike is recorded in Thailand in 1998.
A notable change in the composition of gross foreign assets is the rapid increase in
official reserves in the Asian economies, as can be seen in Figure 8. We view the rapid
increase as a region-wide phenomenon in the EMEAP8 economies. Table 4 shows the
sample average of the ratio of reserves to GDP for each EMEAP8 economy for theperiod from 1980–84, 1985–89, 1990–94, 1995–99, and 2000–04. Hong Kong andSingapore have relatively high ratios, but they do not alter the overall trend.
Figure 10 Gross External Debt to GDP in the EMEAP8 Economies
6

Hong Kong (left scale)Philippines (right scale)

1.0
Thailand(right scale)

5

0.9
0.8
0.7

4

0.6

Malaysia(right scale)
3

0.5
0.4

2

0.3

Korea
(right scale)Singapore(left scale)

0.2

1

0.1
Indonesia (right scale)

China (right scale)00.01970 72

74

76

78

80

82

84

86

88

90

92

94

96

98 2000 02

04

1995–99
0.143
0.495
0.130
0.096
0.297
0.120
0.849
0.226
0.197

2000–04
0.246
0.706
0.176
0.234
0.405
0.171
0.952
0.285
0.299

Table 4 Ratio of Reserves to GDP
Sample average from 1981–90, 1991–2000, 2001–04
1980–84
1985–89
China
0.035
0.043
Hong Kong
0.196
0.275
Indonesia
0.048
0.057
Korea
0.034
0.043
Malaysia
0.144
0.201
Philippines
0.042
0.033
Singapore
0.544
0.704
Thailand
0.045
0.086
EMEAP80.063
0.087

1990–94
0.072
0.347
0.070
0.053
0.297
0.071
0.800
0.186
0.135

69

Regarding the net foreign asset position, it is well known that the U.S. net external
position has deteriorated while that of emerging economies has been improving (Laneand Milesi-Ferretti [2006, figure 7]). Figure 11 shows that the recovery of the net
foreign asset position applies to the EMEAP economies. Hong Kong, Japan, andSingapore remained net creditors after 1995, and China became a net creditor after
2003. While improving their net asset positions, the other EMEAP8 economies arestill net debtors.
E. Summary and Caveats
This section summarizes the findings, and discusses some of the caveats deserving
attention in the interpretation of our findings.
1. Summary
In sum, EMEAP economies are more open to international financial markets, though
the composition of assets and liabilities varies from economy to economy.
We summarize the analyses of external assets and liabilities as follows. First, ourmeasure of de facto integration into world financial markets, IFIGDP (the ratio of
the sum of external assets and liabilities to GDP), indicates that the integration
has been progressing in the last 35 years, and this trend is especially strong after the
mid-1990s. The evidence from the bilateral financial flows indicates that about halfof the outward investment of the EMEAP8 economies goes to the industrializedcountries, while 16 percent on average flows into the EMEAP8 economies.
Second, on the liabilities side, the share of equity (portfolio plus FDI) liabilities
in total financial liabilities has been rising for some of the EMEAP economies, except
for 1997–98. Third, the ratio of gross external debt to GDP varies from economy toeconomy. The average trend of the EMEAP economies is close to that of the crisis-hit
economies, however.
Figure 11 Ratio of Net Foreign Assets to Group GDP by Country

0.25
United States
EMEAP8EMEAP
Euro11

0.20
0.15
0.10
0.05
0.00
–0.05
–0.10
–0.15
–0.20
–0.25
1970 72

74

76

78

80

82

84

86

88

90

92

94

70 MONETARY AND ECONOMIC STUDIES (SPECIAL EDITION)/DECEMBER 200796

98 2000 02

04

Financial Integration in East Asia

2. Caveats
We presented one widely accepted measure of the degree of financial integration
using data by Lane and Milesi-Ferretti (2006). One shortcoming of the measure isthat we can see a clear and increasing trend, say in Figure 3, but without a theoreticalmodel we cannot determine the level of the IFIGDP measure that corresponds to thestate of financial integration. One might argue that it would be better to conclude
that financial integration is achieved if the expected risk-adjusted returns fromthe same financial assets are equalized among economies.8 We do not look at pricemeasures based on cross-economy differences in the expected risk-adjusted returns on
the same financial assets, because domestic financial markets in some of the EMEAP
economies do not seem sufficiently deep or liquid to allow efficient arbitrage ofprice differentials to take place (see Karolyi and Stulz [2003] for a survey on thisissue). Nonetheless, we acknowledge that it is important to look at both the quantity
measure, as we do, as well as the price measure, since they complement each other.
Another measurement issue is the deviation between the de facto and de juremeasures. As found in our analysis and in general, the two measures could deviate fromeach other. When the deviation occurs, the usual treatment seems to favor the de facto
measure over the de jure one. Apparently, however, we should remember that bothmeasures have loopholes; the de facto measure is subject to fluctuations in prices andoutput, while the de jure one is affected by the degree of enforcement of the controls.

III. Integration into World Financial Markets and Risk Sharing
A. Integration into World Financial Markets, Growth, and Consumption
Neoclassical economics predicts that integration into world financial markets would
have certain effects on macroeconomic variables. First, in a one-sector Solow-type
growth model, integration into world financial markets leads to flows of capitalfrom capital-rich economies to capital-poor ones, and in the long run the steady-state
output per capita and return on capital will be equalized. If the inflow of new technology accompanies the inflow of capital, such technology will help the capital-poor
economies grow faster.9 Second, the effects of integration into world financial markets
on output volatility are unclear, because integration has two offsetting effects on the
country-specific shocks and industry-specific shocks depending on the stage of
economic development. Namely, integration into world financial markets allows
capital-poor economies at an early stage of economic development, for example,
specialized in agricultural production and susceptive to weather shock, to diversify
their narrow production basis. In a later stage of economic development, theintegration into world financial markets and trade integration could simultaneously
allow economies to specialize in particular industries according to their comparativeadvantages and makes those economies more susceptible to industry-specific
8. Cheung, Chinn, and Fujii (2006), for example, examine the integration between China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, theUnited States, and Japan using this measure.
9. Past studies, however, report that the welfare gain from receiving capital inflows is minimal. See Gourinchas andJeanne (2006), for example.

71

shocks. Third, integration into world financial markets should unambiguously leadto reductions in the relative volatility of consumption, because it allows risk-averse
consumers in an economy to smooth the effects from idiosyncratic fluctuations inincome growth on consumption growth.
Figures 12 to 15 plot our measure of integration into world financial markets,
IFIGDP, against four macroeconomic variables of interest to us. Figure 12 plots mean
IFIGDP against the mean growth rate of real GDP from 1980 to 2004. Among the
EMEAP8 economies, we do not see a clear positive correlation between the twovariables, which is consistent with what is reported in Kose et al. (2006) and also withthe vast empirical literature, providing little robust evidence of a causal relationshipbetween integration into world financial markets and growth. In Figures 13 to 15,
the three variables, GDP volatility, consumption growth, and consumption volatility,
show negative relationships at first sight, but these become unclear when excluding twovery open economies, Hong Kong and Singapore. The results here might be consistent
with what theory predicts for GDP volatility.10 However, the result for consumption
contradicts what the theory predicts.
B. Saving-Investment Correlation Based on Feldstein and Horioka (1980)
In this subsection, we test whether the saving-investment correlation increased or
decreased before and after the Asian crisis using the methods proposed by FeldsteinHorioka (1980). The general finding in the literature is that the saving-investment
Figure 12 Integration into World Financial Markets and GDP Growth Rate

12

Mean IFIGDP, 1980–2004
Hong Kong

10
8
6Singaporey = –0.167x + 3.6848(0.75) (4.81)
2
R = 0.0081

4
2
ThailandIndonesia

Philippines

Malaysia
Korea

China

0
2

3

4

5

6

7
8
9
10
Mean real GDP growth rate, 1980–2004

Note: GDP growth rate (domestic currency, constant price) from the IMF WEO database.

10. Figures 12 to 15 use data from 1980 to 2004 except for Hong Kong, where data start in 1981, and Thailand andMalaysia, where 2004 consumption is missing.

72 MONETARY AND ECONOMIC STUDIES (SPECIAL EDITION)/DECEMBER 2007

Financial Integration in East Asia

Figure 13 Integration into World Financial Markets and GDP Volatility

12

Mean IFIGDP, 1980–2004
Hong Kong10
86

y = –9.7303x + 6.6239(9.88)(4.22)
2
R = 0.1393

4
2

Singapore

Malaysia
Philippines

Indonesia

Thailand

0
0.0

0.1

0.2

0.3

China

Korea

0.4
0.5
0.6
0.7
Real GDP level volatility, 1980–2004

Note: Coefficient of variation of GDP (domestic currency, constant price) from the IMF
WEO database.

Figure 14 Integration into World Financial Markets and Consumption Growth12

Mean IFIGDP, 1980–2004
Hong Kong

10
8y = –1.2336x + 10.689(0.64)(4.24)
2
R = 0.3826

6

Singapore4
Malaysia

2

Indonesia

Philippines

Thailand

China
Korea

0
0

1

2

3

4

5

6
7
8
9
10
Mean consumption growth, 1980–2004

Note: Household consumption growth in domestic currency deflated by CPI. Data aretaken from the International Financial Statistics.

73

correlation falls as capital mobility increases (for a recent review and results including
Asian economies, see Kim, Kim, and Wang [2007]; hereafter, KKW [2007]).11
Using the statistics from the OECD and Asian Development Bank, we construct
a data series for the ratio of gross domestic saving to GDP (hereafter, S/Y ) and theratio of gross domestic capital formation to GDP (hereafter, I /Y ).12 We show unconditional means of S/Y and I/Y in Table 5 for three periods: 1981–2004, 1981–96, and
2000–04. The table shows large drops in I/Y in 2000–04 compared with 1981–96 in
Figure 15 Integration into World Financial Markets and Consumption Volatility

12

Mean IFIGDP, 1980–2004
Hong Kong10
86

y = –17.962x + 9.7415(13.92) (5.61)
2
R = 0.2172

4
2

Philippines

Singapore

Malaysia
Thailand
China

Korea

Indonesia

0
0.0

0.1

0.2

0.3
0.4
0.5
0.6
Consumption level coefficient of variation, 1980–2004

Note: Coefficient of variation of level of household consumption in domestic currency
deflated by CPI. Data are taken from the International Financial Statistics.

Table 5 Unconditional Mean of Saving and Investment
SampleEMEAP8(s.e.)
EMEAP(s.e.)
All(s.e.)
Euro11(s.e.)

1981–2004
Mean (I/Y ) Mean (S/Y )30.26033.298(7.640)(8.778)28.87130.392(7.110)(9.389)24.85125.036(6.486)(8.361)22.39421.281(3.982)(3.516)

1981–96
Mean (I/Y ) Mean (S/Y )31.98232.748(7.064)(8.231)30.31930.132(6.878)(8.885)25.53224.738(6.825)(8.098)22.41620.967(4.133)(3.472)

2000–04
Mean (I/Y ) Mean (S/Y )25.75033.988(7.182)(8.280)25.14630.600(6.223)(9.194)23.08725.332(5.150)(8.358)22.32421.573(3.674)(3.661)

11. Feldstein (2005) argues that the drops in the saving-investment correlation after the mid-1990s apply to smaller
OECD economies, but not to large economies. When observations are weighted by each country GDP, thesaving-investment correlation remains.
12. Gross domestic savings are calculated as the difference between GDP and total consumption, where total consumption is the sum of private consumption and government consumption. Gross capital formation is the total value ofgross fixed capital formation, changes in inventories and acquisitions less disposals of valuables.

74 MONETARY AND ECONOMIC STUDIES (SPECIAL EDITION)/DECEMBER 2007

Financial Integration in East Asia

the EMEAP8 and EMEAP economies. One notable exception to this trend is China,
whose investment rate does not fall in 2000–04.
How should we interpret the significant drops of I/Y in 2000–04 that are notunique to East Asia? Prasad, Rajan, and Subramanian (2006) speculate that the postcrisis increase in savings and reduction in investment in many emerging market
economies are a response of countries with weak financial systems to productivity shocks
in the United States. The rise in U.S. productivity accompanied by reorganization of
the global production mechanism and the global supply chain and trade has beentransmitted to emerging market economies and raised their income. But the weaker
financial sector in emerging markets does not intermediate additional domestic
savings to domestic investment.
Armed with the annual time-series data for saving and investment from 1981 to
2004, we derive a between estimator of saving-investment correlation proposed by
Feldstein and Horioka (1980), hereafter b̂, which is an estimator for equation (1):TT( ) ( )( ) ( )

1
I = a + b ––1
S +u ,
––
it
 ––
 ––
T t =1 Y it
T t =1 Y it

(1)

where subscript t denotes the period, subscript i denotes country, and u is an error
term. We divide the sample into three periods: 1981–2004, 1981–96, and 2000–04.
Table 6 summarizes the results.
The first row of Table 6 shows the results for EMEAP8 economies. The savinginvestment correlation decreases after the Asian financial crisis, and the statisticalsignificance becomes weak. The second and third rows of Table 6 show the results for
the EMEAP economies and all economies in our sample. We confirm the reductionsin the estimates of saving-investment correlations after the East Asian crisis. The
fourth row of Table 6 shows results for the Euro11 economies; we see no significant
saving-investment correlation, but the coefficients take negative values for the wholesample period and the subsample from 2000–04.
For the sake of a robustness check, we choose a five-year window beginning in
1981 to run rolling regressions for the EMEAP8 economies, the EMEAP economies,
and all economies. The results are summarized in Figure 16. The figure shows thesaving-investment correlations and their lower bound of confidence intervals—
the estimates of the coefficients minus 1.96 standard errors. The saving-investment
correlations started falling around 1993, and the lower bounds even became negativearound the end of the 1990s.
Table 6 Saving-Investment Correlation
SampleEMEAP8EMEAPAll
Euro11

1981–2004(s.e.)
0.108
0.071
0.071
0.438

b̂
0.572
0.521
0.574
–0.0801981–96
b̂
0.674
0.625
0.712
0.438

(s.e.)
0.093
0.064
0.066
0.405

2000–04
b̂
0.401
0.302
0.264
–0.453(s.e.)
0.289
0.183
0.106
0.290

75

Figure 16 Results of Five-Year Rolling between Regressions
1.2
1.0b̂ (EMEAP8)b̂ – 1.96 * s.e.(EMEAP8)b̂ (EMEAP)b̂ – 1.96 * s.e.(EMEAP)b̂ (all)b̂ – 1.96 * s.e.(all)

0.8
0.6
0.4
0.2
0.0
–0.2
1981 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 2000

These results using the method of Feldstein and Horioka (1980) suggest the increasein the degrees of integration into world financial markets in the EMEAP economies
after the Asian financial crisis, or between 2000–04. However, it is important to notethat this period corresponds to the large drops in I /Y relative to S/Y in some of the
EMEAP8 economies, which contradicts the theoretical prediction that greater integration into world financial markets leads to capital flowing from capital-rich economies
to capital-poor ones.
C. Risk Sharing
Integration into world financial markets allows economies to share their idiosyncraticrisks in consumption and improves welfare. Empirical investigations on this point areabundant both for international and intranational risk sharing. Kalemli-Ozcan,
Sørensen, and Yosha (2003) find, for example, that the fraction of idiosyncratic shocksmoothed by cross-holding of financial assets (ex ante insurance) in the euro area was
9 percent for the period between 1993 and 2000—a significant increase from small
and/or almost negative estimates for the preceding years—possibly due to the creationof the euro area. The general findings in the literature are scarce international risk
sharing, where home bias in asset holdings is prevalent and consumption smoothingtakes place essentially through domestic saving, and richer intranational risk sharing,where the role of capital markets sometimes became preponderant.
Motivated by the evidence of increasing integration into world financial markets
for the EMEAP economies in the previous sections, next we examine whether consumption risk sharing has improved in the region. We examine the extent of risk
sharing through two methods: that of ASY (1996) in the international context, andthat of Ravallion and Chaudhuri (1997).

76 MONETARY AND ECONOMIC STUDIES (SPECIAL EDITION)/DECEMBER 2007

Financial Integration in East Asia

1. International risk sharing based on ASY (1996)
ASY (1996) propose the decomposition of cross-sectional variance in the grossproduct of an economy (originally applied to that of U.S. states) into four parts:
fractions of shocks to gross state product smoothed via capital markets, fractions ofshocks to gross state product smoothed by the federal fiscal system, fractions ofshocks to gross state product smoothed by credit markets, and an unsmoothed residual
fraction. Sørensen and Yosha (1998) advanced ASY (1996) to an internationalsetting and analyzed consumption smoothing among the European Community (EC)and OECD economies during the period from 1966 to 1990. They find that thecontribution of cross-economy factor income flows to cross-economy risk sharing
among EC as well as OECD economies is not significantly different from zero.13
For an application of Sørensen and Yosha (1998) to Asian economies, KKW(2006), among others, report that the credit market channel is more important thanthat of the international capital market. For the sample of 10 Asian economies from1970 to 2000, they find that about 20 percent of the shocks to income are smoothedthrough the credit market channel while almost no smoothing takes place throughthe international capital market, leaving the rest unsmoothed. We first extend theiranalysis to EMEAP economies including more recent data to see whether this ex ante
insurance via asset markets is in fact insignificant.
Following Sørensen and Yosha (1998), suppose that GDP for each economy isa homogeneous tradable good and an exogenous random variable. Suppose further
that the representative consumer in each economy is an identical risk-averse expectedutility maximizer who obtains utility from consumption. If the utility function is inlog form, under full risk sharing, consumption of each economy co-moves withworld consumption, but does not co-move with an economy-specific GDP shock.
Suppose there is an international capital market and a citizen in one economy can
own claims to GDP in the other economies, say, through stockholding, and thecross-economy factor income flow can smooth the income of the citizen in the lending economy. In that case, under full risk sharing, the GNP of the lending economy
co-moves with the world consumption. Even if the risk is not fully shared throughcross-economy factor income flows, suppose there is a credit market. Then a citizen
can smooth consumption via savings and dissavings using the credit market, forexample, through bank deposits, and under full risk sharing, and consumption of eacheconomy co-moves with world consumption as a result. We consider the consumption
allocation under full risk sharing as a benchmark, and measure the fraction of shocks
to GDP absorbed by the international capital market channel and credit market
channel through the variance decomposition explained below.
We consider the GDP identity for any period t. Shocks to GDP are decomposed
into two factors as follows.
GNPi C ,GDPi = GDP–––––i –––––
i
GNPi C i(2)

13. See also Mélitz (2004) for a useful survey of the literature, especially regarding evidence from European economies.

77

where all the magnitudes are in per capita terms, and i is an index of the economies.14
Following KKW (2006), equation (2) can be transformed to estimate the following
panel equation system (3) with seemingly unrelated regression (SUR).
logGDPi,t − logGNPi,t = dkt + g k logGDPi,t + ei,kt ,logGNPi,t − logCi,t = dct + g c logGDPi,t + ei,ct ,logCi,t = dut + g u logGDPi,t + ei,ut .

(3)

We interpret the degree of overall income and consumption smoothing against
idiosyncratic regional shock to GDP of economy i as measured by three sources: (1) the
fraction of idiosyncratic shock smoothed by cross-holding of financial assets (ex ante
insurance) measured by g k ; (2) the fraction of idiosyncratic shock smoothed by thechanges in savings and dissavings typically instigated by the credit markets after therealization of idiosyncratic shock, measured by g c ; and (3) the fraction of idiosyncratic
shock unsmoothed (namely, deviation of international consumption patterns fromthe full risk-sharing allocation) measured by g u and g k + g c + g u = 1.15
Regarding the first source, if full risk sharing is achieved through international
capital market channel, GNP of the economy co-moves with the world consumption
and GNP is orthogonal to GDP of that economy. In this case, we get g k = 1.
Regarding the second source, if full risk sharing is achieved through the combination of the international capital market and credit markets, consumption of eacheconomy co-moves with world consumption. In this case g c measures the incremental
fraction of shocks to GDP smoothed via savings and we get g k + g c = 1, g u = 0.
Time fixed effects in equation (3), dkt , dct , dut , play a crucial role to capture theyear-specific effects on the GDP growth rate, presumably the aggregate shocks to
GDP of each economy.
The first row of Table 7 shows the result for the period between 1981 and 2004.
The credit market plays a larger role in smoothing shocks to GDP in the EMEAP8
economies with more than 30 percent (the estimate of g c ), while only about 6 percentof the shock to GDP is smoothed through the international capital market (theestimate of g k ). Moreover, the larger values of standard errors for the parameter
Table 7 Estimation Result of Equation (3) (1981–2004)

EMEAP8Euro10
G-7
EMEAP, the United States, and the Euro10

gk

gc

gu

0.062 (0.062)
0.160 (0.124)
0.030 (0.111)
0.060 (0.051)

0.308 (0.124)
0.240 (0.128)
0.169 (0.177)
0.303 (0.079)

0.622 (0.068)
0.603 (0.126)
0.801 (0.177)
0.636 (0.053)

Note: Standard errors are in parentheses. The Euro10 economies include 10 countries excluding
Luxembourg, Greece, and Slovenia.
14. We ignore the role of international government transfer in the following analysis following KKW (2006).
15. Note that the last equation of equation (3) is almost the same as Cochrane’s (1991) empirical model, which measures
whether the consumption of economies responds only to aggregate shocks or not. The focus here is the measurementof the fraction of region-specific GDP shocks absorbed through the various channels of international insurance.

78 MONETARY AND ECONOMIC STUDIES (SPECIAL EDITION)/DECEMBER 2007

Financial Integration in East Asia

reported for the estimate of g k suggest that the smoothing effect from the international
capital market is weak.16 This trend—the credit market being more important inAsia—is consistent with the finding of KKW (2006) and Jeon, Oh, and Yang (2005).17
Meanwhile, this trend is somewhat weak for 10 euro area economies for the same
period. As the second row of Table 7 shows, about 24 percent is smoothed via credit
markets while 16 percent, more than double that of EMEAP8, goes through theinternational capital market, although the larger value of standard error for theparameters prevents us from taking the results at their face value.18 One might claimthat the Asian economies are financially integrated more with the United States
and the euro area rather than their neighbor economies in Asia, and these financial
centers should be included in the estimation. The results for risk sharing among
EMEAP (all 11 economies), the United States, and the euro area combined are quite
similar to the results based on the EMEAP8 economies.
Figure 17 (the three panels) show the results of estimation of equation (3) respectively using 10-year subsamples. Figure 17 shows that the fraction smoothed throughthe credit market channel peaked during the window of 1983–92, when major financial deregulation, particularly in the banking sector, took place in Asia. Meanwhile,the fraction smoothed through the international capital market, g k , was close to zero,and even experienced a sharp drop into negative territory from the mid-1980s to
the early 1990s windows. The drops in the 10-year subsamples beginning from 1988
may be partly due to the Asian crisis with the reversals of international capital
inflows. While g k experienced a dramatic increase reaching above 30 percent of thetotal shocks to GDP, its significance is doubtful as g k is not significantly different
from zero when looking at the 95 percent confidence interval.
Figure 18 (the three panels) reports the result using all sample economies
including the Euro10, EMEAP, and the United States. The result is similar to
the result in Figure 17 based on the EMEAP8 economies. This result seems to beconsistent with the finding by Kim, Lee, and Shin (2006), arguing that theeconomies of the Asian region are more integrated with global markets than witheach other. It may be fair to say, then, that what is developing in the region reflects
what is happening in the global market. These findings further confirm those foundin the previous literature—the credit market channel is more important than that of
the international capital market, and the degree of risk sharing among the EMEAP8
is far from complete, because the unsmoothed part of consumption against theidiosyncratic shock is around 60 percent on average according to our results.
2. International risk sharing based on Ravallion and Chaudhuri (1997)
We cross-check the result in the previous subsection using another way of measuring
the degree of risk sharing. Ravallion and Chaudhuri (1997) propose a way to measurea degree of village-wide risk sharing by examining household-level consumption and16. Our national account and population data are taken from the International Financial Statistics, while thepurchasing power parity is from the Penn World Table. It is better to use GNP statistics that include the crosseconomy factor income flow from the economies under consideration alone to be consistent with the theoreticalmodel, but currently GNP statistics do not report the country breakdown of factor income from other economies.
17. Each of the smoothed portions in their estimate is about half those of ours, mainly because of the difference inthe deflator used and partly because of the difference in the countries included.
18. See also Sørensen and Yosha (1998), though for a different sample period.

79

Figure 17 Rolling Estimation Result of Equation (3) (EMEAP8)
gk
1.2
1.0
0.8
0.6
0.4
0.2
0.0
–0.2
–0.4
–0.6
1970

75

80

85

90

95
Starting year

85

90

95
Starting year

85

90

95
Starting year

gc
1.2
1.0
0.8
0.6
0.4
0.2
0.0
–0.2
–0.4
–0.6
1970

75

80

gu
1.2
1.0
0.8
0.6
0.4
0.2
0.0
–0.2
–0.4
–0.6
1970

75

80

Note: Estimation results using a window of 10 years for the EMEAP8. Dotted lines
indicate 1.96 * standard error plus/minus the estimated coefficients, gk , gc , and gu .

80 MONETARY AND ECONOMIC STUDIES (SPECIAL EDITION)/DECEMBER 2007

Financial Integration in East Asia

Figure 18 Rolling Estimation Result of Equation (3) (Euro10, EMEAP, United States)
gk
1.0
0.8
0.6
0.4
0.2
0.0
–0.2
–0.4
1970

75

80

85

90

95
Starting year

85

90

95
Starting year

85

90

95
Starting year

gc
1.0
0.8
0.6
0.4
0.2
0.0
–0.2
–0.4
1970

75

80

gu
1.2
1.0
0.8
0.6
0.4
0.2
0.0
–0.2
–0.4
1970

75

80

Note: Estimation results using a window of 10 years for the Euro10, EMEAP, andthe United States. Dotted lines indicate 1.96 * standard error plus/minus theestimated coefficients, gk , gc , and gu .

81

income data taking into account the labor-leisure choice of households. They positthat if the co-movement in consumption across families is being driven by risk
sharing, and if the correlation between individual consumption changes and incomechanges is due to endogeneity of the labor-leisure choice, then the associated individual household consumption changes being correlated with aggregate incomechanges because the risk sharing implies the pooling of incomes.
We apply their setup to risk sharing among the EMEAP8 economies. Specifically,
we estimate the following equation (4):–––––––––
logCi,t = logGDPi,t +  logGDPt +  i,t ,(4)–––––––––
N
where logGDPt = 1/N i =1logGDPi,t where N stands for the number of economies.
Equation (4) is equal to the third equation of equation (3) if we replace the second–––––––––N
term, logGDPt = 1/N i =1logGDPi,t , with the time dummy variable dut . Hence, weshould expect  = g u = 1 – (g k + g c ).
The coefficient , attached to domestic output growth, measures the deviation fromthe risk-sharing arrangement, and the orthogonal coefficient , attached to average
output growth, measures the extent of risk sharing within the group of economies
under consideration.
Table 8 reports the results for estimation of equation (4) using the data on the
EMEAP8 economies for the whole sample period from 1981 to 2004 and by
decade.19 For all the regression estimations, the estimates of  are more significant
than those of , suggesting that while changes in an economy’s income have a significant effect on its consumption, the effect of changes in the sample mean income
differs from period to period. The estimates of  based on the sample period from1981 to 2004 are close to the estimates of g u in Table 7. The degree of internationalrisk sharing as explicitly captured by  does seem to increase in recent years, as
has also been indicated by the estimation of equation (3). The significance of thesecoefficients may not be very robust when looking at the short subsample period withthe higher standard errors accompanying the results, which is also consistent with theprevious analysis.
Table 8 Estimation Result of Equation (4) for EMEAP8
Sample1981–2004
1980s
1990s
2000s

Country i
GDP ( )
0.608
0.627
0.777
0.498

(s.e.)(0.057)(0.063)(0.088)(0.128)EMEAP8average GDP ( )
0.206
0.037
0.195
0.292

(s.e.)(0.071)(0.092)(0.112)(0.133)

Wald test( 2 (2))
203.34
196.72280.5545.45

Note: The coefficient , attached to domestic output growth, measures the deviation from risk-sharing
arrangement for idiosyncratic GDP shocks within the economies, and the coefficient  , attached
to aggregate output growth, measures the extent of risk sharing within the group of economies
under consideration.
19. All variables in the regressions are real in domestic currency and in per capita terms.

82 MONETARY AND ECONOMIC STUDIES (SPECIAL EDITION)/DECEMBER 2007

Financial Integration in East Asia

D. Summary and Reservations
1. Summary
The analyses in Section III provide us with supporting evidence for integration into
world financial markets, and more limited progress in risk sharing within the EMEAP
economies than economic theory suggests.20 Specifically, casual two-way plots between
integration into world financial markets and several macroeconomic variables do notsupport the prediction of reduction in relative consumption volatility.
Testing the saving-investment correlation proposed by Feldstein and Horioka(1980) suggests a significant increase in the degree of international capital mobility
in the EMEAP economies during the years after the Asian financial crisis, but thesaving-investment correlation in the EMEAP economies is higher than that in theeuro area economies. As for the international risk sharing, the analysis based on ASY(1996) and Ravallion and Chaudhuri (1997) both indicate a possible increasing levelof financial integration within the EMEAP8 economies. The significance of theseresults remains to be addressed, however.
2. Reservations
Why does the increased integration into world financial markets not lead to clear-cut
empirical evidence for better risk sharing and improvement of welfare in the EMEAP
economies? Regarding this question, several points are worth attention.
First, the decreasing saving-investment correlation coefficient, b̂, that we find issubject to various explanations depending on which economic models we rely on.
Thus, there are other ways of interpreting the result than the increase in financial
integration. The Asian financial crisis, for example, forced current accounts to reversein the affected economies, which would point toward the reduction of the savinginvestment correlation coefficient. Furthermore, the collapse of investment in recent
years in most of the EMEAP8 economies with the exception of China contradicts
the progress of financial integration. To facilitate understanding of the correlation,
van Wincoop (2000) suggests controlling for common factors or global supply offunds. After controlling for the common factors, he claims that the saving-investment
correlation approaches zero if markets are integrated.
Second, the framework for measuring risk sharing may not be appropriate. Becauseof the rapid accumulation of foreign reserves, particularly during the post-crisis period,
one might argue that “self-insurance” has occurred, and it is not surprising thatinternational risk sharing of idiosyncratic shock is empirically insignificant.21 In this
20. This main message—that global integration progresses, whereas regional integration remains weak—appears arobust one, as it is supported by other studies on financial integration using different integration measures, witha few exceptions. For example, Forbes and Chinn (2004) find that stock returns have quantitatively important
impacts on five major Asian economies, and the significant impacts result from the direct trade linkage. Eichengreen
and Park (2003) use a gravity model to explain the patterns of consolidated international bank claims reported to
the Bank for International Settlements that shows slower financial integration in Asia. In contrast, Eichengreen andLuengnaruemitchai (2006) use a gravity model to explain the patterns of bilateral international portfolio holding
measured by the IMF for 2001 to 2003. They find that the Asian bond markets are more integrated than arandomly selected pair of bond markets, holding other determinants of the bilateral international portfolio constant.
21. As the EMEAP8 economies have been increasingly integrated as a way of production chain in trade, an idiosyncratic shock to one of final goods originating from the non-EMEAP8 economies may spread over the other
EMEAP8 economies, producing the intermediate input to the final goods. In this regard, a common shock in theregion might be a more relevant one to examine than an idiosyncratic shock, and one may interpret the risingestimates of  in equation (4) as the result of the evolving production chain in the region.

83

regard, the EMEAP economies might have resorted to an alternative mechanism,or self-insurance through accumulation of assets, which requires an adjustment in
consumption to idiosyncratic shocks.
Alternatively, if the risk-sharing framework is based on incomplete financial
markets instead of a complete market as is often the case in the previous studies, thelevel of risk sharing to be expected might be much lower. Bai and Zhang (2005), forexample, argue that the progress in financial integration would not lead to better risk
sharing if it is accompanied by an increase in the probability of default. For the risk
sharing to occur, a country would need a much higher level of capital flows than thelevel that is conventionally understood.22,23 In this regard, we admit that there areother benchmarks or the expected level of risk sharing to base our priors.
The third point is the endogeneity of the quality of institutions, known as “collateral benefits” to the integration into world financial markets. “Collateral benefits,”
proposed by Kose et al. (2006), consists of a broad set of economic fundamentals
that provide the benefits of integration into world financial markets in addition to
the traditional channels (e.g., capital accumulation). The collateral benefits, such as
development of the domestic financial sector, improvements in institutions, andbetter macroeconomic policies, would play a dual role: they are prerequisites for thefinancial integration to occur, and a catalyst for higher growth and lower volatility.
The collateral benefits as a prerequisite may be there for the EMEAP8 economies,
but the level may not have achieved the “threshold” as in Kose et al. (2006) or be
sufficiently high to serve as the catalyst for higher growth. For example, comparedwith the euro area economies, the EMEAP8 economies so far have achieved
only limited development toward a regional capital market, regional international
institutions, and regional common economic policies. A composite opacity index
presented in Gelos and Wei (2005) indicates that the degree of opacity in areas suchas accounting standards, macroeconomic policies, and legal systems of the average
EMEAP economies is below the average of 30 developing economies if Singaporeand Hong Kong are excluded.24

IV. Implications for the Future of Currency Union in the
East Asian Economies
Can we learn any implications for the future of a currency union in the East Asian
economies? Our empirical results suggest that ample room remains for improvement
22. Wyplosz (2007) interprets the accumulation of reserves by the EMEAP8 economies to mean that they havedecided to trade off the benefits from an export-led strategy, based on exchange rate stability and external
competitiveness, against the probability of renewed speculative attacks. If the probability is low enough, which we
do not know, the choice is reasonable. Wyplosz (2007) agrees that accumulating foreign exchange reserves is one
way of bringing down the probability, but warns that it is easy to imagine how a domestic financial distress orserious political turmoil could precipitate a speculative attack on the currency.
23. Another possible explanation for lower expected risk sharing in the context of incomplete financial market is aweak enforcement issue.
24. The data are originally constructed by PricewaterhouseCoopers. The index is presented for only six economies;
Hong Kong, Indonesia, Korea, the Philippines, Singapore, and Thailand. See the details in table AII, column 2 ofGelos and Wei (2005).

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Financial Integration in East Asia

in intra-regional risk sharing and welfare in East Asia.25 Specifically, compared withthe euro area economies, we find a higher saving-investment correlation, a lower
degree of the fraction of idiosyncratic shock smoothed by cross-holding of financial
assets, and a limited extent of risk sharing within the EMEAP8 economies.
Given the lack of area-wide alternative mechanisms to cope with economyspecific shocks, such as coordinated fiscal policy and measures to make labor markets
flexible, our evidence against the consumption smoothing mechanism via the international capital market and a credit market in Asia suggests that it is unlikely that acurrency union in East Asia is a feasible solution, because a currency union takes
away an important adjustment mechanism against idiosyncratic shock, namely, theadjustment of the bilateral nominal exchange rate.26
Note that we examine the degree of financial integration in the context of preparedness for some currency union in the EMEAP economies. This analysis, however,poses a question on the role of a common currency promoting financial integration—
causality running from an opposite direction. While economies should be integrated
to some extent before forming a currency union, it is generally understood that,particularly in the case of the euro area, the introduction of a common currency,
the euro, helped significantly to promote further integration. In this sense, otherfactors should complement the degree of financial integration in judging the readinessfor a currency union.27
25. Note that the integration into world financial markets is only one of the many important conditions for a currency
union, such as the flexibility of the labor market and international transfer system to cope with an economyspecific shock. Moreover, the Asian economies do not have common strong political leadership moving towarda currency union, compared with the European economies. The lack of clear regional leadership leads some
economists to wonder if China or Japan would really participate in such a union if it is ever created. For example,
Fischer (2006) expects that the non-Chinese members would like to have a common currency so that they canachieve some impact on region-wide monetary policy, but it is unclear whether China would agree to such acurrency. Fischer (2006) also expects that Japan would play an independent role by retaining its currency, rather likethe United Kingdom currently does in Europe.
26. We do not deal with the debate over the appropriateness of the basket-peg proposal for Asian economies,
because papers in the debate generally focus on trade integration, rather than integration into world financial
markets. We list a few studies on the pros and cons for the basket peg below for reference. Kawai (2002) argued
that (1) a system which ensures intra-regional exchange rate stability will be beneficial for emerging East Asia topromote trade, FDI, and economic growth; (2) given the high degree of intra-regional trade and the risingsimilarity of trade composition in East Asia, each economy’s exchange rate policy should be directed toward
maintaining intra-regional exchange rate stability (see Branson and Healy [2005] for the same argument and see
the opposite argument in Sa and Guérin [2006]); and (3) the diverse economic linkages of emerging East Asiawith the rest of the world suggest that exchange rate stabilization vis-à-vis a well-balanced currency basket comprising the U.S. dollar, yen, and euro is a reasonable option. Ogawa and Kawasaki (2006) examine the cointegration relationship among real effective exchange rates and find that after the East Asian crisis the yen became
one of the currencies in the currency basket that stabilized the other Asian currencies. They argue that theresults suggest the common currency basket arrangement for the ASEAN+3 economies should include Japan.
Yoshino, Kaji, and Suzuki (2004) provide an example that the choice of exchange rate regime depends on the
choice of policy objectives, and a basket peg with trade weight in general is not the best choice. Shioji (2006)
examines the optimal weight for East Asia’s currency basket peg to the dollar and the yen based on a threeeconomy version of the new open-economy macroeconomics model for Asia, Japan, and the United States.
According to his model, the weight of the basket peg depends not only on the trade share that the traditional
literature on the basket peg emphasizes, but also on the choice of the invoicing currency. Shioji (2006)
concludes that under the invoicing currency pricing, East Asian economies should assign more weight to theyen, rather than the standard assumption of the seller’s currency pricing. His results highlight the importance of
the understanding on the choice of invoice currency and the degree of pass-through in Asia. See Parsons andSato (2005) and Ito and Sato (2006) on the degree of pass-through.
27. A related issue is the reference region to use. We examine the euro area as a reference region, but if the endogeneityof the currency union is really significant, then the reference should be the region where a currency union has notbeen put into place. Regions such as Latin America might be relevant in this regard.

85

V. Concluding Remarks
This paper examines the degree of integration into world financial markets and its
impacts on several key macroeconomic variables for selected East Asian economies,
and draws policy implications. According to our analysis, the degrees of integration
into world financial markets in those economies are increasing. Regarding the impacts
of increasing integration into world financial markets on several macroeconomic
variables, we find three results. First, casual two-way plots among macroeconomic
variables do not support the theoretical prediction of reduction in relative consumption volatility. Second, the saving-investment correlation is higher than those of
the euro area economies. Third, the degrees of smoothing of idiosyncratic shock by
cross-holding of financial assets are lower than in the euro area economies. These results
suggest two policy implications. First, there is some room for improvement in welfare
gains in those economies by means of further risk sharing. Second, holding all otherconditions equal, the increasing integration into world financial markets alone isunlikely to provide sound grounds for a currency union in East Asia at this stage.

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Athanasoulis, Stefano G., and Eric van Wincoop, “Growth Uncertainty and Risksharing,” Journal of
Monetary Economics, 45, 2000, pp. 477–505.
Bai, Yan, and Jing Zhang, “Financial Integration and International Risk Sharing,” mimeo, University ofMichigan, 2005.
Branson, William H., and Conor N. Healy, “Monetary and Exchange Rate Policy Coordination in
ASEAN+1,” NBER Working Paper No. 11713, National Bureau of Economic Research, 2005.
Chinn, Menzie D., and Hiro Ito, “What Matters for Financial Development? Capital Controls,
Institutions, and Interactions,” Journal of Development Economics, 81 (1), 2006, pp. 163–192.
Cheung Yin-Wong, Menzie D. Chinn, and Eiji Fujii, “The Chinese Economies in Global Context: The
Integration Process and Its Determinants,” Journal of the Japanese and International Economies,
20, 2006, pp. 128–153.
Cochrane, John H., “A Simple Test of Consumption Insurance,” Journal of Political Economy, 99 (5),1991, pp. 957–976.
Eichengreen, Barry, and Pipat Luengnaruemitchai, “Bond Markets as Conduits for Capital Flows: How
Does Asia Compare?” NBER Working Paper No. 12408, National Bureau of Economic
Research, 2006.
———, and Yung C. Park, “Why Has There Been Less Financial Integration in Asia than in Europe?”
Institute of European Studies, University of California, Berkeley, 2003.
Feldstein, Martin, “Monetary Policy in a Changing International Environment: The Role of Capital
Flows,” NBER Working Paper No. 11856, National Bureau of Economic Research, 2005.
———, and Charles Yuji Horioka, “Domestic Saving and International Capital Flows,” Economic
Journal, 90, 1980, pp. 314–330.
Fischer, Stanley, “The New Global Economic Geography,” paper presented at the Federal Reserve Bankof Kansas City Conference on August 25–26, 2006.
Forbes, Kristin J., and Menzie D. Chinn, “A Decomposition of Global Linkages in Financial Markets
Over Time,” The Review of Economics and Statistics, 2004, 86 (3), pp. 705–722.
Gelos, R. Gaston, and Shang-Jin Wei, “Transparency and International Portfolio Holdings,” Journal of
Finance, 60 (6), 2005, pp. 2987–3020.

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Gourinchas, Pierre-Oliver, and Olivier Jeanne, “The Elusive Gains from International Financial
Integration,” Review of Economic Studies, 73, 2006, pp. 715–741.
Ito, Takatoshi, and Kiyotaka Sato, “Exchange Rate Changes and Inflation in Post-Crisis Asian Economies:
VAR Analysis of the Exchange Rate Pass-Through,” CIRJE Working Paper No. F-406, CIRJE,
Faculty of Economics, University of Tokyo, 2006.
Jeon, Jongkyou, Yonghyup Oh, and Doo Yong Yang, “Financial Market Integration in East Asia:
Regional or Global?” Korean Institute for International Economic Policy Working Paper
No. 05-02, 2005.
Kalemli-Ozcan, Sebnem, Bent E. Sørensen, and Oved Yosha, “Risk Sharing and Industrial Specialization:
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Karolyi, George Andrew, and René M. Stulz, “Are Assets Priced Locally or Globally?” in Milton Harris
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Kawai, Masahiro, “Exchange Rate Arrangements in East Asia: Lessons from the 1997–98 Currency Crisis,”
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Kim, Soyoung, Sunghyun H. Kim, and Yunjong Wang, “Financial Integration and Consumption Risk
Sharing in East Asia,” Japan and the World Economy, 18 (2), 2006, pp. 143–157.
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Comment
SHAGHIL AHMED
Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System
Thank you first of all to the organizers for inviting me and giving me the opportunity
to discuss this paper. My views, of course, are my own, and are not meant to reflect theviews of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System.

I. Summary of the Paper
I am going to begin with a summary of the paper—there are many results, so I
will just go through this quickly. This paper looks at financial integration in East
Asia and its implications in a variety of different ways, and comes up with someinteresting results.
The primary focus of the paper is on the emerging market members in the
Executives’ Meeting of East Asia-Pacific Central Banks (EMEAP) group, an organization of central banks and monetary authorities. The emerging market members of thisorganization are Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, China,
Hong Kong, and Korea, and most of my comments will focus on the results forthese economies.
In the first part of the paper, the authors look at how the degree of financial
integration has changed in these economies over time. The main results are as
follows. (1) The de facto measures based on the analysis of actual external assets andliabilities show an increasing trend of financial integration. (2) In terms of capital
structure, the decomposition of assets and liabilities varies from country to country.
(3) De jure measures, which are computed based on reported capital and current
account restrictions, show some reversal of financial integration in the 1990s.
In the second part of the paper, the authors turn to the effects of financial
integration on the economies of the countries under study. Starting with the macroeconomic effects, they find little evidence of the theoretically predicted direct positiveeffects of financial integration on growth—either on consumption growth or on
output growth. Using the Feldstein and Horioka (1980) method, they also documentthat investment-saving correlations have declined in these economies, a result which

88 MONETARY AND ECONOMIC STUDIES (SPECIAL EDITION)/DECEMBER 2007

Comment

is consistent with a greater degree of capital mobility. However, the investment-saving
correlations remain higher in these economies than those in the Euro11 economies.
The authors then look more directly at risk-sharing implications of East Asianfinancial integration. They find that the EMEAP8 economies are able to achieve only
limited smoothing of GDP shocks. Interestingly, there appears to be little by way ofcross-sectional (international) risk sharing.
The third part of the paper considers the policy implications of the empiricalresults. In this respect, the authors conclude, first, that there is room for considerable
welfare gains by more risk sharing, and, second, that it is unlikely that a currency
union is feasible in East Asia right now.
In terms of the organization of my comments, I do not really have any major
objections to the methodology. I would prefer to spend my time first raising somequestions about the interpretation of some of the results; then I would like to suggest,
based on some other findings in the literature, some additional lines of inquiry thatmight be potentially fruitful to consider; and finally I would like to make a couple ofobservations on the issue that is raised about the appropriate choice of exchange rate
regimes in East Asia.

II. Interpretation of the Results
One of the results that I found really interesting, and others have also reported thiskind of result, is that de jure and de facto measures make a difference in conclusions
about the degree of financial integration. The authors’ conjecture is that this has
something to do with the reimposition of controls on capital inflows in Indonesia
and Malaysia. But my impression is that this result is more broad-based than justthese two countries, and in any case, if such controls were successful, we should notnecessarily see a divergence between the de jure and de facto measures. This diversion
indicates to me either a lack of enforcement of the controls or that markets somehow
find a way around the restrictions.
There is a reason I bring this up. I agree that normally and, for the most part, we
would want to focus on de facto measures of integration when looking at the effects offinancial integration, which is what the authors do. But de jure measures, suggesting
the need to have restrictions in the first place, can sometimes be an indicator of general
problems in the economy. If these measures might be a good proxy for some of theunderlying economic problems, then it might also be fruitful to look at the effects
of de jure measures, because the results might shed light on how these problems areconstraining various things, such as economic growth.
My second comment on interpretation has to do with one of the key conclusions
the authors make, which is that there is not much evidence of international risk
sharing among the EMEAP8 economies. Now, this is true for most of their results, butthere is one result in the paper, which I found very intriguing and which suggests thatthe picture may have changed in the mid-1990s. The authors did not bring up thisresult in their presentation here, but I would like to comment on it. The result
concerns their estimates of the g c and g k coefficients in equation (3) in their paper,89

using 10-year rolling window regressions. Recall that these coefficients represent,
respectively, the fraction of GDP shocks smoothed through credit markets and throughcross-sectional (international) risk sharing. The results are presented in Figure 17 of
their paper. The authors find that, for rolling windows starting in 1992, the fractionof GDP shock smoothed through cross-sectional (international) risk sharing rises
dramatically, to nearly 40 percent for the 1995 to 2004 window. In contrast, thefraction of shocks smoothed through credit markets diminishes. Either there is a
special factor or a particular feature of the specific methodology used that is accounting for this result, or there is a real story here that is not being emphasized enough inthe paper. It would be important to know the reasons for this particular result, since
it appears to be one result that is going against a major conclusion of the paper.
Another point about interpretation I would like to make is that the facts that there
are few risk-sharing benefits and we find no direct effect on economic performance do
not necessarily imply there are no benefits. As has been pointed out in the literature—for example, by Kose et al. (2006)—even if the benefits of the usual textbook kind
may be small, there are indirect “collateral” benefits, which could be much bigger.
These effects might be difficult to identify, though, because some “preconditions” or“threshold effects” are, in turn, required for these collateral benefits to kick in. Actually,
the authors are well aware of this and they discuss this point in the paper, but they end
up concluding that these collateral benefits are not much in evidence in the countries
studied, and thus, that the required preconditions do not exist. But how can we reallytell? As I said, it can be very difficult to identify the collateral benefits, and this needs
to be looked into more. Just from the fact that we are not finding risk sharing, wecannot say that these collateral benefits do not exist, because there is a lot of homebias even in European countries, for example. Also, a reading of the “preconditions”
literature—such as Chinn and Ito (2006)—suggests, to me at least, that the preconditions are a set of minimal requirements on financial development and developmentof legal institutions, which are likely to be satisfied in these “tiger-status” countries,
so I was not convinced by the conclusion that the benefits of financial integration are
only very limited in these countries and this point is, perhaps, debatable.

III. Possible Extensions
Turning to other things that the authors could fruitfully look at, note that thetraditional benefits of capital mobility emphasized in economic theory might not be
observed in the real world because, as has been pointed out often, capital is flowing
in the wrong direction—that is, from developing countries to developed countries.
This certainly applies to the ASEAN+3 countries as well. They collectively had acurrent account deficit of US$35 billion in 1996, and a surplus of US$360 billion in
2006, which made them net exporters of capital. However, in addition to looking
at the sum of external assets and liabilities and at capital structure, as the authors do,it might be useful to consider inflows and outflows separately. For some questions,such as the degree of risk sharing, you might want to just take the sum of the externalliabilities and assets, as they do. But for other questions, such as the growth effects, it

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Comment

should matter more which direction the capital is flowing in and what the net capital
flows are. So, in terms of growth effects at least, it would be useful to have an analysisof the inflows and outflows and of the net flows separately as well, rather than justthe sum of the assets and liabilities.
Since the dataset the authors use allows this, a further decomposition of equity
capital flows between portfolio equity flows versus foreign direct investment (FDI)
flows would also be useful to look at. FDI, many people argue, should have more
beneficial effects, both because it entails a transfer of technology and managerial
expertise and because it is the least volatile of the various types of capital flows.
Researchers are generally hard-pressed to find bigger benefits of FDI in the data
though, and so it would be interesting to see what we observe with respect to these
EMEAP8 countries on the effects of FDI versus portfolio equity flows—are theeffects any different? (There is another paper coming up on direct investment later inthe conference, by Ahn and Lee [2007], which might shed light on this.)IV. Exchange Rate Regime Issues
I would like to make just two comments on the exchange rate regime issues raisedin the paper. One of the policy implications the authors draw is that a currency unionfor East Asia is not appropriate at the present time, at least. And the argument goessomething like this: since adequate risk-sharing is not occurring, implicitly capital is
not mobile enough; thus, in the absence of other adjustment mechanisms, flexibility ofthe exchange rate can potentially play a greater role in providing a more appropriate
adjustment of the economy to various shocks. I am sympathetic to this conclusion.
There are a couple of issues that are particularly important with respect to thesecountries when looking at the choice of exchange rate regimes. First, what is theimportance of common or regional shocks versus country-specific shocks in thesecountries in the first place? The original optimal currency area literature focused notjust on factor mobility as providing as appropriate adjustment mechanism, but also
on the degree to which there are common shocks. A set of countries could be an
appropriate group for a common currency area if either there were other adjustment
mechanisms than movements in the exchange rate available (e.g., factor mobility) or
if the countries by and large had the same set of shocks and thus may not needan independent monetary policy so much. With the greater fragmentation of international production across borders and the higher degree of vertical specializationin trade taking place in East Asia, the common influences on the region may be
increasing and this would be very interesting to look at. The question of regional
shocks versus country-specific shocks is also important for another reason: theliterature often brings up the degree of inter-regional risk sharing versus intra-regionalrisk sharing, arguing that the extent of intra-regional risk sharing is much less thanthe extent of inter-regional risk sharing. The importance of country-specific shocks
would give us some idea of the scope or potential for intra-regional risk-sharing—
it would allow a setting of the benchmark and then one could see how far we arefrom the optimal potential scope of intra-regional risk sharing.

91The second issue with respect to exchange rate regimes of the East Asian countries
I would like to bring up is the role of China. This can be very important. With China’s
reluctance to have more exchange rate adjustment, the other East Asian economies areforced into a similar predicament to maintain competitiveness. Thus, the extent towhich the exchange rate policies in these economies are constrained by China’s
exchange rate policy is important. Of course, this just puts the question back of why
China does not allow more exchange rate adjustment, which still has to be answered.

V. Conclusion
In conclusion, I think this paper has done a lot of work in studying financial integration in East Asia from many different angles and using different empirical methods.
The findings corroborate to a large extent others’ findings with respect to developing
countries more broadly. I did have some questions about aspects of the interpretationof results, which I have shared here, and some suggestions for even more things todo, which is the job of all discussants to point out. Thank you.
References

Ahn, Sanghoon, and Jong-Wha Lee, “Integration and Growth in East Asia,” Monetary and Economic
Studies, 25 (S-1), Institute for Monetary and Economic Studies, Bank of Japan, 2007, pp. 131–154(this issue).
Chinn, Menzie D., and Hiro Ito, “What Matters for Financial Development? Capital Controls,
Institutions, and Interactions,” Journal of Development Economics, 81 (1), 2006, pp. 163–192.
Feldstein, Martin, and Charles Yuji Horioka, “Domestic Saving and International Capital Flows,”
Economic Journal, 90, 1980, pp. 314–330.
Kose, M. Ayhan, Eswar Prasad, Kenneth Rogoff, and Shang-Jin Wei, “Financial Globalization:
A Reappraisal,” IMF Working Paper No. 06/189, International Monetary Fund, 2006.

Comment
MASAHIRO KAWAI
Asian Development Bank Institute
I would like to express my gratitude to the organizer, the Institute for Monetary andEconomic Studies of the Bank of Japan, for inviting me to this very stimulating conference as a discussant of the paper by Drs. Fujiki and Terada-Hagiwara. Though I
work for the ADBI, a subsidiary organization of the Asian Development Bank (ADB),
my views are entirely personal and do not necessarily represent the ADB or the ADBI.

I. Introduction
The authors’ interesting paper attempts to measure empirically the degrees of financial
integration of emerging East Asian economies—what the authors call the EMEAP8:92 MONETARY AND ECONOMIC STUDIES (SPECIAL EDITION)/DECEMBER 2007

Comment

China, Hong Kong, Korea, Singapore, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, andThailand. The Executives’ Meeting of East Asia-Pacific Central Banks (EMEAP)
comprises 11 members—the EMEAP8, Japan, Australia, and New Zealand—but
excludes low-income ASEAN countries and Taipei,China. The main focus of the paper
is the EMEAP8’s integration with the global financial markets, rather than their mutual
financial integration or their integration with a wider East Asian group—including the
EMEAP8; Japan; Taipei,China; and other ASEAN countries—or with India. There aresome discussions on the exchange rate issue and a possible currency union within the
EMEAP8, but they are not developed well enough to match the empirical findings.
The authors provide three main conclusions in the paper. First, using data constructed by Lane and Milesi-Ferretti (2006) and other empirical analyses, the authors
argue that the EMEAP8 economies have experienced rising trends of global financial
integration, but the degree of integration remains limited compared with the euro area.
Second, they claim that, again compared with the euro area, the EMEAP8 economies
are more integrated with global financial markets than with each other, that is, thedegree of regional financial integration is much more limited. In obtaining the firstand second conclusions, they note high saving-investment correlations, low fractionsof idiosyncratic shocks to output that are smoothed by cross-country holdings offinancial assets, and low degrees of cross-country risk sharing, for the EMEAP8.
Finally, the authors state that a currency union is not feasible due to the presence ofcountry-specific, idiosyncratic shocks to output that cannot be diversified or smoothed.

II. Assessments of the Three Main Conclusions
Let me take up these conclusions one by one. First, I agree in principle that the
EMEAP8 economies’ global financial integration is limited, particularly when compared with the degree of the euro area’s global financial integration, but shows rising
trends over time. If the Feldstein-Horioka (1980) measure is of any guidance, thesaving-investment correlations are higher for the EMEAP8 economies than for the
euro area countries, but they are declining over time, indicating a rising trend of
financial openness. Based on the methodology of Kim, Kim, and Wang (2006),
fractions of idiosyncratic shocks to GDP that are smoothed by international holdingsof financial assets (measured by the coefficient g k ) are found to be lower for the
EMEAP8 economies, albeit statistically insignificant, than for the euro area, butthey are rising again over time, having reached the 0.3–0.4 range in recent years
according to Figure 17 of the present paper. Using the Ravallion and Chaudhuri(1997) method, risk sharing through temporal, cross-country smoothing (measured
by the coefficient  ) is small in comparison to the euro area, but rising over time sincethe 1970s. Essentially, the authors convincingly establish the case that the degree of
integration of the EMEAP8 with the global financial market is limited in comparison
to the euro area but exhibits a rising trend over time.
Nonetheless, some results observed in Figures 13 through 15 are puzzling andmay require the authors to address the sample size issue. I am not going to get into
details but, for example, Figure 15 exhibits a negative correlation between financial

93

globalization and consumption volatility for the EMEAP8 as predicted by theory(that is, the more integrated with the global financial market, the less volatile is consumption), while the authors claim that the exclusion of Hong Kong and Singapore,two financially open economies, reduces the negative correlation, which is a puzzle.
Perhaps the sample size of eight or six is too small to draw meaningful results, andthe authors are encouraged to take a look at a larger number of emerging market
economies, not only from East Asia but also from other regions of the world such as
South Asia, Latin America, and Eastern Europe. More generally, other parts of thepaper use data for the EMEAP8 and major OECD countries, rather than a wider
set of emerging market economies. A more suitable analysis would be to assess thefinancial openness of the EMEAP8 in a larger set of emerging market economies by
increasing the sample size.
Second, I would like to discuss the issue of global versus regional financial integration for the EMEAP8 economies. The authors’ claim that the economies of East Asia
are more integrated with global financial markets than with each other’s financial
markets is probably correct, but I do not think they have clearly established this claim.
Looking at cross-border portfolio investment data (Table 1), for example, we find thatthe share of East Asia’s portfolio investment in East Asia is only 5.7 percent of theregion’s total portfolio investment outflows, while East Asians invest heavily in Europe
Table 1 Cross-Border Portfolio Investment Flows, 2004
US$ billions, percentage of the total
Investment from:

NAFTA
EU-15
Total portfolio investment
NAFTA
624 (15.0)
1,866 (45.0)
EU-15
2,117 (17.6)
7,709 (64.1)
East Asia
849 (32.3)
944 (35.9)
Rest of the world 1,877 (42.2)
1,733 (39.0)
World total
5,468 (23.5)
12,252 (52.7)
Long-term debt securities investment
NAFTA
218 (21.0)
438 (42.2)
EU-15
1,035 (14.8)
4,789 (68.4)
East Asia
615 (32.8)
718 (38.3)
Rest of the world 1,297 (46.9)
1,036 (37.5)
World total
3,165 (25.0)
6,981 (55.0)
Equity securities investment
NAFTA
389 (13.5)
1,253 (43.5)
EU-15
914 (21.6)
2,348 (55.5)
East Asia
212 (33.5)
179 (28.2)
Rest of the world
237 (24.5)
415 (42.9)
World total
1,752 (20.1)
4,194 (48.1)

Investment to:
Rest of the world
East Asia
588 (14.2)
578 (4.8)
149 (5.7)
182 (4.1)
1,497 (6.4)

World total

1,070 (25.8)
1,622 (13.5)
688 (26.2)
650 (14.6)
4,031 (17.3)

4,149 (100.0)
12,026 (100.0)
2,630 (100.0)
4,443 (100.0)
23,247 (100.0)

(6.0)
(1.9)
(2.6)
(2.3)
(2.4)

319 (30.8)
1,050 (15.0)
492 (26.2)
368 (13.3)
2,229 (17.6)

1,037 (100.0)
7,007 (100.0)
1,875 (100.0)
2,765 (100.0)
12,683 (100.0)

523 (18.1)
402 (9.5)
78 (12.3)
48 (5.0)
1,051 (12.1)

718 (24.9)
569 (13.4)
164 (25.9)
267 (27.6)
1,718 (19.7)

2,882 (100.0)
4,233 (100.0)
632 (100.0)
967 (100.0)
8,715 (100.0)

62
132
49
64
308

Note: NAFTA = North American Free Trade Area.
EU-15 = European Union 15 countries.
East Asia = Japan, Korea, China, Hong Kong, Singapore, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines,
Thailand, and Vietnam.
Source: International Monetary Fund, Coordinated Portfolio Investment Survey, December, 2004.

94 MONETARY AND ECONOMIC STUDIES (SPECIAL EDITION)/DECEMBER 2007

Comment(35.9 percent) and North America (32.3 percent). This is in sharp contrast to the
EU-15’s intra-regional investment share of 64.1 percent. This finding supports the view
that, in terms of quantity, East Asia is more integrated with the global (U.S. and EU)
financial markets than with its own region’s financial markets. The limited intraregional financial linkage within East Asia may be due to (1) the varying degrees offinancial market openness and capital account liberalization among the EMEAP8 and(2) the region’s weak financial systems. Although Hong Kong and Singapore have open,
free markets, China still imposes tight capital and exchange controls, and many
middle-income ASEAN countries also retain several cross-border impediments tocapital flows and financial services. In addition, the weak and underdeveloped
financial market infrastructure in many EMEAP8 economies may be forcing theregion’s investors to allocate their portfolio assets in more financially mature, developed
markets like New York and London. I believe these are the fundamental reasons for
East Asia’s weak regional financial integration and its strong linkage with global
financial centers.
I would like to encourage the authors to carry out additional study on regional
financial integration. I would suggest, for example, that the authors expand theRavallion and Chaudhuri (1997) analysis by adding the average of non-EMEAP8
economies’ GDPs (like OECD countries’ total GDPs) to the right-hand side ofequation (4). This would allow them to examine whether consumption growth of the
EMEAP8 can be better explained by GDP growth of the region alone or by global
GDP growth in addition to regional GDP growth. If the non-EMEAP8 GDP
growth has substantial explanatory power in the expanded equation (4), then this
could be indirect evidence of the region’s global portfolio diversification. On theother hand, if EMEAP8 GDP growth adequately explains national consumption
growth, then regional financial integration is sufficiently strong.
Third, the authors state that “it is unlikely that a currency union in Asia is afeasible solution because a currency union takes away an important adjustment[namely, exchange rate adjustment] mechanism against idiosyncratic shock” (thebrackets are mine). This statement is quite obvious, at least for now, but I think theissue is of a time dimension and country coverage. I agree that a currency union is
infeasible for the entire EMEAP8 at this point, but what about the direction inwhich EMEAP (or more generally East Asia) is heading, and how about the scopeof country coverage when discussing a currency union? Key questions include:
is regional financial integration deepening or not? Can we identify a group of
economies, where shocks are largely symmetric and can be reasonably absorbedwith a common monetary policy—in other words, where optimum currency area
(OCA) criteria can be applied? My view is that regional financial integration isdeepening over time, which would eventually require some form of monetaryand financial cooperation in the region. One may be able to identify a group of
economies where even today conditions exist for a currency union. See the next
section for such discussions.

95III. Regional Financial Integration and Exchange Rate Policy
Let me quickly go over the issue of regional financial integration in East Asia. I agree
that it is still limited, but there are signs that regional financial integration isprogressing in East Asia. Cross-market differentials in interest rates are declining overtime, cross-market co-movements in bond yields are increasing, and correlations ofstock returns among the East Asian economies are rising. An important consequenceof the growing regional financial—albeit limited—linkage is the heightened
macroeconomic interdependence and business cycle co-movements within East Asia.
That is, East Asian business cycles have become increasingly synchronized. Table 2
summarizes the results of an earlier study by Kawai and Motonishi (2005). The data
demonstrate that the real activity variables (growth rates of real GDP, personal
consumption, and fixed investment) are highly correlated among major economies
in East Asia, notably Japan, Asian NIEs (Korea; Taipei,China; Hong Kong; andSingapore), and the middle-income ASEAN countries (such as Malaysia and Thailand).
However, real activity variables of China and low-income ASEAN countries are nothighly correlated with those of other East Asian economies, perhaps reflecting theirlimited financial openness and linkage with other economies in the region.
Furthermore and surprisingly, emerging East Asia’s real activity variables tend to beless correlated with those of the United States, the EU, Australia, and India. Rana
(2006) provides rolling 10-year correlations of GDP growth for individual economies
with ASEAN+3 (excluding the respective reference economy) growth as a whole.
Table 2 Correlation Coefficients between First Principal Component Scores for East
Asia and Individual Economy Data, 1980–2002
Countries/ Real GDP
Real
Real
Real
Real effective
regions
consumption investment stock price exchange rate
United States
0.01
–0.32
–0.41
0.36
0.48
EU-15
0.01
–0.18
–0.14
0.33
–0.33
Australia
–0.16
–0.15
–0.20
0.33
0.67
New Zealand
0.27
–0.04
0.19
0.11
0.27
India
0.09
0.01
–0.03
0.10
0.40
Japan
0.58
0.39
0.41
0.71
–0.26
Korea
0.71
0.78
0.67
0.86
0.70
China
0.07
–0.14
–0.26
—
0.43
Taipei,China
0.51
0.28
0.28
0.71
0.72
Hong Kong
0.74
0.63
0.58
—
0.48
Singapore
0.77
0.76
0.59
—
0.77
Malaysia
0.90
0.87
0.95
—
0.81
Thailand
0.89
0.92
0.88
—
0.80
Philippines
0.33
0.31
0.55
0.91
0.81
Indonesia
0.89
0.65
0.89
—
0.86

GDP
deflator
0.17
0.10
–0.02
–0.07
0.06
0.15
0.27
–0.40
0.35
–0.06
0.08
0.40
0.54
–0.06
0.99

Consumerprice index
0.85
0.78
0.31
0.40
0.63
0.90
0.89
0.15
0.85
0.80
0.87
0.79
0.87
0.57
0.21

Wholesaleprice index
0.30
–0.01
0.00
0.22
0.34
0.46
0.48
—
0.50
—
0.45
0.68
0.70
0.27
0.92

Notes: 1. The figures are correlation coefficients between the first principal component scores for East Asia and theoriginal, log first-differenced series of individual countries.
2. In this analysis, East Asia includes Japan; Korea; China; Taipei,China; Hong Kong; Singapore; Malaysia;
Thailand; the Philippines; and Indonesia.
Source: Adapted from Kawai and Motonishi (2005, table 5).

96 MONETARY AND ECONOMIC STUDIES (SPECIAL EDITION)/DECEMBER 2007

Comment

These correlations, reported for 1989–2003 (end-dated), have been uniformly higher
from 1998 onward than before, although their levels for China tend to be lower thanthose of most other ASEAN+3 countries. By contrast, the growth rate correlations of
ASEAN+3 with the United States and Europe have been progressively lower, becoming negative in the moving correlations from 1998 to 2003.
Essentially, the U.S. and European business cycles are not strongly correlatedwith those of East Asia. One interpretation for this result is that major East Asian
economies—including Japan and its emerging neighbors apart from China andlow-income ASEAN countries—are subject to common supply shocks, which are
different from shocks hitting the United States or the EU. This tendency of growing
macroeconomic interdependence among major East Asian economies will continue,and I expect countries like China and Vietnam will start showing such interdependence as they further open up their financial markets to the rest of the world.
Thus, conditions supporting a common monetary policy and a currency union will
grow, particularly among financially connected economies. A group of economies
that are already sufficiently integrated in East Asia—such as Japan and Korea; or
China, Hong Kong, and Macao; or Singapore, Malaysia, and Brunei Darussalam—
may even today find it possible to initiate a subregional currency stabilization scheme
if political consensus exists.
One of the reasonable policy implications is for the East Asian economies to begin
exploring ways and means to introduce a subregional or regional mechanism to achieve
intra-regional exchange rate stability (see Kawai [2007]). One such option would be tostart taking steps to prepare for the possible creation of a regional, cooperative system
similar to the Snake or Exchange Rate Mechanism (ERM) in Europe. Given that
economic (particularly structural) convergence among the East Asian economies is
not sufficiently advanced and that political relationships are not sufficiently mature
to support the launch of a tightly coordinated regional system, a practical way ofproceeding is to take a multi-track, multi-speed approach, whereby economies readyfor deeper policy coordination begin the process while others prepare to join later. Eachsubregional group would intensify monetary and exchange rate policy coordination
while allowing the possibility for others to join them subsequently or, over time, forthese subregional groups to start negotiations to integrate into a larger monetary zone.
Apart from such a medium-term system design issue, East Asia faces immediate
policy challenges. Macroeconomic management is becoming increasingly complex in
an interdependent region, including the choice of exchange rate regime, the sequencing of capital account liberalization—for those economies that have yet to fully open
their capital accounts—and policies to address global payments imbalances and surges
in capital inflows. As the East Asian economies are increasingly integrated throughtrade and foreign direct investment and through finance—though financial integrationis still limited—there will be an urgent need for some type of exchange rate coordination to ensure a certain degree of intra-regional rate stability. Given that East Asianexchange rate regimes are in serious disarray, the first step would be coordination of
exchange rate regimes—toward greater exchange rate flexibility vis-à-vis the U.S. dollar.
China’s renminbi revaluation in July 2005 and the subsequent gradual appreciationof the currency against the dollar suggest the beginning of such coordination. The next97

step is coordination of exchange rate policies to ensure some degree of intra-regional
exchange rate stability. For example, the disorderly unwinding of global payment
imbalances and/or sudden surges in capital inflows to East Asia would require coordinated action to jointly adjust the East Asian exchange rates so as not to alter
drastically the intra-regional price competitiveness. The point here is that in the eventof severe upward pressure on currency values in East Asia, regional exchange rate
coordination will be necessary to engineer collective appreciation—which is possible
through greater rate flexibility against the dollar and relative intra-regional stability of
the currencies within the region—to minimize the adjustment costs for East Asia. This
would require further exchange rate flexibility of the renminbi, whose movements tend
to constrain the exchange rate policies of many other emerging economies in the region.

IV. Conclusion
Let me conclude by way of summarizing my comments. I understand that the
EMEAP is a very important group for the Bank of Japan, and the paper focuses on
the EMEAP8. But East Asia is bigger than that, and an analysis including Japan;
Taipei,China; and other regional economies would be important. In addition,
increasing the sample size to cover many other emerging market economies—such as
those in South Asia, Latin America, and Eastern Europe—would also be quite useful
to make a more meaningful international comparison. Carrying out a deeper analysisof regional financial integration and macroeconomic interdependence is essential tothe discussion of the exchange rate regime, including currency union, in East Asia.
The region needs to consider exchange rate policy coordination as an important
policy option in the event of disorderly unwinding of global payments imbalances
and/or massive, simultaneous inflows of capital to East Asia.

References

Feldstein, Martin, and Charles Yuji Horioka, “Domestic Saving and International Capital Flows,”
Economic Journal, 90, 1980, pp. 314–330.
Kawai, Masahiro, “Toward a Regional Exchange Rate Regime in East Asia,” ADBI Discussion Paper
No. 68, Asian Development Bank Institute, 2007.
———, and Taizo Motonishi, “Macroeconomic Interdependence in East Asia: Empirical Evidence andIssues,” in Asian Development Bank, ed. Asian Economic Cooperation and Integration: Progress,
Prospects and Challenges, Manila: Asian Development Bank, 2005, pp. 213–268.
Kim, Soyoung, Sunghyun H. Kim, and Yunjong Wang, “Financial Integration and Consumption Risk
Sharing in East Asia,” Japan and the World Economy, 18 (2), 2006, pp. 143–157.
Lane, Philip R., and Gian Maria Milesi-Ferretti, “The External Wealth of Nations Mark II: Revisedand Extended Estimates of Foreign Assets and Liabilities, 1970–2004,” IMF Working Paper
No. 06/69, International Monetary Fund, 2006.
Rana, Pradumna B., “Economic Integration in East Asia: Trends, Prospects, and a Possible Roadmap,”
ADB Working Paper Series on Regional Economic Integration No. 2, Office of Regional Economic
Integration, Asian Development Bank, 2006.
Ravallion, Martin, and Shubham Chaudhuri, “Risk and Insurance in Village India: Comment,”
Econometrica, 65, 1997, pp. 171–184.

98 MONETARY AND ECONOMIC STUDIES (SPECIAL EDITION)/DECEMBER 2007

General Discussion

General Discussion
Hiroshi Fujiki responded first to Shaghil Ahmed’s (Board of Governors of the Federal
Reserve System) comments by reiterating that the paper finds an increased benefit interms of risk sharing arising from progress in financial integration in the Executives’Meeting of East Asia-Pacific Central Banks (EMEAP) 8 economies. He then acknowledged the importance of further decomposition of capital flows in measuring the degreeof financial integration, particularly when countries such as China record different
types of flows between assets and liabilities. He also agreed that understanding
common shocks to the Asian economies was important.
Fujiki then turned to Masahiro Kawai’s (Asian Development Bank Institute)comments by saying that the seemingly increasing financial integration with therising  and g k coefficients may not be very robust, and that this was a reason not
to emphasize the particular result. He argued that one of the main conclusions—the
region may not yet be ready for currency union—was based solely on the empiricalevidence that the paper reports and the relevance of the currency union remains an
open issue for the future.
In response to Kawai’s suggestion to include other emerging economies, Akiko
Terada-Hagiwara suggested that the inclusion of other economies should not affect themain message of the paper—that global factors play a major role and intra-regional
integration was still limited.
In the general discussion, questions and comments were focused on the issuesof interpretation of the results in the paper, measurement of financial integration,and the analytical framework for assessment of risk sharing. Regarding the interpretation of the results, Enrique Alberola Ila (Banco de España) and Jong-Wha Lee(Asian Development Bank) raised the issue of a possible endogeneity problem—the creation of a currency union promotes financial integration. Fujiki agreed withthe comments, arguing that financial integration alone was not a sufficient condition
for the introduction of a currency union.
In interpreting the falling correlation between saving and investment in the EMEAP8
economies, Michael Devereux (University of British Columbia) emphasized thecritical role of current account reversals during the Asian financial crisis. Akira Ariyoshi(International Monetary Fund) wondered whether it may be official intervention and theaccumulation of international reserves rather than “financial integration” that allowed
countries to run increasingly large current account surpluses and thus caused theobserved fall in saving and investment correlation. Made Sukada (Bank Indonesia)
argued that the decreasing trend in the investment ratio in the EMEAP8 economies
may not be due to the weak banking system, since substantial reform efforts havebeen made since the Asian financial crisis.
On issues related to measuring financial integration, a number of comments werereceived regarding the importance of the price measure and the divergence in de jureand de facto measures. Hans Genberg (Hong Kong Monetary Authority) and Már
Gudmundsson (Bank for International Settlements) suggested that in measuring
financial integration price measures might be more appropriate than the quantitative
measure. Genberg added that the divergence in offshore and onshore interest rates in99

China, for example, implies a lack of integration. Leonardo Bartolini (Federal Reserve
Bank of New York) cast doubt on the widely accepted choice of the de facto over thede jure measure when the two differ. On this issue, Maurice Obstfeld (University ofCalifornia at Berkeley) said that the two measures are complementary, and should be
looked at simultaneously. Fujiki responded to these comments by referring to otherstudies on the price measure cited in the paper. Additionally, Bartolini argued thatmeasures of financial integration are influenced by the extent to which countries
are exposed to synchronized shocks, as also pointed out by Gudmundsson. Sukada
said, by providing details of development in the capital account regulation, thereversal in the capital account openness as shown by the de jure measure in Fujiki
and Terada-Hagiwara’s paper may not be because of Indonesia.
On the analysis of risk sharing, some argued that solely looking at idiosyncratic
shocks may not be appropriate in the region. Sanghoon Ahn (Korea Development
Institute) discussed the unique characteristics of the vertical production chain in Asian
economies that may have an implication for risk sharing. Anton Braun (University ofTokyo) argued that the type of risk-sharing schemes that Asian economies have opted
for following the Asian financial crisis was their accumulation of international reserves,which may dominate other types of risk sharing over idiosyncratic shocks. In a reply,
Fujiki agreed with the importance of these aggregate shocks to the region.
Another line of discussion concerned the extent of risk sharing that should be
expected. As observed during the Asian financial crisis, Braun emphasized a role forprivate contract enforcement, which should constrain the extent of risk sharing.
In this regard, Mark Spiegel (Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco) suggested
looking at Latin American economies rather than euro area economies as a benchmark
against EMEAP, as they are more similar in terms of the stage of development.
Alternatively, Devereux argued that under an incomplete market setup, the timelinessof the data matters. Consumption correlations across countries at low frequencies
would be much higher, suggesting higher risk sharing, than those at very highfrequencies. Fujiki said that the issues raised here remain for future research. Finally,
Obstfeld opened a question for further discussion on why economists are seeing
increasing financial integration in emerging markets generally, including East Asia,
despite the shaky empirical evidence of its benefits.

100 MONETARY AND ECONOMIC STUDIES (SPECIAL EDITION)/DECEMBER 2007