I model the equilibrium risk sharing between countries with varying financial development. The most financially developed country takes greater risks because its financial intermediaries deal with funding problems better. In good times, the more financially developed country consumes more and runs a trade deficit financed by the higher financial income that it earns as compensation for taking greater risk. During global crises, it suffers heavier losses. Its currency emerges as the reserve currency because it appreciates during crises, thus providing a good hedge. I provide evidence that financial net worth plays a crucial role in understanding this asymmetric risk sharing. (JEL E44, F14, F32, G01, G15, G21)

Abstract We propose a simple model of the international monetary system. We study the world supply and demand for reserve assets denominated in different currencies under a variety of scenarios: a hegemon versus a multipolar world; abundant versus scarce reserve assets; and a gold exchange standard versus a floating rate system. We rationalize the Triffin dilemma, which posits the fundamental instability of the system, as well as the common prediction regarding the natural and beneficial emergence of a multipolar world, the Nurkse warning that a multipolar world is more unstable than a hegemon world, and the Keynesian argument that a scarcity of reserve assets under a gold standard or at the zero lower bound is recessionary. Our analysis is both positive and normative.

Abstract We provide a theory of the determination of exchange rates based on capital flows in imperfect financial markets. Capital flows drive exchange rates by altering the balance sheets of financiers that bear the risks resulting from international imbalances in the demand for financial assets. Such alterations to their balance sheets cause financiers to change their required compensation for holding currency risk, thus affecting both the level and volatility of exchange rates. Our theory of exchange rate determination in imperfect financial markets not only helps rationalize the empirical disconnect between exchange rates and traditional macroeconomic fundamentals, it also has real consequences for output and risk sharing. Exchange rates are sensitive to imbalances in financial markets and seldom perform the shock absorption role that is central to traditional theoretical macroeconomic analysis. Our framework is flexible; it accommodates a number of important modeling features within an imperfect financial market model, such as nontradables, production, money, sticky prices or wages, various forms of international pricing-to-market, and unemployment.

Governments use their countries' economic strength from financial and trade relationships to achieve geopolitical and economic goals. We provide a model of the sources of geoeconomic power and how it is wielded. The source of this power is the ability of a hegemonic country to coordinate threats across disparate economic relationships as a means of enforcement on foreign entities. The hegemon wields this power to demand costly actions out of the targeted entities, including mark‐ups, import restrictions, tariffs, and political concessions. The hegemon uses its power to change targeted entities' activities to manipulate the global equilibrium in its favor and increase its power. A sector is strategic either in helping the hegemon form threats or in manipulating the world equilibrium via input‐output amplification. The hegemon acts a global enforcer, thus adding value to the world economy, but destroys value by distorting the equilibrium in its favor.

We establish currency as an important factor shaping global portfolios. Using a new security-level data set, we demonstrate that investor holdings are biased toward their own currencies to such an extent that countries typically hold most of the foreign-debt securities denominated in their currency. While large firms issue in foreign currency and borrow from foreigners, most firms issue only in local currency and do not directly access foreign capital. These patterns hold broadly across countries except for the United States, as foreign investors hold significant shares of US dollar bonds. The share of dollar-denominated cross-border holdings surged after 2008.

Abstract Global firms finance themselves through foreign subsidiaries, often shell companies in tax havens, which obscures their true economic location in official statistics. We associate the universe of traded securities issued by firms in tax havens with their issuer's ultimate parent and restate bilateral investment positions to better reflect the financial linkages connecting countries around the world. Bilateral portfolio investment from developed countries to firms in large emerging markets is dramatically larger than previously thought. The national accounts of the United States, for example, understate the U.S. position in Chinese firms by nearly $600 billion. Further, we demonstrate how offshore issuance in tax havens affects our understanding of the currency composition of external portfolio liabilities and the nature of foreign direct investment. Finally, we provide additional restatements of bilateral investment positions, including one based on the geographic distribution of sales.

Abstract It is surprisingly difficult to find economic variables that strongly comove with exchange rates, a phenomenon codified in a large literature as “exchange rate disconnect.” We demonstrate that a variety of common proxies for global risk appetite, which did not comove with exchange rates prior to 2007, have provided significant in-sample explanatory power for currencies since then. Furthermore, during the 2007–2012 period, U.S. purchases of foreign bonds were highly correlated with these risk measures and with exchange rates. Our results support the narrative that the U.S. dollar's role as an international and safe-haven currency has surged since the global financial crisis.

The downside risk capital asset pricing model (DR-CAPM) can price the cross section of currency returns. The market-beta differential between high and low interest rate currencies is higher conditional on bad market returns, when the market price of risk is also high, than it is conditional on good market returns. Correctly accounting for this variation is crucial for the empirical performance of the model. The DR-CAPM can jointly rationalize the cross section of equity, equity index options, commodity, sovereign bond and currency returns, thus offering a unified risk view of these asset classes. In contrast, popular models that have been developed for a specific asset class fail to jointly price other asset classes.

Abstract We estimate how households trade off immediate costs and uncertain future benefits that occur in the very long run, 100 or more years away. We exploit a unique feature of housing markets in the United Kingdom and Singapore, where residential property ownership takes the form of either leaseholds or freeholds. Leaseholds are temporary, prepaid, and tradable ownership contracts with maturities between 99 and 999 years, while freeholds are perpetual ownership contracts. The price difference between leaseholds and freeholds reflects the present value of perpetual rental income starting at leasehold expiration, and is thus informative about very long-run discount rates. We estimate the price discounts for varying leasehold maturities compared to freeholds and extremely long-run leaseholds via hedonic regressions using proprietary data sets of the universe of transactions in each country. Households discount very long-run cash flows at low rates, assigning high present value to cash flows hundreds of years in the future. For example, 100-year leaseholds are valued at more than 10% less than otherwise identical freeholds, implying discount rates below 2.6% for 100-year claims.

We test for the existence of housing bubbles associated with a failure of the transversality condition that requires the present value of payments occurring infinitely far in the future to be zero. The most prominent such bubble is the classic rational bubble. We study housing markets in the United Kingdom and Singapore, where residential property ownership takes the form of either leaseholds or freeholds. Leaseholds are finite-maturity, pre-paid, and tradeable ownership contracts with maturities often exceeding 700 years. Freeholds are infinite-maturity ownership contracts. The price difference between leaseholds with extremely-long maturities and freeholds reflects the present value of a claim to the freehold after leasehold expiry, and is thus a direct empirical measure of the transversality condition. We estimate this price difference, and find no evidence of failures of the transversality condition in housing markets in the U.K. and Singapore, even during periods when a sizable bubble was regularly thought to be present.