Why are Countries' Asset Portfolios Exposed to Nominal Exchange Rates? /

Most countries hold large gross asset positions, lending in domestic currency and borrowing in foreign. Thus, their balance sheets are exposed to nominal exchange rates. We argue that when asset markets are incomplete, nominal exchange rate exposure allows countries to partially insure against shock...

Full description

Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Adams, Jonathan
Other Authors: Barrett, Philip
Format: Journal
Language:English
Published: Washington, D.C. : International Monetary Fund, 2017.
Series:IMF Working Papers; Working Paper ; No. 2017/291
Online Access:Full text available on IMF
Description
Summary:Most countries hold large gross asset positions, lending in domestic currency and borrowing in foreign. Thus, their balance sheets are exposed to nominal exchange rates. We argue that when asset markets are incomplete, nominal exchange rate exposure allows countries to partially insure against shocks that move real exchange rates. We demonstrate that asset market incompleteness can simultaneously generate realistic gross asset positions and resolve the Backus-Smith puzzle: that relative consumptions and real exchange rates correlate negatively. We also show that local perturbation methods that use stabilizing endogenous discount factors are inaccurate when average and steady state interest rates differ. To address this, we develop a novel global solution method to accurately solve the model.
Item Description:<strong>Off-Campus Access:</strong> No User ID or Password Required
<strong>On-Campus Access:</strong> No User ID or Password Required
Physical Description:1 online resource (48 pages)
Format:Mode of access: Internet
ISSN:1018-5941
Access:Electronic access restricted to authorized BRAC University faculty, staff and students