Our paper investigates whether the valuation effect caused by a large risk premium and a low risk-free rate can help to explain the enormous US current account and trade deficit observed in the past decade. To answer this question, we set up an endowment growth model in which investors are...

This paper presents a new model for studying international capital flows and debt dynamics that emphasizes the role played by expectations concerning future trade flows and returns. I use the model to estimate the drivers of the U.S. external position and capital flows between 1973 and 2008. The...

This paper presents a new model for studying international capital flows and debt dynamics. The model emphasizes the role of expectations concerning future trade flows and returns as the determinants of a country's foreign asset and liability positions, and how revisions in these expectations...

This study proposes that heterogeneous household portfolio choices within a country and across countries offer an explanation for global imbalances. We construct a stochastic growth multi-country model in which heterogeneous agents face the following restrictions on asset trade. First, the...

This paper presents a new model for studying international capital flows and debt dynamics that emphasizes the role played by expectations concerning future trade flows and returns. I use the model to estimate the drivers of the U.S. external position and capital flows between 1973 and 2008. The...

This paper presents a new model for studying international capital flows and debt dynamics that emphasizes the role played by expectations concerning future trade flows and returns. I use the model to estimate the drivers of the U.S. external position and capital flows between 1973 and 2008. The...

The recent empirical literature on the economic effects of terms of trade shocks highlights not only the direct effects on growth, but also the resulting changes in volatility and debt. We link the procyclicality of sovereign debt to terms of trade shocks and provide theoretical underpinnings...