In the workhorse model of international real business cycles, financial integration exacerbates the cycle asymmetry created by country-specific supply shocks. The prediction is identical in response to purely common shocks in the same model augmented with simple country heterogeneity (eg, where...

In this paper, we identify the groups of countries where international risk-sharing opportunities are most attractive. We show that the bulk of risk-sharing gains can be achieved in groups consisting of as few as seven members, and that further marginal benefits quickly become negligible. For...

The paper investigates the determinants of business cycles synchronization across regions. It uses both international and intranational data to evaluate the linkages between trade in goods, trade in financial assets, specialization and business cycles synchronization using a system of...

Credit spreads rise after a monetary policy tightening, yet spread reactions are heterogeneous across firms. Exploiting information from a panel of corporate bonds matched with balance sheet data for U.S. non-financial firms, we document that firms with high leverage experience a more pronounced...

This paper provides novel empirical evidence showing that foreign financial developments are a powerful predictor of domestic banking crises. Using a new data set for 38 advanced and emerging economies over 1970–2011, we show that credit growth in the rest of the world has a large positive...