Differences in financial systems are often named as a prime candidate for the current state of global imbalances. This paper argues that the process of capital liberalization can explain a substantial fraction of the US net external liabilities. We present a simple two-country model with an...

TWe allow for heterogeneity in investors' ability to borrow from collateral in a Kiyotaki-Moore style macro model. We calibrate the model to match the quintiles of the distri- bution of leverage ratios of US non-financial firms. We show that financial amplification of the model with...

We propose a model of a risky mortgage-lending market in which we take explicit account of heterogeneity in household borrowing conditions, by introducing two borrower types: one with a low loan-to-value (LTV) ratio, one with a high LTV ratio, calibrated to U.S. data. We use such framework to...