Indeterminacy and business fluctuations under partial capital mobility

The paper examines a modified real business cycle model of a small open economy such as the Korean economy. The model economy is assumed to produce output with two types of capital: traded capital and non¡ⓒtraded capital. Domestic individuals can borrow from the world capital market only by using traded capital as collateral, and investment in non¡ⓒtraded capital must be financed by domestic savings. It implies that the capital mobility is partial rather than perfect although domestic residents have free access to the world capital market. By incorporating externalities into the production technology, the model economy is able to generate dynamic path of equilibrium time series solely driven by non¡ⓒfundamental shocks such as animal spirits of investors or self¡ⓒfulfilling expectations if the ratio of traded capital to total capital is sufficiently high. The paper shows that the second moment properties of the Korean aggregate data could be reproduced in a modified real business cycle framework where fluctuations are driven only by non¡ⓒfundamental shocks, not by the disturbances to economic fundamentals such as technology. This requires a high value of traded capital relative to total capital, which means that the domestic capital market must be highly integrated with the world capital market. It implies that there exists some critical level of capital mobility beyond which the business cycles of an open economy becomes highly vulnerable to non¡ⓒfundamental shocks such as self¡ⓒfulfilling expectations

Financial Market Integration in East Asia: Regional or Global?

This paper investigates whether financial markets in East Asia are integrated with global markets or with each other.We use two approaches: a volume-based approach and an asset price approach. Our overall results suggest global integration of these markets rather than regional integration and that there is no anchor market in the region that would match the advanced markets such as the United States. Though global integration is not a force that competes with regional integration, there seems to be no strong sign of the creation of an effective financial market mechanism in East Asia. (c) 2006 The Earth Institute at Columbia University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.