IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/gii/giihei/heidwp07-2016.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Can Countries Rely on Foreign Saving for Investment and Economic Development?

Author

Listed:
  • Eduardo Cavallo

    (Inter-American Development Bank)

  • Barry Eichengreen

    (University of California, Berkeley)

  • Ugo Panizza

    (IHEID, The Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies, Geneva)

Abstract

A surprisingly large number of countries have been able to finance a significant fraction of domestic investment using foreign finance for extended periods. While many of these episodes are in low-income countries where official finance is more important than private finance, we also identify a number of episodes where a substantial fraction of domestic investment was financed via private capital inflows. That said, we find that foreign savings are not a good substitute for domestic savings. More often than not, episodes of large and persistent current account deficits do not end happily. Rather, they end abruptly with compression of the current account, real exchange rate depreciation, and a sharp slowdown in investment. We conclude that financing growth and investment out of foreign savings, while not impossible, is risky.

Suggested Citation

  • Eduardo Cavallo & Barry Eichengreen & Ugo Panizza, 2016. "Can Countries Rely on Foreign Saving for Investment and Economic Development?," IHEID Working Papers 07-2016, Economics Section, The Graduate Institute of International Studies.
    • Handle: RePEc:gii:giihei:heidwp07-2016
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://repec.graduateinstitute.ch/pdfs/Working_papers/HEIDWP07-2016.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Fishlow, Albert, 1985. "Lessons from the past: capital markets during the 19th century and the interwar period," International Organization, Cambridge University Press, vol. 39(3), pages 383-439, July.
    2. Arthur Lewbel, 2012. "Using Heteroscedasticity to Identify and Estimate Mismeasured and Endogenous Regressor Models," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 30(1), pages 67-80.
    3. Catão, Luis A.V. & Milesi-Ferretti, Gian Maria, 2014. "External liabilities and crises," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 94(1), pages 18-32.
    4. Pierre-Olivier Gourinchas & Rodrigo Valdes & Oscar Landerretche, 2001. "Lending Booms: Latin America and the World," Economía Journal, The Latin American and Caribbean Economic Association - LACEA, vol. 0(Spring 20), pages 47-100, January.
    5. Cavallo, Eduardo & Powell, Andrew & Pedemonte, Mathieu & Tavella, Pilar, 2015. "A new taxonomy of Sudden Stops: Which Sudden Stops should countries be most concerned about?," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 51(C), pages 47-70.
    6. Eswar S. Prasad & Raghuram G. Rajan & Arvind Subramanian, 2007. "Foreign Capital and Economic Growth," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 38(1), pages 153-230.
    7. Richard H. Clarida, 2007. "G7 Current Account Imbalances: Sustainability and Adjustment," NBER Books, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc, number clar06-2.
    8. Ranciere, Romain & Tornell, Aaron & Westermann, Frank, 2006. "Decomposing the effects of financial liberalization: Crises vs. growth," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 30(12), pages 3331-3348, December.
    9. Carmen M. Reinhart & Christoph Trebesch, 2015. "The Pitfalls of External Dependence: Greece, 1829–2015," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 46(2 (Fall)), pages 307-328.
    10. Mark A. Carlson & Leonardo Hernandez, 2002. "Determinants and repercussions of the composition of capital inflows," International Finance Discussion Papers 717, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    11. Gian Maria Milesi Ferretti & Assaf Razin, 2000. "Current Account Reversals and Currency Crises: Empirical Regularities," NBER Chapters, in: Currency Crises, pages 285-323, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    12. Frankel, Jeffrey A. & Rose, Andrew K., 1996. "Currency Crashes in Emerging Markets: Empirical Indicators," Center for International and Development Economics Research (CIDER) Working Papers 233424, University of California-Berkeley, Department of Economics.
    13. Gianluca Benigno & Luca Fornaro, 2014. "The Financial Resource Curse," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 116(1), pages 58-86, January.
    14. J. Bradford De Long & Lawrence H. Summers, 1991. "Equipment Investment and Economic Growth," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 106(2), pages 445-502.
    15. Alan M. Taylor, 1994. "Domestic Saving and International Capital Flows Reconsidered," NBER Working Papers 4892, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    16. Alan M. Taylor, 2012. "External Imbalances and Financial Crises," NBER Working Papers 18606, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    17. Stanley Fischer, 1988. "Real Balances, the Exchange Rate, and Indexation: Real Variables in Disinflation," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 103(1), pages 27-49.
    18. Feldstein, Martin & Horioka, Charles, 1980. "Domestic Saving and International Capital Flows," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 90(358), pages 314-329, June.
    19. Aaron Tornell & Frank Westermann, 2002. "Boom-Bust Cycles in Middle Income Countries: Facts and Explanation," IMF Staff Papers, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 49(Special i), pages 111-155.
    20. Caroline Freund & Frank Warnock, 2007. "Current Account Deficits in Industrial Countries: The Bigger They Are, The Harder They Fall?," NBER Chapters, in: G7 Current Account Imbalances: Sustainability and Adjustment, pages 133-168, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    21. Òscar Jordà & Moritz Schularick & Alan M Taylor, 2011. "Financial Crises, Credit Booms, and External Imbalances: 140 Years of Lessons," IMF Economic Review, Palgrave Macmillan;International Monetary Fund, vol. 59(2), pages 340-378, June.
    22. Stanley Fischer, 2003. "Financial crises and reform of the international financial system," Review of World Economics (Weltwirtschaftliches Archiv), Springer;Institut für Weltwirtschaft (Kiel Institute for the World Economy), vol. 139(1), pages 1-37, March.
    23. Matthieu Bussière & Marcel Fratzscher, 2008. "Financial Openness and Growth: Short‐run Gain, Long‐run Pain?," Review of International Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 16(1), pages 69-95, February.
    24. Barry Eichengreen, 2010. "Global Imbalances and the Lessons of Bretton Woods," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 0262514141, April.
    25. Cavallo, Eduardo A. & Frankel, Jeffrey A., 2008. "Does openness to trade make countries more vulnerable to sudden stops, or less? Using gravity to establish causality," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 27(8), pages 1430-1452, December.
    26. Reinhardt, Dennis & Ricci, Luca Antonio & Tressel, Thierry, 2013. "International capital flows and development: Financial openness matters," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 91(2), pages 235-251.
    27. Vincent Hogan & Roberto Rigobon, 2002. "Using Heteroscedasticity to Estimate the Returns to Education," NBER Working Papers 9145, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    28. Sebastian Edwards, 2004. "Financial Openness, Sudden Stops, and Current-Account Reversals," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 94(2), pages 59-64, May.
    29. Guillermo A. Calvo & Alejandro Izquierdo, 2004. "On the empirics of Sudden Stops: the relevance of balance-sheet effects," Proceedings, Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, issue Jun.
    30. Tamim Bayoumi, 1990. "Saving-Investment Correlations: Immobile Capital, Government Policy, or Endogenous Behavior?," IMF Staff Papers, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 37(2), pages 360-387, June.
    31. Frankel, Jeffrey A. & Rose, Andrew K., 1996. "Currency crashes in emerging markets: An empirical treatment," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 41(3-4), pages 351-366, November.
    32. Stephanie E. Curcuru & Tomas Dvorak & Francis E. Warnock, 2007. "The stability of large external imbalances: the role of returns differentials," International Finance Discussion Papers 894, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    33. Olivier Blanchard, 2007. "Adjustment within the euro. The difficult case of Portugal," Portuguese Economic Journal, Springer;Instituto Superior de Economia e Gestao, vol. 6(1), pages 1-21, April.
    34. Ricardo Hausmann & Federico Sturzenegger, 2007. "The missing dark matter in the wealth of nations and its implications for global imbalances [‘The US current account and the dollar’]," Economic Policy, CEPR, CESifo, Sciences Po;CES;MSH, vol. 22(51), pages 470-518.
    35. Pierre-Olivier Gourinchas & Hélène Rey, 2007. "From World Banker to World Venture Capitalist: US External Adjustment and the Exorbitant Privilege," NBER Chapters, in: G7 Current Account Imbalances: Sustainability and Adjustment, pages 11-66, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    36. Barry Eichengreen & Ugo Panizza, 2016. "A surplus of ambition: can Europe rely on large primary surpluses to solve its debt problem?," Economic Policy, CEPR, CESifo, Sciences Po;CES;MSH, vol. 31(85), pages 5-49.
    37. Apergis, Nicholas & Tsoumas, Chris, 2009. "A survey of the Feldstein-Horioka puzzle: What has been done and where we stand," Research in Economics, Elsevier, vol. 63(2), pages 64-76, June.
    38. Romain Rancière & Aaron Tornell & Frank Westermann, 2006. "Decomposing the Effects of Finncial Liberalization: Growth vs. Crises," Post-Print halshs-00754116, HAL.
    39. Richard H. Clarida, 2007. "Introduction to "G7 Current Account Imbalances: Sustainability and Adjustment"," NBER Chapters, in: G7 Current Account Imbalances: Sustainability and Adjustment, pages 1-10, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    40. Muge Adalet & Barry Eichengreen, 2007. "Current Account Reversals: Always a Problem?," NBER Chapters, in: G7 Current Account Imbalances: Sustainability and Adjustment, pages 205-246, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    41. Mr. Mark S. Carlson & Mr. Leonardo Hernández, 2002. "Determinants and Repercussions of the Composition of Capital Inflows," IMF Working Papers 2002/086, International Monetary Fund.
    42. Mr. Fabian Valencia & Mr. Luc Laeven, 2012. "Systemic Banking Crises Database: An Update," IMF Working Papers 2012/163, International Monetary Fund.
    43. Moritz Schularick & Thomas M Steger, 2010. "Financial Integration, Investment, and Economic Growth: Evidence from Two Eras of Financial Globalization," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 92(4), pages 756-768, November.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Nell, Kevin, 2023. "Inflation and growth in developing economies: A tribute to Professor Thirlwall," MPRA Paper 118757, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 01 Sep 2023.
    2. Shibata, Akihisa & Shintani, Mototsugu & Tsuruga, Takayuki, 2019. "Current account dynamics under information rigidity and imperfect capital mobility," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 92(C), pages 153-176.
    3. Arturo O’Connell, 2016. "The EuroZone `Debt’ Crisis: Another `Center’ – `Periphery’ Crisis Under Financial Globalization?," Working Papers Series 51, Institute for New Economic Thinking.
    4. José Daniel Aromí, 2021. "Large Current Account Deficits and Neglected Vulnerabilities," IMF Economic Review, Palgrave Macmillan;International Monetary Fund, vol. 69(4), pages 597-623, December.
    5. Kappel, Robert & Pfeiffer, Birte & Reisen, Helmut, 2017. "Compact with Africa: fostering private long-term investment in Africa," IDOS Discussion Papers 13/2017, German Institute of Development and Sustainability (IDOS).
    6. Hansen, Erwin & Wagner, Rodrigo, 2022. "The reinvestment by multinationals as a capital flow: Crises, imbalances, and the cash-based current account," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 124(C).
    7. Karsten Staehr, 2018. "Capital flows and growth dynamics in Central and Eastern Europe," Post-Communist Economies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 30(1), pages 1-18, January.
    8. Jorg Bibow, 2019. "Evolving International Monetary and Financial Architecture and the Development Challenge: A Liquidity Preference Theoretical Perspective," Economics Working Paper Archive wp_935, Levy Economics Institute.
    9. Nik Azman, Nik Hadiyan & Md Zabri, Mohd Zaidi & Zull Kepili, Ema Izati, 2021. "Nexus between Islamic Microfinancing and Financial Wellbeing of Micro-Entrepreneurs during the Covid-19 Pandemic in Malaysia," Jurnal Ekonomi Malaysia, Faculty of Economics and Business, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, vol. 55(1), pages 135-146.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Cavallo, Eduardo & Eichengreen, Barry & Panizza, Ugo, 2016. "Can Countries Rely on Foreign Saving for Investment and Economic Development?," CEPR Discussion Papers 11451, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    2. Frankel, Jeffrey, 2010. "Monetary Policy in Emerging Markets," Handbook of Monetary Economics, in: Benjamin M. Friedman & Michael Woodford (ed.), Handbook of Monetary Economics, edition 1, volume 3, chapter 25, pages 1439-1520, Elsevier.
    3. Catão, Luis A.V. & Milesi-Ferretti, Gian Maria, 2014. "External liabilities and crises," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 94(1), pages 18-32.
    4. Yannick Kalantzis, 2015. "Financial Fragility in Small Open Economies: Firm Balance Sheets and the Sectoral Structure," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 82(3), pages 1194-1222.
    5. Leonor Coutinho & Alessandro Turrini & Stefan Zeugner, 2018. "Methodologies for the Assessment of Current Account Benchmarks," European Economy - Discussion Papers 086, Directorate General Economic and Financial Affairs (DG ECFIN), European Commission.
    6. Bordo, Michael D. & Cavallo, Alberto F. & Meissner, Christopher M., 2010. "Sudden stops: Determinants and output effects in the first era of globalization, 1880-1913," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 91(2), pages 227-241, March.
    7. Oeking, Anne & Zwick, Lina, 2015. "On the relation between capital flows and the current account," Ruhr Economic Papers 565, RWI - Leibniz-Institut für Wirtschaftsforschung, Ruhr-University Bochum, TU Dortmund University, University of Duisburg-Essen.
    8. Carmen M. Reinhart & Vincent R. Reinhart, 2009. "Capital Flow Bonanzas: An Encompassing View of the Past and Present," NBER International Seminar on Macroeconomics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 5(1), pages 9-62.
    9. Terzi, Alessio, 2020. "Macroeconomic adjustment in the euro area," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 128(C).
    10. Cavallo, Alberto F. & Cavallo, Eduardo A., 2010. "Are crises good for long-term growth? The role of political institutions," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 32(3), pages 838-857, September.
    11. Broner, Fernando & Didier, Tatiana & Erce, Aitor & Schmukler, Sergio L., 2013. "Gross capital flows: Dynamics and crises," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 60(1), pages 113-133.
    12. Aida Caldera Sánchez & Filippo Gori, 2016. "Can Reforms Promoting Growth Increase Financial Fragility?: An Empirical Assessment," OECD Economics Department Working Papers 1340, OECD Publishing.
    13. Forbes, Kristin J. & Warnock, Francis E., 2012. "Capital flow waves: Surges, stops, flight, and retrenchment," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 88(2), pages 235-251.
    14. Edwards, Sebastian, 2007. "Capital controls, capital flow contractions, and macroeconomic vulnerability," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 26(5), pages 814-840, September.
    15. Honig, Adam, 2008. "Do improvements in government quality necessarily reduce the incidence of costly sudden stops?," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 32(3), pages 360-373, March.
    16. Bordo, M.D. & Meissner, C.M., 2016. "Fiscal and Financial Crises," Handbook of Macroeconomics, in: J. B. Taylor & Harald Uhlig (ed.), Handbook of Macroeconomics, edition 1, volume 2, chapter 0, pages 355-412, Elsevier.
    17. Sebastian Edwards, 2005. "The end of large current account deficits : 1970-2002 : are there lessons for the United States?," Proceedings - Economic Policy Symposium - Jackson Hole, Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, issue Aug, pages 205-268.
    18. Stijn Claessens & M. Ayhan Kose, 2013. "Financial Crises: Explanations, Types and Implications," CAMA Working Papers 2013-06, Centre for Applied Macroeconomic Analysis, Crawford School of Public Policy, The Australian National University.
    19. Lane, Philip R. & Milesi-Ferretti, Gian Maria, 2009. "Where did all the borrowing go? A forensic analysis of the U.S. external position," Journal of the Japanese and International Economies, Elsevier, vol. 23(2), pages 177-199, June.
    20. Kristin Forbes & Ida Hjortsoe & Tsvetelina Nenova, 2017. "Current Account Deficits During Heightened Risk: Menacing or Mitigating?," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 0(601), pages 571-623, May.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Current account; Growth; Volatility; Savings;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • F32 - International Economics - - International Finance - - - Current Account Adjustment; Short-term Capital Movements
    • O16 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Financial Markets; Saving and Capital Investment; Corporate Finance and Governance

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gii:giihei:heidwp07-2016. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Dorina Dobre (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/ieheich.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.