Seoul Journal of Economics
[ Article ]
Seoul Journal of Economics - Vol. 33, No. 3, pp.395-435
ISSN: 1225-0279 (Print)
Print publication date 31 Aug 2020
Received 08 Aug 2020 Accepted 08 Aug 2020
DOI: https://doi.org/10.22904/sje.2020.33.3.006

Global Business and Financial Cycles: A Tale of Two Capital Account Regimes

Julien Acalin ; Alessandro Rebucci
Julien Acalin, Department of Economics, Johns Hopkins University, U.S. jacalin1@jhu.edu
Alessandro Rebucci, Corresponding Author, Johns Hopkins University Carey Business School, CEPR and NBER, Tel: +1-410-234-9472 arebucci@jhu.edu

JEL Classification: C38, E44, F44, G15

Abstract

Using a new equity price-based measure of the global financial cycle, this paper evaluates the relative importance of global financial shocks for quarterly equity returns and output growths in a large sample of advanced and emerging economies, as well as in South Korea and China–two countries on different sides of the trilemma triangle of international finance. We document that global financial shocks in both China and South Korea explain a substantial share of equity return variability (20 and 50 percent of total variance, respectively), but a much smaller portion of real output fluctuations (less than 10 percent in Korea and negligible in the case of China). We also find that the combination of a closer capital account and a more rigid exchange rate regime, as in China, is associated with some costs in terms of diversification opportunities quantified by very large exposures to domestic financial and real shocks, dwarfing the contribution of any other shock in the model. More surprisingly, the combination of a relatively open capital account and a flexible exchange rate, as in South Korea, not only is associated with a higher exposure to the global financial cycle than in China but also with a significant incidence of domestic financial shocks on output fluctuations.

Keywords:

Business Cycles, Equity returns, Global Financial Cycle, Factor-models, Panel VARs, China, South Korea

Acknowledgments

Paper prepared for the 2019 Seoul Journal of Economics International Symposium. We thank the editor, Soyoung Kim, and conference participants for helpful comments and suggestions. We are also grateful to M. Hashem Pesaran, Ambrogio Cesa-Bianchi, and Andrew Rose for discussions and comments. Remaining errors are ours.

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