Sa, F. and Kubelec, C.

The geographical composition of national external balance sheets: 1980-2005

International Journal of Central Banking

Vol. 8(FAVOURITE) no. 2 pp. 143-189 (2012)

Abstract: This paper constructs a data set on the stocks of bilateral external assets and liabilities for eighteen countries in the period from 1980 to 2005. It distinguishes between four asset classes: foreign direct investment, portfolio equity, debt, and foreign exchange reserves. Network methods are used to explore the key facts that emerge from the data. We find that there has been a remarkable increase in interconnectivity over the past two decades and that this has been centered around a small number of countries. In a simulation exercise we show that shocks to one of the central countries generate much larger losses to the network than shocks to the periphery.

JEL Codes: F3

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Publisher's Link: http://www.ijcb.org/journal/ijcb12q2a5.pdf