{"title":"Overborrowing and systemic externalities in the business cycle under imperfect information","authors":"Juan Herreño , Carlos Rondón-Moreno","doi":"10.1016/j.jinteco.2025.104103","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jinteco.2025.104103","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>We study the interaction between imperfect information and financial frictions and their role in financial crises in small open economies. We use a model where households observe income growth but cannot distinguish whether the underlying income shocks are permanent or transitory, and borrowing is subject to a collateral constraint. We show that the combination of imperfect information and a borrowing constraint is a significant source of economic instability. Optimal macroprudential policy helps stabilize the economy by actively taxing debt. Furthermore, the interaction between the collateral constraint and the information friction reshapes the correlation between the optimal tax and the underlying components of income.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":16276,"journal":{"name":"Journal of International Economics","volume":"157 ","pages":"Article 104103"},"PeriodicalIF":3.8,"publicationDate":"2025-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144138700","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Why hours worked decline less after technology shocks?","authors":"Olivier Cardi , Romain Restout","doi":"10.1016/j.jinteco.2025.104095","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jinteco.2025.104095","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>The contractionary effect of technology shocks on hours gradually vanishes over time in OECD countries. To rationalize the decline in hours and its disappearance, we use a VAR-based decomposition of technology shocks into symmetric and asymmetric technology improvements. While hours decline dramatically when technology improves at the same rate across sectors, hours significantly increase when technology improvements occur at different rates. Because they are primarily driven by symmetric technology improvements, permanent technology shocks drive down total hours. Such a decline progressively vanishes due to the growing importance of asymmetric technology shocks. To reach these two conclusions, we simulate a two-sector model which can reproduce the contractionary effect on hours once the economy is internationally open and we allow for production factors’ mobility costs, factor-biased technological change, and home bias. To account for the vanishing decline in hours, we have to let the share of asymmetric technology shocks increase over time.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":16276,"journal":{"name":"Journal of International Economics","volume":"157 ","pages":"Article 104095"},"PeriodicalIF":3.8,"publicationDate":"2025-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144083778","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Fear of appreciation and current account adjustment","authors":"Paul R. Bergin , Kyunghun Kim , Ju H. Pyun","doi":"10.1016/j.jinteco.2025.104121","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jinteco.2025.104121","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>This paper finds that one-sided nominal exchange rate intervention in the form of “fear of appreciation” slows adjustment of current account surpluses, providing novel support for Friedman's claims of faster adjustment under flexible exchange rates. We find evidence that countries classified as more flexible have faster convergence than peggers for current account deficits, but not so for surpluses. This asymmetry is associated with a one-sided muting of exchange rate appreciations among some countries. We then develop a multi-country monetary model augmented with a “fear of appreciation” policy rule governing foreign exchange intervention, solved as an occasionally binding constraint. The model demonstrates a mechanism by which government capital flows supporting exchange rate regimes can impinge on international financial adjustment. The model accounts for substantial asymmetries in the speed of current account adjustment, based on exchange rate regime and current account sign.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":16276,"journal":{"name":"Journal of International Economics","volume":"157 ","pages":"Article 104121"},"PeriodicalIF":3.8,"publicationDate":"2025-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144338777","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Asset price changes, external wealth and global welfare","authors":"Timothy Meyer","doi":"10.1016/j.jinteco.2025.104122","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jinteco.2025.104122","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>U.S. equity outperformance and sustained dollar appreciation have led to large valuation gains for the rest of the world on the U.S. external position. I construct their global distribution, carefully accounting for the role of tax havens. Valuation gains are concentrated and large in developed countries, while developing countries have been mostly bypassed. To assess the welfare implications of these capital gains, I adopt a sufficient statistics approach. In contrast to the large wealth changes, most countries so far did not benefit much in welfare terms. This is because they did not rebalance their portfolios and realize their gains. In contrast, direct welfare effects from the dollar appreciation on import and export prices are an order of magnitude larger.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":16276,"journal":{"name":"Journal of International Economics","volume":"157 ","pages":"Article 104122"},"PeriodicalIF":3.8,"publicationDate":"2025-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144523444","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Paper tiger? Chinese science and home bias in citations","authors":"Shumin Qiu , Claudia Steinwender , Pierre Azoulay","doi":"10.1016/j.jinteco.2025.104123","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jinteco.2025.104123","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>We investigate the phenomenon of home bias in scientific citations, where researchers disproportionately cite work from their own country. We develop a benchmark for expected citations based on the relative size of countries, defining home bias as deviations from this norm. Our findings reveal that China exhibits the largest home bias across all major countries and in nearly all scientific fields studied. This stands in contrast to the pattern of home bias for China’s trade in goods and services, where China does not stand out from most industrialized countries. After adjusting citation counts for home bias, we demonstrate that China’s apparent rise in citation rankings is overstated. Our adjusted ranking places China fourth globally, behind the US, the UK, and Germany, tempering the perception of China’s scientific dominance.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":16276,"journal":{"name":"Journal of International Economics","volume":"157 ","pages":"Article 104123"},"PeriodicalIF":3.8,"publicationDate":"2025-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144518013","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Commodity prices and the US dollar","authors":"Daniel M. Rees","doi":"10.1016/j.jinteco.2025.104114","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jinteco.2025.104114","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>In the aftermath of the Covid pandemic rising commodity prices went hand-in-hand with a strengthening US dollar. This was a sharp contrast to the usual relationship between commodity prices and the dollar. This paper presents evidence that post-Covid correlation patterns could become more common in the future. This conclusion rests on two observations. First, the US dollar exhibits a close and stable relationship with the US terms of trade. Second, the United States’ shift from being a net oil importer to a net oil exporter means that higher commodity prices now tend to raise the US terms of trade, rather than lowering them. Changes in the relationship between commodity prices and the US dollar will have implications for commodity exporters and importers alike.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":16276,"journal":{"name":"Journal of International Economics","volume":"157 ","pages":"Article 104114"},"PeriodicalIF":3.8,"publicationDate":"2025-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144272584","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Multinational production, technology diffusion, and economic growth","authors":"Sheng Cai , Wei Xiang","doi":"10.1016/j.jinteco.2025.104137","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jinteco.2025.104137","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>We develop a tractable growth model to study the dynamic macroeconomic effects of multinational production (MP) across countries. In this framework, MP serves as the channel of international idea diffusion: when firms operate in a foreign country, they contribute to the local stock of knowledge. By embedding this mechanism into a quantitative model of trade and MP, we characterize the evolution of bilateral MP flows, trade flows, and technology dynamics across 54 economies. Counterfactual analysis reveals that reduction in MP costs boosted economic growth, especially in developing economies. We show that a 10-year MP sanction on Russia would reduce the welfare by 9.11%, although the immediate effect is small. We find that increasing outward MP costs for U.S. firms has immediate positive wage effects but negative growth implications. Additionally, a 10% increase in U.S. inward trade costs results in a 0.2% decline in the country’s present value of welfare.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":16276,"journal":{"name":"Journal of International Economics","volume":"157 ","pages":"Article 104137"},"PeriodicalIF":4.0,"publicationDate":"2025-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144780977","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Beyond the spike at zero: Understanding nominal wage rigidity through empirical and model-based approaches","authors":"Yoon Joo Jo","doi":"10.1016/j.jinteco.2025.104117","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jinteco.2025.104117","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>I examine the cyclical properties of nominal wage change distributions across time and US states using nationally representative household surveys from 1979 to 2018. The novel finding is that the share of workers with no wage changes, which accounts for the large spike at zero in the nominal wage change distribution, is more countercyclical than the share of workers with wage cuts. I analyze heterogeneous agent models with six alternative wage-setting schemes and conclude that the model with downward nominal wage rigidity is the most consistent with empirical findings regarding the shape and cyclicality of wage change distributions.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":16276,"journal":{"name":"Journal of International Economics","volume":"157 ","pages":"Article 104117"},"PeriodicalIF":3.8,"publicationDate":"2025-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144489485","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Networks in trade — Evidence from the legacy of the Hanseatic league","authors":"Max Marczinek , Stephan Maurer , Ferdinand Rauch","doi":"10.1016/j.jinteco.2025.104102","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jinteco.2025.104102","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>We study trade networks following the decline of the Hanseatic League, using a novel trade data set that covers cities and captains in Northern Europe over 190 years. By the time of its dissolution in 1669, trade on former Hansa routes is within predictions from a gravity framework. However, the Hansa continue to shape the composition of trade: Trade between cities in the Hanseatic network continues to be facilitated by Hanseatic captains for centuries. Our paper highlights the long-run stability of commercial and social networks, which persist when other economic effects do not.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":16276,"journal":{"name":"Journal of International Economics","volume":"157 ","pages":"Article 104102"},"PeriodicalIF":3.8,"publicationDate":"2025-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144240637","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Miguel Acosta-Henao , Laura Alfaro , Andrés Fernández
{"title":"Sticky capital controls","authors":"Miguel Acosta-Henao , Laura Alfaro , Andrés Fernández","doi":"10.1016/j.jinteco.2025.104104","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jinteco.2025.104104","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>With a new quarterly dataset on the intensive margin of priced-based capital controls, complemented with extensive measures (restrictions, prohibitions, and authorizations) constructed using text analysis, we document that capital controls are “sticky”. Changes to price-based controls do not occur frequently; and when they do, they display high autocorrelation. Extensive measures also show considerable persistence. We then augment a model of capital controls relying on pecuniary externalities with an <span><math><mrow><mo>(</mo><mi>S</mi><mo>,</mo><mi>s</mi><mo>)</mo></mrow></math></span> cost of implementing such policies, and illustrate how this friction goes a long way toward bringing the model closer to the data. When the extended model is calibrated to the countries in the new dataset, we find that the size of these costs is large, substantially reducing the welfare-enhancing effects of capital controls in the frictionless Ramsey benchmark without <span><math><mrow><mo>(</mo><mi>S</mi><mo>,</mo><mi>s</mi><mo>)</mo></mrow></math></span> costs. This calls for a richer set of policy constraints when modeling the optimal use of capital controls.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":16276,"journal":{"name":"Journal of International Economics","volume":"157 ","pages":"Article 104104"},"PeriodicalIF":3.8,"publicationDate":"2025-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144563995","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}