Minimum Investment Requirements, Financial Market Globalization, and Symmetry Breaking

We incorporate wealth heterogeneity and the minimum investment requirements in the model of Matsuyama (2004, Econometrica) and provide a complete characterization of symmetry breaking. In particular, we identify the extensive margin of investment as a key channel through which the interest rate may...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: ZHANG, Haiping
Format: text
Language:English
Published: Institutional Knowledge at Singapore Management University 2014
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Online Access:https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/soe_research/1699
https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/context/soe_research/article/2698/viewcontent/MIR_FI.pdf
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Institution: Singapore Management University
Language: English
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Summary:We incorporate wealth heterogeneity and the minimum investment requirements in the model of Matsuyama (2004, Econometrica) and provide a complete characterization of symmetry breaking. In particular, we identify the extensive margin of investment as a key channel through which the interest rate may respond positively to capital accumulation, or equivalently, the interest rate can be higher in the rich than in the poor countries. Then, financial market globalization may lead to “uphill” capital flows from the poor to the rich countries, which widens the initial cross-country income gap and leads to income divergence among inherently identical countries, a phenomenon that Matsuyama calls symmetry breaking.