Financial Globalization: Risk Sharing or Risk Exposure?

We study how the increased cross-country ownership of financial assets between advanced and emerging economies impacted their financial and macroeconomic volatility. While cross-country ownership improved risk-sharing and reduced volatility associated with financial crises, it also increased the exposure of countries to foreign crises, leading to higher international co-movement. Through quantitative applications of a two-region model representative of advanced and emerging economies, we find that financial globalization reduced volatility worldwide, but significantly more in emerging economies.