Sectoral Dynamics of Safe Assets in Advanced Economies

Madalen Castells Jauregui, Björn Richter, Dmitry Kuvshinov and Victoria Vanasco

No 1438, Working Papers from Barcelona School of Economics

Abstract: What is the sectoral composition of the market for safety, and does it matter for economic stability? To address these questions, we construct a novel dataset of sectoral safe asset positions in 24 advanced economies since 1980. We document that the ratio of safe to total financial assets has remained stable in most countries, despite considerable growth in gross and net safe-asset positions relative to GDP. We find that fluctuations in safe-asset positions are mainly driven by the financial and the foreign sectors, with the real economy playing a muted role, indicating that financials in advanced economies have been increasingly intermediating safety within and across borders. We conclude by showing that increases in safe asset demand by foreigners — or its counterpart, the supply by financials, — are associated with expansions in domestic risky credit and lower subsequent output growth.

Keywords: Business cycles; financial stability; Capital flows; safe assets; financial accounts (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: E42 E44 E51 F33 F34 G15 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024-04
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-fdg, nep-ifn and nep-opm
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:bge:wpaper:1438

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