Intermediation Costs and Capital Flows

Ayse Imrohoroglu () and Krishna Kumar ()

Review of Economic Dynamics, 2004, vol. 7, issue 3, pages 586-612

Abstract: In this paper, we modify the standard neoclassical model by incorporating financial intermediation in order to deliver returns consistent with the observation that capital primarily flows to middle income countries. We build a static contracting framework where costly intermediation together with an adverse selection problem have quantitatively important effects on capital flows. When intermediation costs are ignored, the model behaves like the neoclassical model in terms of capital returns. However, when intermediation costs are considered, returns to capital in middle income countries could exceed those in poor and rich countries high costs of intermediation cause poor countries to concentrate their investments in projects with low returns, while the standard neoclassical effect lowers returns in capital-rich countries. When we embed the return function from the static analysis in a two-country dynamic model, there is capital outflow from a poor country that removes capital controls and becomes open. Even though the closed economy dominates in terms of capital employed in production, it is the open economy that dominates in terms of income, consumption and welfare. (Copyright: Elsevier)

Date: 2004
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations View citations in EconPapers (4) Track citations by RSS feed

Downloads: (external link)
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.red.2003.10.002 Full text (application/pdf)
Access to full texts is restricted to ScienceDirect subscribers and ScienceDirect institutional members. See http://www.sciencedirect.com/ for details.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: http://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:red:issued:v:7:y:2004:i:3:p:586-612

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.EconomicDynamics.org/RED17.htm

Access Statistics for this article

Review of Economic Dynamics is edited by Gianluca Violante

More articles in Review of Economic Dynamics from Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics
Address: Review of Economic Dynamics Academic Press Editorial Office 525 "B" Street, Suite 1900 San Diego, CA 92101
Contact information at EDIRC.
Series data maintained by Christian Zimmermann ().