A New Open Economy Macroeconomic Model with Endogenous Portfolio Diversification and Firms Entry

Abstract

This paper provides a new benchmark for the analysis of the international diversification puzzle in a tractable new open economy macroeconomic model. Building on Cole and Obstfeld (1991) and Heathcote and Perri (2009), this model specifies an equilibrium model of perfect risk sharing in incomplete markets, with endogenous portfolios and number of varieties. Equity home bias may not be a puzzle but a perfectly optimal allocation for hedging risk. In contrast to previous work, the model shows that: (i) optimal international portfolio diversification is driven by home bias in capital goods, independently of home bias in consumption, and by the share of income accruing to labour. The model explains reasonably well the recent patterns of portfolio allocations in developed economies; and (ii) optimal portfolio shares are independent of market dynamics.