How Does Openness to Capital Flows Affect Growth?

Abstract

An average adjustment cost which is convex with respect to the rate of gross investment successfully calibrates a neoclassical growth model to match real world observables including the transition paths of convergence speed, the shadow value of capital, interest rates, and savings rates. Comparing the open-economy and closed-economy versions of the calibrated model shows that relaxing the constraint that domestic savings finance domestic investment effects only a small increase in the growth rate of output per capita: less than one percentage point per year for an economy with current output 20 percent its steady-state level and less than one-half percentage point for an economy with current output 60 percent its steady-state level. Rather than higher growth, the main effect of openness to capital flows is higher current levels of consumption financed by large trade deficits.