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We synthetically assess the three major transmission channels of international business cycles: bilateral trade, foreign direct investment (FDI), and portfolio investment flows between economies with multiple fixed effects. Using the data of 72 economies during 2010-2019, we find that real and financial integration generates heterogeneous impacts on business cycle comovement. Trade integration, particularly through intermediate input trade, drives business cycle synchronization. We also find greenfield FDI leads business cycle comovements. This may be due to deepening intra-industry trade and dense global value chains. Higher debt market integration is also associated with more synchronized business cycle comovement, implying that balance sheet effects and the related credit cycle can exert influence on business cycle comovements. However, equity integration leads to business cycle divergence, suggesting that cross-border equity holdings may help stabilize transmission of a foreign economy's shocks.

This study empirically examines how the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) has impacted foreign direct investment (FDI), using the quarterly data on bilateral FDI flows from 173 home to 192 host countries from the first quarter of 2019 to the second quarter of 2021. We measure the severity of COVID-19 damage using three indicators-the number of confirmed cases, the number of deaths, and the stringency index of government policies that restrict people's activities. We also differentiate FDI flows via two different entry modes-greenfield FDI and cross-border mergers and acquisitions (M&A). We find heterogeneous effects of COVID-19 impacts on FDI by sector and entry mode. The severity of COVID-19 in host countries adversely affected FDI in the manufacturing sector regardless of the entry mode, but the effect of home countries' COVID-19 situation on FDI was insignificant. On the other hand, in the service sector, the severity of COVID-19 in both host and home countries has significantly negative impact on greenfield FDI, not on cross-border M&A.

This paper investigates and tests the role of regional exposures in financial contagion from advanced to emerging market economies through the global banking network using data on cross-border bilateral bank claims and liability positions. We first examine whether an economy can become more susceptible to capital outflows, regardless of its own bank exposures, if economies in the same region are heavily exposed to crisis countries. Second, we test whether the same region lenders tend to reduce exposures to the emerging market borrowers less than do different region lenders during crises. Using bilateral data from the Bank for International Settlements international banking statistics, we obtain evidence for both hypotheses. First, we find that direct exposures of a country's own and the overall region's banking sectors to crisis-affected countries are systematically related to bank capital outflows during the global financial crisis. Also, some of our empirical results indicate that an emerging economy's financial vulnerability can be influenced by its region's indirect exposures to crisis countries. Second, a further analysis suggests more favorable behavior of the same region lender toward emerging economies during crisis.

Although the global financial crisis of 2008 took root in the advanced countries, its shocks spread through the emerging economies, reflecting the increasingly interconnected global financial system. This paper develops an empirical methodology to test the contagion effect at the country level using bilateral data on bank claims between countries. It measures the direct and indirect exposures of emerging economies to crisis countries and tests whether these matter for capital outflows from emerging economies. The paper measures these exposures to the crisis-affected countries by using bilateral foreign claims sourced from Bank for International Settlements (i) consolidated banking statistics foreign claims on immediate counterparty and ultimate risk bases and (ii) locational banking statistics cross-border total claims. Findings show that emerging market economies more exposed directly or indirectly to banks in the crisis-affected countries suffered more capital outflows during the global financial crisis.

Understanding the determinants of capital inflows is essential to designing an effective policy framework to manage volatile capital flows and their disruptive potential. This paper aims to identify factors that explain the size and volatility of various types of capital flows to developing Asia with regard to other emerging market economies. The estimates for a panel dataset show that per capita income growth, trade openness, and change in stock market capitalization are important determinants of capital inflows to developing Asia. Trade openness increases the volatility of all types of capital inflows, while change in stock market capitalization, global liquidity growth, and institutional quality lowers the volatility. A regional factor plays an important role in determining the size and volatility of capital inflows in emerging Europe and merging Latin America, suggesting that regional economic cooperation and policy coordination may be an important element in designing a policy framework to manage capital inflows in merging economies.