International capital mobility: An alternative test based on intertemporal current account models

Article history: Received 12 September 2008 Received in revised form 14 July 2009 Accepted 15 August 2009 Available online 4 September 2009 This paper examines international capital mobility by estimating intertemporal current account models for nine major industrialized countries. To account for the large fluctuations of oil prices (the terms-of-trade) and their effects on the current account, an intertemporal current account model incorporating such effects is devised. The model estimation reveals significant terms-of-trade effects on the current account and, moreover, does not exhibit any “excess capital mobility” found in the previous literature. These results indicate that to achieve a more accurate measure of international capital mobility, a proper account of the terms-oftrade effect is essential. © 2009 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. JEL classification: F32 F41