The External Wealth of Nations

Although capital flows are closely monitored, surprisingly little is known about the accumulated stocks of foreign assets and liabilities held by various countries, especially in the developing world. This paper constructs estimates of foreign assets and liabilities and their equity and debt subcomponents for a sample of 67 industrial and developing countries. It characterizes the stylized facts of international balance sheets and asks whether there are trends in net foreign asset positions and shifts in debt-equity ratios over time. Finally, it explores the sensitivity of estimated stock positions to the treatment of valuation effects not captured in balance of payments data.