Trade Structure and Belief-Driven Fluctuations in a Global Economy

Abstract

This paper constructs a dynamic two-country model with country-specific production externalities and inspects the presence of equilibrium indeterminacy under alternative trade structures. It is shown that the presence of belief-driven economic fluctuations caused by equilibrium indeterminacy is closely related to the specified trade structure. If investment goods are not internationally traded and international lending and borrowing are allowed, then indeterminacy arises in a wider set of parameter space than in the corresponding closed economy. By contrast, either if both consumption and investment goods are traded in the absence of international lending and borrowing or if only investment goods are traded with financial transactions, then the indeterminacy conditions are the same as those for the closed economy counterpart.