The Federal Reserve Bank of Boston offers the full text of the article entitled "Consumption Risk-sharing Across G-7 Countries," written by Giovanni P. Olivei. The article was published in the March/April 2000 issue of the "New England Economic Review." The text is available in PDF format. Olivei studies national consumption correlations across Group of Seven (G-7) countries to see whether greater incentives to diversify risks internationally have been accompanied by an effective increase in consumption risk-sharing.

This paper empirically examines the degree of regional consumption risk-sharing in China. It finds that less risk-sharing is taking place across Chinese provinces than across US states and Canadian provinces, although its extent across the latter is somewhat higher than across the national boundaries of industrial countries. Specifically, about half of the fitted annual variation in provincial consumption growth is common to all Chinese provinces, compared with more than two-thirds (less than one-third) in the case of US states and Canadian provinces (G-7 countries). My estimates reveal that Chinese households would be willing to pay dearly to insure their consumption against idiosyncratic shocks.

The process of Asia's rise to a position of eminence in global finance has accelerated in the wake of the international financial crisis. This volume intends to explore and understand the dynamics created by this process of transition.

The integration of goods and financial markets has progressed on a global scale in recent years. Thus, the cyclical patterns in the world economy may have changed too. Against this background, experts in international economics analyze the synchronization of business cycles and their volatility in this book. Is there an European business cycle? What is the role of multinational corporations and monetary policy in transmitting business cycles? Further, they discuss the need and feasibility of internationally coordinating monetary and exchange rate policies and the quantitative effects of tax competition.

A comprehensive and rigorous text that shows how a basic open economy model can be extended to answer important macroeconomic questions that arise in emerging markets. This rigorous and comprehensive textbook develops a basic small open economy model and shows how it can be extended to answer many important macroeconomic questions that arise in emerging markets and developing economies, particularly those regarding monetary, fiscal, and exchange rate issues. Eschewing the complex calibrated models on which the field of international finance increasingly relies, the book teaches the reader how to think in terms of simple models and grasp the fundamentals of open economy macroeconomics. After analyzing the standard intertemporal small open economy model, the book introduces frictions such as imperfect capital markets, intertemporal distortions, and nontradable goods, into the basic model in order to shed light on the economy's response to different shocks. The book then introduces money into the model to analyze the real effects of monetary and exchange rate policy. It then applies these theoretical tools to a variety of important macroeconomic issues relevant to developing countries (and, in a world of continuing financial crisis, to industrial countries as well), including the use of a nominal interest rate as a main policy instrument, the relative merits of flexible and predetermined exchange rate regimes, and the targeting of “real anchors.” Finally, the book analyzes in detail specific topics such as inflation stabilization, “dollarization,” balance of payments crises, and, inspired by recent events, financial crises. Each chapter includes boxes with relevant empirical evidence and ends with exercises. The book is suitable for use in graduate courses in development economics, international finance, and macroeconomics.

Risk Adjustment, Risk Sharing and Premium Regulation in Health Insurance Markets: Theory and Practice describes the goals, design and evaluation of health plan payment systems. Part I contains 5 chapters discussing the role of health plan payment in regulated health insurance markets, key aspects of payment design (i.e. risk adjustment, risk sharing and premium regulation), and evaluation methods using administrative data on medical spending. Part II contains 14 chapters describing the health plan payment system in 14 countries and sectors around the world, including Australia, Belgium, Chile, China, Columbia, Germany, Ireland, Israel, the Netherlands, Russia, Switzerland and the United States. Authors discuss the evolution of these payment schemes, along with ongoing reforms and key lessons on the design of health plan payment. - Provides a conceptual toolkit that describes the goals, design and evaluation of health plan payment systems in the context of policy paradigms, such as efficiency, affordability, fairness and avoidance of risk selection - Brings together international experience from many different countries that apply regulated competition in different ways - Delivers a practical toolkit for the evaluation of health plan payment modalities from the standpoint of efficiency and fairness

The aim of this paper is to assess the effectiveness of risk sharing mechanisms in the euro area and whether a supranational fiscal risk sharing mechanism could insure countries against very severe downturns. Using an unbalanced panel of 15 euro area countries over the period 1979-2010, the results of the paper show that: (i) the effectiveness of risk sharing mechanisms in the euro area is significantly lower than in existing federations (such as the U.S. and Germany) and (ii) it falls sharply in severe downturns just when it is needed most; (iii) a supranational fiscal stabilization mechanism, financed by a relatively small contribution, would be able to fully insure euro area countries against very severe, persistent and unanticipated downturns.