The welfare effect of international asset market integration under nominal rigidities

This paper assesses the impact of integrating international asset markets when segmented markets are not the only distortion. Using a two-country general equilibrium model with nominal rigidities and monetary shocks, we show that integration is not universally beneficial. Instead, the welfare impact depends on the degree to which exchange rate fluctuations are passed through to consumer prices. While the integration is welfare neutral in the polar cases of complete or zero pass-through, this is not the case when pass-through is partial. When shocks are equally volatile in both countries, integration can be detrimental or beneficial depending on the degree of pass-through. When shocks are more volatile in one country, it benefits from integration compared with the more stable country.