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

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-of-trade effect is essential.