Capital Market Integration and Consumption Risk Sharing over the Long Run

We empirically investigate time variation in capital market integration and consumption risk sharing using data for 16 countries from 1875 to 2012. We show that there has been considerable variation over time in the degrees of capital market integration and consumption risk sharing and that higher capital market integration forecasts more consumption risk sharing in the future. This finding is robust is to controlling for trade openness and exchange rate volatilities. Hence, financial integration seems to drive consumption risk sharing whereas we find no evidence that risk sharing forecasts market integration. We also calculate the welfare costs of imperfect capital market
integration and risk sharing and find that these costs vary a lot over time. Finally, we show that consumption risk sharing is higher during times of crises, i.e. at times when marginal utility is high and risk sharing is most valuable.