Data

The elusive link between FDI and economic growth: Sectoral heterogeneity and global value chains, Journal of International Economics, September 2026

Agustín Bénétrix, Hayley Pallan and Ugo Panizza

This paper reassesses the relationship between FDI and economic growth in emerging and developing economies. We show that the aggregate FDI-growth relationship is not stable over time and that complementarities documented using data from the 1970s and 1980s disappear in more recent decades. Building a new sectoral FDI dataset we document substantial heterogeneity between FDI and sectoral growth and show that there is a positive association in the primary sector, no robust relationship in the secondary sector, and a negative relationship in the tertiary sector. To interpret these patterns, we examine the role of global value chains (GVCs). FDI is most strongly associated with growth in country–sectors with low GVC participation, while this relationship weakens or disappears as GVC integration increases. The effects also depend on the type of GVC integration. We conclude that the elusive aggregate FDI-growth relationship reflects how FDI is embedded in global production networks.

 

Consolidated U.S. External Balance Sheet

Agustín Bénétrix and Andre Sanchez Pacheco

We document a robust relation between corporate tax differentials and US international financial integration (IFI). While this is the case for traditional IFI based on cross-border positions, the positive link also emerges for its larger consolidated-by-nationality version. The gap between these IFI measures, the key outcome variable in our analysis, exhibits a strong positive correlation with tax differentials too. This is in part due to consolidated assets of multinational enterprises being more strongly correlated with tax differentials than their cross-border counterpart. We interpret this as indirect evidence of US multinationals taking advantage of tax differentials in ways that go beyond what is captured by traditional Balance of Payments procedures.

 

Uncertainty Shocks and the Cross-Border Funding of Banks: Unmasking Heterogeneity

Agustín Bénétrix and Michael Curran

This paper looks at the relation between uncertainty shocks and cross-border funding of banks through the lens of a new dataset. Our key innovation is to study the impact of uncertainty measures based on volatility, newspapers, and professional forecast surveys. We provide a comprehensive assessment of how cross-border liabilities in different banking systems respond to the uncertainty measure, funding sector, country, and period. We show that the contraction of bank funding can be large and quite different along these dimensions. Volatility-based uncertainty and non-bank funding display the strongest results, with news-based uncertainty mattering most outside the Global Financial Crisis.

Cross-Border Currency Exposures. New evidence based on an enhanced and updated dataset 

Agustín Bénétrix, Deepali Gautam, Luciana Juvenal and Martin Schmitz

This paper provides a dataset on the currency composition of the international investment position for a group of 50 countries for the period 1990-2017. It improves available data based on estimates by incorporating actual data reported by statistical authorities and refining estimation methods. The paper illustrates current and new uses of these data, with particular focus on the evolution of currency exposures of cross-border positions.

Trade Depression

Agustín Bénétrix, Kevin Hjortshøj O’Rourke and Jeffrey G. Williamson

Industrial growth rates (manufacturing growth rates where possible) presented in Bénétrix, O’Rourke and Williamson (2015), updated in Bénétrix, O’Rourke and Williamson (forthcoming). We gratefully acknowledge the financial assistance of the European Research Council, under the European Union’s Seventh Framework Programme (FP7/2007-2013)/ERC grant agreement no. 249546.

  • Data files
  • References:
    • Agustín Bénétrix, Kevin Hjortshøj O’Rourke and Jeffrey G. Williamson (2015), Open Economies Review 26: 1-37.
    • Agustín Bénétrix, Kevin Hjortshøj O’Rourke and Jeffrey G. Williamson (forthcoming), “Measuring the Spread of Modern Manufacturing to the Poor Periphery”, in The Spread of Modern Industry to the Periphery since 1870, co-edited by Kevin Hjortshøj O’Rourke and Jeffrey G. Williamson, forthcoming, Oxford University Press.

International Currency Exposures, Valuation Effects and the Global Financial Crisis

Agustín S. Bénétrix, Philip R. Lane and Jay C. Shambaugh

This page provides the underlying data used in this paper. The appropriate citation is

  • Agustín S. Bénétrix, Jay C. Shambaugh and Philip R. Lane (2015), “International Currency Exposures, Valuation Effects and the Global Financial Crisis,” Journal of International Economics 96: 98-109, January 2015.
  • An ungated version is available here.

We acknowledge vital research support from the Irish Research Council (Bénétrix) and the Institute for New Economic Thinking (Lane). Email: benetria@tcd.ie

Dataset: 1990-2012

The dataset refines, extends and updates the dataset developed by Lane and Shambaugh (AER, 2010). The earlier dataset is available here.