Global Imbalances and Global Crisis: Which Risk Sharing with Insurers of Last Resort?

Global financial integration should, in theory, provide better portfolio diversification, international risk sharing and thus more efficient allocation of capital across the world. This financial integration has, in reality, facilitated the accumulation of global imbalances which, since the global crisis of 2007-2008, have contracted in terms of flows but have increased in terms of stock. These net external wealth imbalances reveal an asymmetric financial system and a new form of risk sharing where some countries act as insurer of last resort.