The Valuation Channel of External Adjustment in Small Open Economies

A common problem in international finance consists of the indeterminacy of the equilibrium asset portfolio in small open economy models. This paper develops a simple approach to compute this portfolio under the assumption of incomplete financial markets. The procedure involves the limiting allocation of a class of two-country world economies where the relative size of one of them tends to zero. Such approach allows to identify the effect of portfolio decisions on the dynamics of the net foreign asset position of a small open economy in a structural fashion. As an illustration, an approximated closed-form solution is obtained for a highly stylized model that is isomorphic to the class of Dynamic Stochastic General Equilibrium (DSGE) models typically used in the literature. JEL Classification: F32. Keywords: net foreign assets, endogenous portfolios, small open economies, DSGE models.