International R&D Spillovers and Asset Prices

We study the international propagation of long-run risk in the context of a general equilibrium model with endogenous growth. Innovation and international diffusion of technologies are the channels at the core of our mechanism. A calibrated version of the model matches several asset pricing and macroeconomic quantity moments, alleviating some of the puzzles highlighted in the international macro-finance literature. Our model predicts that country pairs that share more research and development (R&D) have less volatile exchange rates and more correlated stock market returns. Using data from a sample of 19 developed countries, we provide suggestive empirical evidence in favor of our model’s predictions.