- 著者
- 石倉 雅男
- 出版者
- 経済理論学会
- 雑誌
- 季刊経済理論 (ISSN:18825184)
- 巻号頁・発行日
- vol.49, no.1, pp.85-87, 2012
- 著者
- 石倉 雅男
- 出版者
- 経済理論学会
- 雑誌
- 季刊経済理論 (ISSN:18825184)
- 巻号頁・発行日
- vol.52, no.3, pp.43-51, 2015-10-20 (Released:2017-09-19)
Minsky's classification of financing profiles of non-financial business firms based on his concept of "margin of safety" can be applied not only to problems in a domestic financial system, but also to those in the international financial system. The present paper investigates issues regarding financial instability in the international economy by extending his perspective to the relationship between creditor and debtor countries. Section 2 reviews Minsky's classification of financial profiles of non-financial business firms whose assets are financed by liabilities, namely, his concepts of hedge, speculative, and Ponzi financing, with a brief comment on how patterns of debt amortization affect the "margin of safety." Relying on Kregel's recent study of financial crises and international imbalances in the current global economy, we show in Section 3 that (1) the Asian financial crisis in the late 1990s was triggered and exacerbated by the liquidation of foreign currency-denominated debts owed by the non-financial corporate and banking sectors of those countries and (2) emerging Asian economies have boosted their exports by lending to their trading partners, as evidenced by the fact that China's trade surplus with the United States has increased and its holdings of U.S. long-term securities too have accumulated since the early 2000s. By re-examining Domar's analysis of the time behavior of the ratio of funds inflow (amortization plus interest received) to their outflow (foreign investment), we show in Section 4 that Domar's condition for sustainable foreign investment-namely that the growth rate of foreign lending is higher than the rate of interest-turns out to be equivalent to the condition for Ponzi financing, namely that new foreign borrowings are larger than the repayment of principal and interest for outstanding foreign debts. Section 5 concludes with a short comment on the debt sustainability of the key currency country.