Income insurance and the determinants of income insurance via foreign asset revenues and foreign liability payments

We document that the net factor income smoothing channel in OECD countries is primarily driven by net financial asset income, while the other two sub-components (net compensation of employees and net taxes on imports) turn out to be ineffective. Once factor income inflows are distinguished from outflows, empirical evidence suggests a non-significant effect of inflows in terms of income smoothing as opposed to a positive and significant role of factor income outflows. Factor income outflows also appear to be robust with respect to positive output shocks, while neither factor inflows nor factor outflows provide insurance against negative output shocks. In terms of the determinants of income smoothing, results indicate that an increase in foreign equity and debt liabilities positively affect the extent of smoothing via factor income outflows. Whereas, contrary to the current literature, an increase in foreign asset holding does not have a positive impact on smoothing via factor income inflows. European investors' tendency of allocating a sizeable portion of their assets within the Euro zone is shown to undermine income smoothing. (C) 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.