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Abstract It is surprisingly difficult to find economic variables that strongly comove with exchange rates, a phenomenon codified in a large literature as “exchange rate disconnect.” We demonstrate that a variety of common proxies for global risk appetite, which did not comove with exchange rates prior to 2007, have provided significant in-sample explanatory power for currencies since then. Furthermore, during the 2007–2012 period, U.S. purchases of foreign bonds were highly correlated with these risk measures and with exchange rates. Our results support the narrative that the U.S. dollar's role as an international and safe-haven currency has surged since the global financial crisis. 

Abstract Global firms finance themselves through foreign subsidiaries, often shell companies in tax havens, which obscures their true economic location in official statistics. We associate the universe of traded securities issued by firms in tax havens with their issuer's ultimate parent and restate bilateral investment positions to better reflect the financial linkages connecting countries around the world. Bilateral portfolio investment from developed countries to firms in large emerging markets is dramatically larger than previously thought. The national accounts of the United States, for example, understate the U.S. position in Chinese firms by nearly $600 billion. Further, we demonstrate how offshore issuance in tax havens affects our understanding of the currency composition of external portfolio liabilities and the nature of foreign direct investment. Finally, we provide additional restatements of bilateral investment positions, including one based on the geographic distribution of sales.