Determinants of External Imbalances: The Role Taxes, Government Spending and Productivity

This paper develops and estimates a dynamic optimizing model of the current account. The model focuses, on real factors that determine the evolution of saving and investment, and hence the external balance. Three types of shocks are at the center of the analysis: productivity shocks, shocks to labor input, and tax policy shocks. While our approach is in line with the real business cycle models of the current account, the distinguishing feature of the work is the application of econometric methods to time series data for a small open economy so as to directly estimate the parameters governing saving and investment under rational expectations restrictions.