After narrowing modestly in 2013, the global scale of current account imbalances, and of excess imbalances, held steady in 2014. Over the last several years, while the country composition of imbalances has rotated somewhat, overall there has been little progress on reducing excess imbalances....

After narrowing in the aftermath of the global financial crisis and remaining broadly unchanged in recent years, global imbalances increased moderately in 2015, amid a reconfiguration of current accounts and exchange rates. Shifts in 2015 were driven primarily by the uneven strength of the...

Global current account imbalances were broadly unchanged in 2016, with minor shifts adding to the reconfiguration under way since 2013. The fall in commodity prices, uneven cyclical recoveries in systemic economies, and differences in policy responses contributed to the rotation of imbalances....

The IMF's Second Pilot External Sector Report presents a multilaterally consistent assessment of the largest economies' external sector positions and policies for 2012-2013 H1. The report integrates the analysis from the Fund's bilateral and multilateral surveillance to provide a coherent...

The IMF's third Pilot External Sector Report (ESR) presents a multilaterally consistent assessment of the largest economies' external sector positions and policies for 2013 and early 2014. The report integrates the analysis from the Fund's bilateral and multilateral surveillance to provide a...

This Pilot External Sector Report (ESR) provides a multilaterally consistent analysis of the external positions of major world economies. Following the recommendations of thea2011 Triennial Surveillance Reviewaand the Managing Director'saStatement on Strengthening Surveillance, the focus of the...

After the failure of the early 1980s, a second attempt at capital account liberalization was gradually carried out in Chile during the 1990s, this time in parallel with increased exchange rate flexibility. Capital account regulations were applied to support the independent monetary policy...

This paper proposes modifications to the method of collecting exchange rates for the calculation of the value of the SDR for the purposes of Rule O-2(a). The value of the SDR in terms of the U.S. dollar is determined daily as the sum of the equivalents in U. S. dollar values of the amounts of...

This paper uses an intertemporal optimizing model of a small open economy to analyze how terms of trade changes affect real exchange rates and the trade balance. We consider temporary current, anticipated future, and permanent changes in the terms of trade. The results suggest that the...

In this paper a general equilibrium intertemporal model with optimizing consumers and producers is developed to analyze how the imposition of a temporary import tariff affects the path of real exchange rates and the current account. The model is completely real, and considers a small open...