After widening substantially in the period preceding the global financial crisis, current account imbalances across the world have contracted to a significant extent. This paper analyzes the factors underlying this process of external adjustment. It finds that countries whose pre-crisis current...

International financial integration allows countries to become net creditors or net debtors with respect to the rest of the world. In this paper, we show that a small set of fundamentals-shifts in relative output levels, the stock of public debt and demographic factors-can do much to explain the...

The relationship between international payments and the real exchange rate—the “transfer problem”—is a classic question in international economics. We use new data on countries’ net external positions together with real exchange rate data to shed light on this question. We present a...

This paper examines the link between the net foreign asset position, the trade balance and the real exchange rate. In particular, it decomposes the impact of a country's net foreign asset position ("external wealth") on its long-run real exchange rate into two mechanisms: the relation between...

We construct estimates of external assets and liabilities for 145 countries for the period 1970-2004. We describe our estimation methods and present key features of the data at the country and the global level. We focus on trends in net and gross external positions, and the composition of...

In recent decades, the foreign assets and liabilities of advanced economies have grown rapidly relative to GDP, with the increase in gross cross-holdings far exceeding changes in the size of net positions. Moreover, the portfolio equity and FDI categories have grown in importance relative to...

We examine the evolution of the net external asset positions of Central and Eastern Europe (CEEC) countries over the past decade, with a strong emphasis on the composition of their international balance sheets. We assess the extent of their international financial integration, compared with the...

The deterioration in the U.S. net external position in recent years has been much smaller than the extensive net borrowing associated with large current account deficits would have suggested. This paper examines the sources of discrepancies between net borrowing and accumulation of net...

Capital flows are closely monitored, but surprisingly little is known about the stocks of external assets and liabilities held by countries, especially in the developing world. This paper constructs estimates of foreign assets and liabilities and their equity and debt subcomponents for 66...

This note documents and assesses the role of small financial centers in the international financial system using a newly-assembled dataset. It presents estimates of the foreign asset and liability positions for a number of the most important small financial centers, and places these into context...