After the decline in oil prices, many oil exporters face the need to improve their external balances. Special characteristics of oil exporters make the exchange rate an ineffective instrument for this purpose and give fiscal policy a sizeable role. These conclusions are supported by regression...

China''s sectoral trade composition, product quality mix, and import content of processing exports have all changed substantially during the past decade. This has rendered trade elasticities estimated using aggregate data highly unstable, with more recent data pointing to significantly higher...

Empirical research on structural reforms has focused primarily on their impact on growth and productivity. Yet an often-invoked rationale for structural reforms is their impact on external adjustment. This paper finds little evidence that structural reforms improve the current account in the...

Based on an empirical gravity model of sectoral bilateral trade, we uncover three features of bilateral trade balances. First, the difficulty of gravity models in fitting the observed level of bilateral balances is likely due to the presence of unobservable bilateral trade costs. Second, the...

This paper develops and estimates a model of the trade balance of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Credit flows and the fiscal stance are found to play a significant role in determining the trade balance. On this basis the paper discusses the trade-offs between monetary and fiscal policy settings needed...

Based on a version of the IMF’s new Global Economic Model (GEM), calibrated to analyze macroeconomic interdependence between the United States and the rest of the world, this paper asks to what extent an asymmetric productivity shock in the tradable sector of the economy may account for real...

When does trade become a one-way relationship? We study bilateral trade balances for a sample of 18 European countries over the period from 1948 through 2008. We find that, with the introduction of the euro, trade imbalances among euro area members widened considerably, even after allowing for...

This paper studies large reductions in current account deficits and exchange rate depreciations in low- and middle-income countries. It examines which factors help predict the occurrence of a reversal or a currency crisis, and how these events affect macroeconomic performance. Both domestic...

Japan is facing a sizable fiscal imbalance against a backdrop of weak trend growth and growing external imbalances in the world economy. This paper examines the possible impact of fiscal adjustment and productivity-enhancing structural reforms on the Japanese and world economies. Simulation...