This paper presents an analysis of the sustainability of current account deficits in transition economies in Central and Eastern Europe. These countries have experienced large current account imbalances in the transition to a market economy. We consider a wide range of macroeconomic factors that...

The period preceding the global financial crisis was characterized by a substantial widening of current account imbalances across the world. Since the onset of the crisis, these imbalances have contracted to a significant extent. In this paper, we analyze the ongoing process of external...

The high level of current account imbalances continues to be a major focus of international concern. In this paper I suggest why public and private actions in the United States and China are now likely to cause the current account imbalances in those countries to shrink and perhaps even to...

We find evidence of threshold behavior in current account adjustment for the G7 countries, such that the dynamics of adjustment towards equilibrium depend upon whether the current-account/ net-output ratio breaches estimated, country specific current account surplus or deficit thresholds. Both...

This paper addresses the issue of the optimal stock of international reserves in terms of a statistical model in which reserves affect both the probability of a Sudden Stop-as well as associated output costs-by reducing the balance-sheet effects of liability dollarization. Optimal reserves are...

The influential Krugman-Flood-Garber (KFG) model of balance of payment crises assumes that a fixed exchange rate is abandoned if and only if international reserves reach a critical threshold value. From a positive standpoint, the KFG rule is at odds with many episodes in which the central bank...

Given the rapidly growing reserves in Asia (China, Japan, Korea, Taiwan) and the pressures from trading partners to revalue, there is a need to examine commercial policy in more than a pure barter model. Here we evaluate the joint impacts of exchange rate appreciation on trade flows and country...

Using a sample of 20 emerging countries from 1880 to 1913, we study the determinants and output effects of sudden stops in capital inflows during an era of intensified globalization. We find that higher levels of original sin (hard currency debt to total debt) and large current account deficits...

The paper reviews an event of 30 years ago from the perspective of today: a successful G-5 initiative to reverse what had been an overvalued dollar. The “Plaza Accord” is best viewed not as the precise product of the meeting on September 22, 1985, but as shorthand for a historic change in US...

The collapse of a fixed exchange rate is typically marked by a sudden balance-of-payments crisis in which"speculators" fleeing from the domestic currency acquire a large portion of the central bank's foreign exchange holdings.Faced with such an attack, the central bank often withdraws...