This paper documents that cross-border investment income flows are important for explaining current account balances in major economies. Those investment incomes reflect returns on cross-border asset holdings and on balance often reach magnitudes around 5% of major economies' gross domestic...

Global current account imbalances widened before the 2007/2008 crisis and have narrowed since. While the post-crisis adjustment of European current account deficits was in line with global developments (though more forceful), European current account surpluses defied global trends and increased....