We investigate the role of budget balances, financial development and openness, in the evolution of global imbalances. Financial development or the lack thereof has received considerable attention as a possible contributing factor to the development of persistent and expanding current account...

This paper examines the statistical nature of the persistency of current account balances and its determinants. With the assumption that stationary current account series ensures the long-run budget constraint while countries may experience "local non-stationarity" in current account balances,...

This paper analyses the empirical relationship between fiscal policy and the current account of the balance of payments and considers how Ricardian equivalence changes this relationship. To do so, we estimate a dynamic panel threshold model for 22 industrialised countries in which the...

The level of capital flows to developing countries had increased dramatically over the decade prior to the 1997 Asian financial crisis. In terms of composition, private capital flows dominated official flows beginning in 1992. The surge in private capital flows to emerging market economies was a...

This paper examines the impact of demographic factors on saving, investment, and external balances. We derive a number of semi-structural equations from national accounting principle and the principle that external balances for the world as a whole must sum to zero. The resulting equations...

The ratio of pension assets to GDP in Denmark is the highest among OECD countries. Danish pension funds invest more than half of the country's pension wealth in foreign assets, giving rise to exchange rate risks that are managed using financial instruments. We study the currency hedging...

A growing body of research emphasizes the direct impact of exchange rate movements on the value of U.S. foreign assets. Because a substantial amount of U.S. assets are denominated in foreign currencies, a depreciation of the dollar leads to large capital gains. First, we present a detailed...

A narrowing of the U.S. current account deficit through exchange rate movements is likely to entail a substantial depreciation of the dollar, as stressed in research by Obstfeld and Rogoff. We assess how the adjustment is affected by the high degree of financial integration in the world economy....