This paper reviews three different concepts of equilibrium exchange rates that are widely used in policy analysis and constitute the backbone of the IMF CGER assessment: the Macroeconomic Balance, the External Sustainability and the reduced form approaches. We raise a number of econometric...

In this paper, we take a systematic look at global imbalances. First, we provide a definition of the phenomenon, and relate global imbalances to widening external positions of systemically important economies that reflect distortions or entail risks for the global economy. Second, we provide an...

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,...

The present paper extends the Obstfeld and Rogoff (2005) framework of current account imbalances by the oil exporting countries as a fourth region. It sets the stage for a variety of analysis that can be conducted within a four-region-setting that accounts for the importance of OPEC as a major...

Rising current account and merchandise trade imbalances marked the years before the global financial and economic crisis. These imbalances either contributed to or precipitated the crisis and to the extent that they create systemic risks, it is desirable that they be reduced. There are many...

This paper examines two competing approaches for calculating current account benchmarks, i.e. the external sustainability approach á la Lane and Milesi-Ferretti (LM) versus the structural current accounts literature (SCA) based on panel econometric techniques. The aim is to gauge the medium...

Global current account imbalances are one of the key macroeconomic imbalances that underlie the global financial crisis. The central objective of this paper is to analyze the causes and consequences of global imbalances from the perspective of developing Asia. More specifically, we examine the...

We use a dynamic general-equilibrium model to study how removing barriers to competition in the nontraded goods sector affects the current account of a small open economy. We show that the expansion of the nontraded sector that results from such a "deregulation shock" is associated with an...

This paper studies the links between current accounts and relative price levels, finding that current account changes are associated with sizable future relative price levels effects. This is done in panel regressions of the Penn effect, adding a lagged current account/GDP and other explanatory...