We analyze the global imbalances and the required adjustments for rebalancing in current accounts and real exchange rates. We set up a two-country two-sector model for the US-China with two asymmetries. First, we assume that the size of China initially is one third of the US but its size becomes...

This note discusses two complex issues. First, why might a country want to reduce its current account deficit or surplus? And second, why might the international community ask for more? In general, there are both domestic and multilateral reasons for countries to reduce current account deficits...

We assess the sustainability of the current account (CA) balance, net international investment position (NIIP) and net external debt (NED) in a sample of EU countries using two complementary approaches. First, we employ both time-series and panel-data stationarity tests of current account...

In the middle of the global financial crisis, global imbalances seem to have been resolved to some extent, but it remains to be seen whether these imbalances will emerge again along with economic recovery. In order to cope with this global issue, we need to clarify what caused global imbalances...

Governments have a number of policy tools that can be used to address pressure on the balance of payments. When market pressure leads to an unsustainable decline in the relative value of the domestic currency, authorities can: (1) sell reserves, (2) raise interest rates, (3) impose capital...

Some euro area countries accumulated large and persistent external imbalances during the upswing, revealing important weaknesses in the macroeconomic management of the monetary union. Greece, Ireland, Portugal and Spain ran large current account deficits by historical standards, while Finland,...

The aim of this paper is to evaluate the trade linkages of Central and Eastern European (CEE) countries with the global economy in the last decade and to measure the influence of the world economic crisis of 2009 on their external trade sector. For this purpose an analysis of IMF data (Direction...

Before the crisis, there were strong arguments for reducing global imbalances. As a result of the crisis, there have been significant changes in saving and investment patterns across the world and imbalances have narrowed considerably. Does this mean that imbalances are a problem of the past?...

This paper examines the association between trade and financial linkages among European countries. We find that, with the introduction of the euro, trade imbalances among euro area members widened considerably, even after allowing for permanent asymmetries in trade competitiveness within pairs...

This paper presents a new measure of international gross capital flows and applies it to a global panel from 1970 to 2004. We explain why paying attention to the gross flows underlying net capital flows may be important and how our gross flow measure differs from the standard measure in the...