Since 1981, the United States has managed a trade deficit that has become more negative with each passing year. Yet, economic growth has been on a positive trend. Is there a relationship between the two? Using annual data from 1950 to 2014, this article investigates the causal relationship...

This paper examines to what extent the build-up of "global imbalances" since the mid-1990s can be explained in a purely real open-economy DSGE model in which agents' perceptions of long-run growth are based on filtering observed changes in productivity. We show that long-run growth estimates...

This paper examines to what extent the build-up of "global imbalances" since the mid-1990s can be explained in a purely real open-economy DSGE model in which agents' perceptions of long-run growth are based on filtering observed changes in productivity. We show that long-run growth estimates...

Since 1991, survey expectations of long-run output growth for the U.S. relative to the rest of the world exhibit a pattern strikingly similar to that of the U.S. current account, and thus also to global imbalances. We show that this finding can to a large extent be rationalized in a two-region...

The paper investigates by means of cointegration analysis whether the recently observed low levels of private saving and the current account balance in the United States are worrisome in the sense that they cannot be sufficiently explained by determinants which performed well in the past. Stock...