This article discusses the relation between the balance of payments and the international investment position of countries. It starts with the observation that the net international investment position of many countries is developing independently from their current account balances. This...

Low international competitiveness of a set of euro area countries, which have become evident by large current account deficits and rising risk premiums on government bonds, is one of the most challenging economic policy issues for Europe. We analyse the role of private restructuring and public...

We propose a multi-country dynamic general equilibrium model to quantify the implications of trade and FDI liberalizations for the surge of global trade and current account (CA) imbalances. We calibrate our model to replicate the evolution of bilateral trade and FDI flows across 5 major...

This paper evaluates the sustainability of large current account imbalances in the era when the Chinese GDP growth rate and current account/GDP exceed 10%. We investigate the size distribution and the durability of current account deficits during 1966-2005, and report the results of a simulation...

This paper examines two competing approaches for calculating current account benchmarks, i.e. the external sustainability approach a 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 term...

Bilateral trade imbalances are determined by aggregate trade imbalances, production and expenditure patterns, and trade barriers. We calibrate a dynamic many-sector trade model to match the recent sectoral trade and production shares of 40 economies and the rest of the world. Through a variance...

We analyse global and euro area imbalances by focusing on China and Germany as large surplus and creditor countries. In the 2000s, domestic reforms in both countries expanded the effective labour force, restrained wages, shifted income towards profits and increased corporate saving. As a result,...

The current accounts of most EU member states in central and eastern Europe have been showing growing deficits in recent years. According to panel estimates the deficits can be attributed primarily to factors characteristic for the stage of development, ie the relative income level and high...

In this paper we evaluate the current account patterns of China and Germany. We point out that China’s current account surplus as a share of global GDP in recent years resembles that of Germany’s. Yet, an important difference is that the Euro block’s current account inclusive of Germany...

In the past decade, a set of euro area countries has accumulated large current account deficits. After a brief relaxation of the euro area internal imbalances in the wake of the financial crisis, it appears as if this pattern arises anew when times normalize again and Germany still sticks to...