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...

Bilateral trade balances often play an important role in the international trade policy debate. Academic economists understand that they are misleading indicators of competitiveness and of the gains from trade. However, they also recognize their political relevance, calling for accurate...

Bilateral trade balances often play an important role in the international trade policy debate. Academic economists understand that they are misleading indicators of competitiveness and of the gains from trade. However, they also recognize their political relevance, calling for accurate...

Bilateral trade balances often play an important role inthe international trade policy debate. Disturbingly, several studies argue that the gravity model of trade fails when confronted with bilateral trade balances data, dubbing this "The Mystery of the Excess Trade Balances". Capitalizing on...

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...

Trade is a reciprocal relation, and must always be balanced. This paper shows that the traditional partial model of international trade is a monster model, combining the demand and the supply of two different markets into one graph. Such theory thus misleads some people to use trade deficit to...

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...

China's trade surplus is often heavily criticized in political and economic debates, accompanied by claims for a revaluation of the Chinese currency, the Renminbi (RMB). While the main arguments exchanged in the current discourse appear to become more and more emotionally loaded rather than...

The Romanian agri-food trade has registered a permanent deficit during the last three decades (with a brief exception period, 2013-2014). The deficit was deepened by the negative trade balance with the EU countries, but since 2010, the deficit has been partially offset by the trade surplus with...

In this paper, we investigate the relationship between different loan types and the current account balance along with its sub-components. Our empirical results suggest that a rise in total loans inevitably leads to a deterioration in the current account balance. This relationship is preserved...