G7 Current Account Imbalances

The current account deficit of the United States is more than six percent of its gross domestic product—an all-time high. And the rest of the world, including other G7 countries such as Japan and Germany, must collectively run current account surpluses to finance this deficit. How long can such unevenness between imports and exports be sustained, and what form might their eventual reconciliation take? Putting forth scenarios ranging from a gradual correction to a crash landing for the dollar, G7 Current Account Imbalances brings together economists from around the globe to consider the origins, status, and future of those disparities. An esteemed group of collaborators here examines the role of the bursting of the dot-com bubble, the history of previous episodes of current account adjustments, and the possibility of the Euro surpassing the dollar as the leading international reserve currency. Though there are areas of broad agreement—that the imbalances will ultimately decline and that currency revaluations will be part of the solution—many areas of contention remain regarding both the dangers of imbalances and the possible forms of adjustment. This volume will be of tremendous value to economists, politicians, and business leaders alike as they look to the future of the G7 economies.

This volume collects the eleven original papers that were written for the NBER Project on G7 Current Account Imbalances. Four major themes emerged from the papers written for the project. First, there was broad agreement that the current account imbalances that prevailed among the G7 countries as of June 2005 would ultimately decline, although there was no consensus on when or how this would occur . Second, there was agreement that adjustments in global currency markets would likely be associated with the shifts in global saving and investment patterns that would be required to bring about the ultimate decline in G7 current account imbalances. Third, while the focus of the conference was on current account imbalances in the G7 countries, it was recognized that the aggregate excess of saving over investment that existed among the emerging market economies at the time of the conference, as well as the currency intervention policies of some of these countries, were contributing to the current imbalances in the G7 that prevailed as of June 2005. Fourth, there was a consensus that re-valuation of the evolving foreign asset and liability positions of the G7 countries would play a role during process by which current account imbalances narrowed, although there was range of opinion concerning how large a role such revaluation effects would play.

The real effective exchange rate of the dollar is close to its minimum level for the past 4decades (as of September 2008). At the same time, however, the U.S. trade and currentaccount deficits remain large and, absent a significant correction in coming years, wouldcontribute to a further accumulation of U.S. external liabilities. The paper discusses thetension between these two aspects of the dollar assessment, and what factors can helpreconcile them. It focuses in particular on the terms of trade, adjustment lags, andmeasurement issues related to both the real effective exchange rate and the current accountbalance.

"Gross stocks of foreign assets have increased rapidly relative to national outputs since 1990, and the short-run capital gains and losses on those assets can amount to significant fractions of GDP. These fluctuations in asset values render the national income and product account measure of the current account balance increasingly inadequate as a summary of the change in a country's net foreign assets. Nonetheless, unusually large current account imbalances, especially deficits, should remain high on policymakers' list of concerns, even for the richer and less credit-constrained countries. Extreme imbalances signal the need for large and perhaps abrupt real exchange rate changes in the future, changes that might have undesired political and financial consequences given the incompleteness of domestic and international asset markets. Furthermore, of the two sources of the change in net foreign assets -- the current account and the capital gain on the net foreign asset position -- the former is better understood and more amenable to policy influence. Systematic government attempts to manipulate international asset values in order to change the net foreign asset position could have a destabilizing effect on market expectations"--NBER website

When does trade become a one-way relationship? We study bilateral trade balances for a sample of 18 European countries over the period from 1948 through 2008. 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 of countries or in the overall trade competitiveness of individual countries. This is consistent with indications that pair-wise trade tends to be more balanced when nominal exchange rates are flexible. Intra-euro area imbalances also seem to have become more persistent with the introduction of the euro, some of which is linked to labor market inflexibility. Reviewing the direction of imbalances, we find that bilateral trade surpluses are decreasing in the real exchange rate, decreasing in growth differentials, and increasing in the relative volatility of national business cycles. Finally, countries with relatively higher fiscal deficits and less flexible labor and product markets exhibit systematically lower trade surpluses than others.

A Brookings Institution Press and Asian Development Bank Institute publication Persistently large external imbalances in the world economy contributed to the outbreak of the recent financial crisis. The current account imbalances were particularly severe among the economies that border on the Pacific—the United States ran large deficits, with offsetting surpluses in East Asia. The depth and breadth of the global recession also demonstrated the need for a coordination of national policies to achieve a sustained recovery. While the magnitude of global-trade disruption led to some reduction in the size of the imbalances, closer examination suggests that the progress may prove temporary. On the other hand, significant changes in the underlying patterns of saving and investment suggest that some of the recent rebalancing may prove to be more permanent. Are such imbalances really a problem? If so, why and for whom? What should be done about them—if anything—and what does the future likely hold for transpacific trade relations? In this timely book, Asian and American economists explore those important questions. Copublished with the Asian Development Bank Institute, Transpacific Rebalancing is coedited by Barry Bosworth—long one of the Brookings Institution's leading economic analysts—and Masahiro Kawai, dean of the ADBI. They brought together leading economists from either side of the Pacific to analyze such issues as: • The impact of exchange rates • The policy choices facing the "Asian tigers" • The specifics and effects of trade imbalances in specific countries including the United States, South Korea, Thailand, India, and China Contributors include Hwee Kwan Chow, Susan M. Collins, Barry Eichengreen, Joonkyung Ha, Yping Huang, Ginalyn Komoto, Jong-Wha Lee, Rajiv Kumar, Deunden Nikomborirak, Gisela Rua, Lea Sumulong, Chalongphob Sussankam, Kunyu Tao, Willem Thorbecke, and Pankaj Vashisht.

This book examines existing problems in the European economy, focusing on labour markets, including labour market reform and outsourcing, as well as macroeconomic issues, such as macroeconomic stabilization in the Euro area and convergence and divergence in economic growth in the EU.

A volume to mark the 30th anniversary of the journal Economic Policy. It brings together key articles that still matter today, and provides academics with important research markers. It also acts as a student reader that demonstrates how the field of economics progresses by responding to challenges of the time.