Germany’s enduring current account surplus

PÉTER BÁNHEGYI Real or Mock Surplus? Uncertainties in Measuring Goods and Current Account Balance

Statistics are complied upon reports provided by data suppliers which are usually obliged to give their data by law. These laws include goals of these data reports and guidelines for providing them. Even in the case, however, when these data reports fulfil all requirements, we would not be sure that we have got the right picture of economic processes because, as a result of characteristics and ...

A tale of two Germanys

Editor—The fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 marked the beginning of the end of communism in eastern Europe and in eastern Germany. As McKee and Fister point out, certain constellations of epidemiological and demographic variables characterise the resultant process of political and economic transition: low or even decreasing life expectancy (especially for men) and higher prevalences of alcoholis...

What drives China’s Current Account?∗

The paper offers an empirical taxonomy of the factors driving China’s current account. A simple present-value model with non-tradeable goods explains more than 70 percent of current account variability over the period 1982–2007, including the persistent surpluses since 2001. It also correctly predicts the decline of China’s current account since 2008. Expected increases in the prices of non-tra...

Analysis of China's current account: Evidence based on Inter-temporal Current Account Model

Current Account and External Financing: an Introduction

Economic analysts were surprised by the collapse of the Thai baht in July 1997. In the months that followed, most of the so-called East Asian Tigers faced severe balance-of-payments crises, and a year later, in August 1998, the Russian ruble was devalued. As a result of this succession of crises, the economics profession rethought many of its views on macroeconomic management. Lessons were draw...