Lowering exports is considered as one of the paramount reasons of widening trade deficit of Pakistan, which has become a long-standing challenge that country is facing since the beginning of the century. During the last two decades, the contribution of exports in GDP has been declined from 16 to 10 percent (World Bank, 2021). If we look at Pakistan’s share in global trade, it is dropped from 0.15 percent in 2005 to 0.12 percent in 2021. Export competitiveness of Pakistan is shrinking, while the competitors like Bangladesh, India, and Vietnam are experiencing expansion in export competitiveness. The stagnancy in Pakistan’s exports brings about a number of challenges like increasing current account deficit, burden of foreign debt, exchange rate, and other macroeconomic problems (Government of Pakistan, 2021-22; Defever, et al. 2020). Various reasons of declining export are suggested by the economists and researchers. To gather concrete evidence, a comprehensive desk review or literature review is required to unleash what factors are bringing down Pakistan’ exports. For that purpose, the underlying piece of research aims to weave up a review of existing literature on exports and unfolds the significant factors which influence exports.

Current account imbalance and concomitant macroeconomic instability in emerging market economies have been major issues of recent macroeconomic modelling. This paper addresses these issues by asking how international interdependence has impinged on key macroeconomic variables and policy options. There are three assets: domestic bonds, foreign bonds and money. Domestic bonds and foreign bonds are imperfect substitutes due to presence of risk premium. The striking features of the model include endogenous risk premium and balance sheet effect on investment demand due to exchange rate depreciation. We use a simple open economy structuralist macro model that explains the interaction between current account adjustment and exchange rate dynamics. The balance sheet effect and the risk premium together explain how fiscal expansion or monetary expansion may have both short run and long run contractionary effect on the output level with worsening current account balance in the short run. JEL Classifications: F41, F32, E52, E62 Keywords: Current Account, Exchange Rate, Risk Premium, Balance Sheet Effect

Statistical omissions as the stabilizing factor of net foreign assets in EU countries

Abstract I assess how much of China's current account surplus can be explained by government policy of capital controls and foreign reserve accumulation during a period of rapid productivity growth. My model can generate an increase in China's current account surplus and foreign reserve holdings. I find that half of the peak in China's current account surplus can be explained by its capital control policies and half by its foreign reserve accumulation policies. Under an open capital account and floating exchange rate, China would have run a current account deficit of 6.5% of GDP.

The present research endeavoured to undertake a diagnostic analysis pertaining to the foreign exchange crisis faced by the Sri Lankan economy, intending to identify drivers of the crisis and to throw light on possible strategies to overcome the crisis. An extensive literature survey was conducted, followed by a descriptive analysis based on available data. Trend analysis, deploying graphical method, was adopted as the main analytical technique, and the results were interpreted using political economic reasoning. The outcomes of the study revealed that Sri Lanka has been experiencing persistent current account deficits as well as increasing foreign debt stock since 1977, the year in which economic liberalisation policies were implemented. In that respect, the Sri Lankan crisis closely resembled that of the Indian crisis more than those explained by the other crisis models found in literature. It could thus be inferred that the persistent trade and current account deficits owing to uncontrolled imports ever since liberalisation, and the resultant accumulation of foreign debt, have been the drivers of the foreign exchange crisis in Sri Lanka, while weak and undisciplined public finance policies, failure to move into high value-added and strategic industrialisation and wide income inequality would have been possible support factors. Therefore, the research outcomes yielded caution signals if policy makers consider availing further liberalisation of the economy as the remedial strategy to surmount the present crisis.

This study examined the effect of the balance of payments on macroeconomic performance in Nigeria between 1981 and 2021. The specific objectives are to determine the effects of current account balance, capital account, and external reserves on the gross domestic product (GDP) growth rate (the proxy of macroeconomic performance). This study employed secondary data sourced from the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), and the database associated with Chinn and Ito. The study employed the augmented Dickey-Fuller method to examine the stationarity of the series and tested for cointegration among the variables using the bound test. The relationship between the balance of payments component and the gross domestic product growth rate was analysed using the autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) method. The study confirmed the long-run relationship between components of the balance of payments and GDP growth. The ARDL shows that in the long run, current account balances had a positive and significant impact on GDP growth. The capital account proved not to be an effective policy for driving economic growth in the long run. It was found that external reserves had a positive and significant impact on GDP growth in the long run. Based on the findings, this study recommended a blend of export promotion policy and import substitution strategy to improve the balance of payments and create more opportunities for economic growth. Again, policymakers should focus on improving the financial depth and strengthening institutions, all of which support the liberalisation of the capital account and foster economic growth.

ABSTRACT This paper examines the impact of credit flows, both at the aggregated and disaggregated level, on current account balances for five Southeast Asian economies. Evidence shows that total credit flows improve the current account position, especially in India and Indonesia, in the presence of adequate financial development. Nevertheless, for China, we find that credit flows lead to a decline in current account balances. When disaggregating the total credit flows, in the case of China, we find that household credit negatively influences the current account balance while the bank and business do not have any significant effect. Similarly, for India, we find that most of the improvement in the current account from credit flows comes from household and bank credit. Interestingly, in the case of Indonesia, Malaysia, and Thailand, we find evidence of aggregation bias. The asymmetric impact of disaggregated credit flows implies that policy prescriptions based on aggregate credit flows may be ill-advised and macroeconomic policymakers must implement targeted measures for different types of credit.

This study investigates the impact of South Africa’s current account balance on its economic growth from Q1 2015 to Q4 2022 using Auto Regressive Distributed Lags (ARDL) technique. This study incorporates qualitative variables like COVID-19 to understand its effect on the South African current account and economic growth rate. Generally, the results show that the South African current account deficit impacted economic growth in both the long and short run. COVID-19 also affected the current account significantly in both the long and short run, thus causing more deterioration on the South African current account and subsequently affecting the economic growth rate negatively. This study recommends more competitive export promotion and import substitution by investing in and developing domestic productivity. This study also recommends an acceleration of the tabled COVID-19 recovery initiatives through an alliance between the government and private sector.

Comovement and Global Imbalances of Current Accounts

Purpose This study aims to investigate the main drivers of private saving in Egypt (2005–2020). Design/methodology/approach It employs an autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) approach for quarterly data on private saving, lagged private saving, real gross domestic product (GDP) growth, public saving, inflation, real interest rate, money supply, current account deficit and unemployment. Findings Private saving in Egypt displays persistency and public saving depresses private saving in the short run and long run. Real interest rate, inflation and unemployment have negative and statistically significant impacts on private saving in the short run and long run. The current account deficit displays a negative effect on private saving but is significant only in the short run. Other incorporated variables, like real GDP and money supply, are not statistically significant. This could be attributed to the high consumption rather than saving motive of the Egyptian population and their tendency to rely more on other informal saving channels. Research limitations/implications Findings are of policy relevance as unleashing the determinants of private saving guides policymakers in formulating the appropriate sustainable development policies. It also assists in identifying the main obstacles hindering the promotion of private saving and hence major areas for policy intervention, like financial inclusion, poverty eradication, employment generation and structural reforms. Originality/value This study contributes to the literature: (1) it tackles private saving figure rather than aggregate saving figure that is covered by similar studies due to lack of consistent data, (2) given the relatively low quality, unavailability and inconsistency of data on private saving in developing countries, investigating the determinants of private saving should be carried out on an individual country basis which is done by this study, (3) this study fulfills the gap in literature related to the lack of up-to-date studies on private saving in Egypt and (4) it relies on quarterly data that could produce more reliable results.

The relationship between money supply and inflation: analysis with PANELVAR approach

Abstract Credit supply shocks significantly aggravate the impact of economic recessions. Understanding the underlying reasons why credit market shocks occur and detecting the market turbulences in time can give a decision support tool for the economic policy to intervene more efficiently on the market and to reduce the effect of economic downturns. The goal of the current article is to investigate the factors that signal possible credit shocks by analyzing the quarterly data of 17 European countries over the period 1995–2021. The focus of the article is on the credit given to the nonfinancial corporations. In our analysis, we have built on the credit gap methodology by determining the deviations of the lending activity from its trend, and then we have modeled these credit gaps using fundamental macroeconomic indicators, such as the balance of the current account, the ratio of short‐ and long‐term capital investments and government debt. Our conclusion is that in the presence of fundamental disequilibrium in the economy excessive lending creates positive credit gaps that increase the chance of negative credit market shocks. According to our new findings, the existing credit gap methodology can be improved by incorporating real economic factors; slowing long‐term capital investment and increasing the deficit of the current account signal the emergence of a credit gap. We found significant regional heterogeneity as in Southern European countries, and the credit gaps were more substantial. Among the investigated macroeconomic factors, the governmental indebtedness was especially high in these countries suggesting that countries with high public debt rates are more prone to develop credit gaps.

Turkey, among a number of developing countries, has been exposed to capital flight in many periods of its economic history due to both global and domestic dynamics. Our study attempts to investigate the macroeconomic determinants of capital flight, which has occurred since the 2000s and whose emergence depends on different factors, with the VAR method for the Turkish economy. Although the analysis period is for the quarter period 2000q1-2020q4, the key macroeconomic determinants of capital flight are investigated by considering various sub-periods. The macroeconomic determinants of capital flight are investigated by taking into account the sub-periods indicating financial stress periods, which is the differentiating aspect of the study from the related literature. The outcomes indicate that there is a positive association between capital flight and external debt for the whole period, but an adverse relationship between capital flight and current account deficit and depreciation of the Turkish lira. Also, a positive association was indicated between capital flight and inflation rate. The empirical results show that there is ‎variation in the significant effect of the determining factors of the capital flight among the three examined periods. These results are important for determining the policy designs and key issues regarding Turkey's process of combating capital flight. Ensuring financial stability, building investor confidence, closely monitoring external borrowing dynamics, and implementing policies that prioritize the fight against inflation are integral parts of this process. Since they are also among the fundamental elements of macroeconomic stability, every step to be taken in this regard is of great importance.

Abstract Following the European Debt Crisis, there was a significant push for greater fiscal discipline across the EU member states. This began with the revitalization of the Stability and Growth Pact in 2011 and continued with the adoption of the Fiscal Stability Treaty of 2013. The measures were designed to maintain or achieve both government debt-to-GDP ratios of below 60% and government budget deficits of below 3%. This paper investigates whether the fiscal discipline measures had an impact on the relationship between fiscal and current account balances. Using the synthetic control method, we examine current account balances in each EU member state that implemented the fiscal provisions in the treaty (Title III), compared to a synthetic counterfactual economy. We find that countries most impacted by the European Debt Crisis experienced the greatest improvement in their current account deficits from the fiscal discipline measures. Several other EU member states also experienced stabilization in their current account balances compared to their synthetic counterfactuals.

The unwanted accumulation of marine micro- and macroorganisms such as algae and barnacles on submerged man-made structures and vessel hulls is a major challenge for any marine operation. Known as biofouling, this problem leads to reduced hydrodynamic efficiency, significantly increased fuel usage, microbially induced corrosion, and, if not managed appropriately, eventual loss of both performance and structural integrity. Ship hull biofouling in the international maritime transport network conservatively accounts for 0.6% of global carbon emissions, highlighting the global scale and the importance of this problem. Improved antifouling strategies to limit surface colonization are paramount for essential activities such as shipping, aquaculture, desalination, and the marine renewable energy sector, representing both a multibillion dollar cost and a substantial practical challenge. From an ecological perspective, biofouling is a primary contributor to the global spread of invasive marine species, which has extensive implications for the marine environment.Historically, heavy metal-based toxic biocides have been used to control biofouling. However, their unwanted collateral ecological damage on nontarget species and bioaccumulation has led to recent global bans. With expanding human activities within aquaculture and offshore energy, it is both urgent and apparent that environmentally friendly surface protection remains key for maintaining the function of both moving and stationary marine structures. Biofouling communities are typically a highly complex network of both micro- and macroorganisms, representing a broad section of life from bacteria to macrophytes and animals. Given this diversity, it is unrealistic to expect that a single antifouling "silver bullet" will prevent colonization with the exception of generally toxic biocides. For that reason, modern and future antifouling solutions are anticipated to rely on novel coating technologies and "combination therapies" where mixtures of narrow-spectrum bioactive components are used to provide coverage across fouling species. In contrast to the existing cohort of outdated, toxic antifouling strategies, such as copper- and tributyltin-releasing paints, modern drug discovery techniques are increasingly being employed for the rational design of effective yet safe alternatives. The challenge for a medicinal chemistry approach is to effectively account for the large taxonomic diversity among fouling organisms combined with a lack of well-defined conserved molecular targets within most taxa.The current Account summarizes our work employing the tools of modern medicinal chemistry to discover, modify, and develop optimized and scalable antifouling solutions based on naturally occurring antifouling and repelling compounds from both marine and terrestrial sources. Inspiration for rational design comes from targeted studies on allelopathic natural products, natural repelling peptides, and secondary metabolites from sessile marine organisms with clean exteriors, which has yielded several efficient and promising antifouling leads.

The right to housing is a person’s constitutional right, a component of the right to a proper (sufficient) standard of living; the responsibility for creating the conditions for its implementation rests with the state. The state has a positive obligation to a person to create appropriate conditions for exercising and protecting the right to housing. In the need for a full-scale war, these obligations of the state transformed. The state, adhering to the principles of private law, cannot interfere in civil (personal) relations except for exceptions established by law. In this connection, there is a need to create new and improve existing legal mechanisms to promote realizing the right to housing. Forms of assistance in realizing the right to housing should include: 1) provision of preferential mortgage loans by state financial institutions at the expense of grant funds; 2) provision of preferential mortgage loans at the expense of budget funds; 3) formation of a housing fund for temporary residence of internally displaced persons; 4) compensation of costs for temporary accommodation of internally displaced persons; 5) compensation on the current account or financing of construction or acquisition of new real estate in case of destruction or damage of individual real estate objects.

ABSTRACT This paper provides a mediation analysis for the effect of income inequality on the risk of financial crisis. We find that inequality affects risk mostly through current account imbalances, whether deficits or surpluses. The policy implication is that financial stability can be effectively strengthened under lower income inequality and healthier current accounts.

This study examines the impact of corporate taxation on the external balances of 27 European Union member countries from the late 1990s to 2021. Using an ARDL process and a 2-stage least squares estimation procedure, we find that, in the short term, higher corporate taxation is positively and significantly related to the current account balance and the trade balance for the whole sample. There are considerable differences in the effects in the euro area and non-euro countries, with the latter experiencing a much stronger short-term impact. In the long term, there are no critical differences in the results between the two groups, and the impact of corporate taxation is positive but statistically significant only for the trade balance. The size of the impact of corporate taxation on net exports and current account balances is of similar magnitude, which likely implies that the international profit shifting via manipulating intrafirm prices in international trade does not strongly affect the external balances in our sample. Our results imply that initiatives to increase global tax rates could be justified from an international trade perspective.

Glowacki recognizes the importance of norms in enabling war and peace, but does not focus on the cultural evolutionary mechanisms by which these norms are maintained. We highlight how group-structured cultural selection shapes the scale and nature of peaceful intergroup interactions. The mechanistic perspective reveals that there are many more cases of peaceful intergroup relations than the current account implies.

Imbalances in the Current Account of the Greek Economy Causes and Policy Recommendations