Determinants Of Current Account Balance Research Articles

Comovement and Global Imbalances of Current Accounts

In contrast to existing studies that have paid limited attention to comovement in the current account balances of inter-related countries, we employ a dynamic factor model to evaluate the contributions of the common global factor, group factors (advanced or emerging countries), and country-specific factors for 12 advanced and eight emerging economies from 1970 to 2017. We find that current account balances are largely driven by the group factor for advanced economies; however, current account balances in most emerging economies are primarily driven by country-specific factors. We then investigate the roles of these factors using the traditional empirical model for current account determination. Global and group factors are essential for addressing current accounts’ cross-sectional dependence in panel data models. We find that the empirical results introducing these factors are stronger, and the coefficients of relevant variables become more significant. Furthermore, we examine how these factors are related to the structural determinants of current account balances, revealing that more capital mobility and trade openness tend to increase the share of the group factor, while increases in country-specific determinants lead to a greater share in the country factor.

Determinants of current account balance: Evidence from Türkiye

Current account balance, which is followed by all governments and policymakers, is one of the most critical macroeconomic indicators that can affect all dynamics of a country’s general economic environment from different aspects, such as inflation, foreign exchange rates and employment. There is not any consensus on the determinative factors of the CAB-Current account balance in the literature. Actually, the fact that there isn’t any consensus on the determinative factors of the CAB can be accepted as a natural result of the different structures of each country. Most worldwide studies have focused on just sectoral or just macro indicator-based determinants. With the motivation of taking both sectoral and macroeconomic conditional effects on the current account balance, the theoretical model was set as CAB as the dependent variable and ‘inflation’, ‘foreign direct investments’, ‘export to import ratio’, ‘tourism income’, and ‘growth’ as independent variables. The reason behind choosing tourism as the only sector is the compensation power of the tourism sector on the foreign trade deficit. With the data available for all variables, the time span of this paper was 2008-2019 by using the “ARDL” bounds methodology. The findings showed that there was a long-run and statistically significant positive relationship between the CAB and all independent variables of the model where just foreign exchange appreciation has a negative effect. It is thought that the model established in our research contributes to the literature in terms of including a combination of both macro data and sectoral data on the determinants of the current balance in Turkey.

Macroeconomic, institutional and financial determinants of current account balances: a panel data assessment

This study aims to find out the fundamental macroeconomic, institutional and financial determinants of current account balances by using panel data analysis method. The analysis is carried out by using the data for the period between 1986 and 2013 of 97 developing and developed countries. We find that the determinants of current account balances can be related to the factors such as fiscal balance, growth, terms of trade, exchange rate, trade openness, stage of economic development, oil dependency, financial market development, macroeconomic stability and institutional quality. A rise in growth rate, real effective exchange rate, fiscal deficit, trade openness, institutional quality, financial market development and stage of development generates larger current account deficits. A rise in terms of trade, inflation rate (representing macroeconomic stability), crude oil export reduces the current account deficits. For industrial countries, macroeconomic stability and growth also have the opposite effect on current account balances compared with other groups. The legal system and property rights, voice and accountability, political stability and absence of violence, political risks are identified as the institutional determinants of current account balances.

A Pooled Mean Group Analysis on the Determinants of Current Account Balance in the East African Community

A Pooled Mean Group Analysis on the Determinants of Current Account Balance in the East African Community

One size does not fit all… panel data: Bayesian model averaging and data poolability

We show in this paper why researchers ought to pay particular attention to the issues of model uncertainty and data poolability in their panel data applications. We focus on the identification of robust determinants of current account balances (CABs). Applying Bayesian Model Averaging, we adopt a flexible modelling approach to highlight that (i) some determinants have limited relevance when accounting for model uncertainty; (ii) slope homogeneity is unlikely to be a valid assumption; iii) cross-sectional and time-series relationships can diverge. We explain why estimating cross-sectional estimates is valuable, even in the potential presence of an omitted variable bias, and suggest a way for assessing the effects of unobserved country heterogeneity.

Long-Run Determinants and Short-Run Dynamics of the Trade Balance in the Eu-15 Countries

Several studies have analyzed the long-run determinants of current account balances using panel cointegration techniques. In this paper we will study both the long-run determinants and the short-run dynamics of the trade balances in the EU-15 countries. We will analyze each country separately and decompose the aggregate trade balance into the intra balance (trade balance vis-a-vis euro area) and the extra balance (trade balance vis-a-vis the rest of the world). Overall, our results suggest that there are significant differences in the long-run relations across the EU-15 countries which might be overlooked in the panel cointegration studies. In most of the countries there is a long-run cointegration relation between the trade balance, real effective exchange rate, domestic GDP and foreign GDP, but in many cases the coefficient of the trade balance variable is statistically insignificant in the relation. Our results on the short-run dynamics indicate that in general the aggregate trade balance cannot be adjusted by expenditure-switching or expenditure-reducing policies.

Trade imbalances within the euro area and with respect to the rest of the world

Many studies have explored the determinants of current account balances in Europe. However, only in a few studies has trade balance been decomposed into intra balance, trade balance vis-à-vis the euro area, and extra balance, trade balance vis-à-vis the rest of the world. This decomposition is necessary for us to understand why some core euro area countries are acting as financial intermediaries for the periphery countries. Furthermore, the determinants of intra and extra balances might be different because nominal exchange rate cannot adjust between the EMU countries while their financial markets are highly integrated. Thus, we apply this decomposition and supplement the previous studies by including a larger set of theoretically plausible explanatory variables, which is derived from the current account literature. Our contribution is twofold: We observe that, contrary to Schmitz and von Hagen (2011), the introduction of a common currency has not increased the elasticity of net capital flows to per capita incomes within the euro area for the member countries. On the other hand, there is a great heterogeneity among the usual determinants of trade balances whether those contribute to intra balances or extra balances. These results increase our understanding of the imbalances in the euro area.

Long-run determinants of current accounts in OECD countries: Lessons for intra-European imbalances

In this paper we study the long-run determinants of current account balances in 21 OECD countries. We define long-run targets to determine whether actual current account balances are in line with their equilibrium values and find that, following the crisis, the United States, Japan and Spain returned towards their targets but that much remains to be done in Austria, Greece and Germany. Using linear and asymmetric panel VECM models, we find that the speed of convergence of external imbalances is much faster in deficit countries than in surplus ones. These results suggest that the adjustment of intra-European imbalances has to take place in both surplus and deficit countries and should be particularly substantial in the former. This revived the old debate of how to get the surplus countries to adjust.

Trade Imbalances within the Euro Area and with Respect to the Rest of the World

Many studies have explored the determinants of current account balances in Europe. However, only in a few studies have trade imbalances been decomposed into intra balances, trade balances vis-a-vis the euro area, and extra balances, trade balances vis-a-vis the rest of the world. In this paper, we apply this decomposition and augment the previous studies of this type by including a larger set of theoretically plausible explanatory variables derived from the current account literature. We observe that, contrary to Schmitz and von Hagen (2011), the introduction of common currency has not increased the elasticity of trade flows to per capita incomes within the euro area for the member countries. In addition, this framework reveals that there is significant heterogeneity among the usual determinants of trade balances whether those contribute to intra balances or extra balances.

Blessed Mary, Forgive Us Our Deficits

Many studies have explored the medium-term determinants of current account balances. This paper contributes to the existing literature by introducing religious variables that until now have been omitted. We propose that Catholic countries tend to run current account deficits. This result remains robust even if we include both the official financial flows and the variables measuring the quality of institutions. In total we control for close to all of the variables that have been included in previous studies. To rationalize our result we consulted the World Values Survey and discovered that Roman Catholics do not consider thrift as important as other religious groups.

The determinants of current account balance in an oil‐rich exporting country: the case of Nigeria

AbstractThis paper examines the determinants of current accounts balance in Nigeria with emphasis on oil‐related variables using the Johansen–Julius vector error correction estimation approach, the impulse response function and the variance decomposition analysis. The results showed that oil price, oil balance and oil revenue are positively related with the current account, with only oil wealth having a significant negative impact in the long run. We find that the impact of oil price on the current balance is only significant in the short run. The variance decomposition analysis indicated that the variance in the current account is better explained by shocks to itself followed by shocks to oil price, oil balance and fiscal balance.

A Forensic Analysis of Global Imbalances

We re-examine the determinants of current account balances applying updated data to the framework based on Chinn and Ito (2007). The main purpose of this study is to examine whether the determinants of global current account balances changed during the period preceding the global crisis of 2008-09 while inquiring into the prospects for the global imbalances in the post-crisis period. Based on our estimates, changes in the budget balance appear to be an important factor affecting current account balances for advanced current account deficit countries such as the United States and the United Kingdom. The effect of the “saving glut variables” on current account balances has been relatively stable for emerging market countries, suggesting the prominence of those factors is not a particularly recent phenomenon. We also find the 2006-08 period to be the structural break for emerging market countries, and to a lesser extent, for industrialized countries. When we investigate what can explain the purportedly anomalous behavior in the current account balances during the 2006-08 period, we find that stock market performance and real housing appreciation explain the unusual current account balances in the pre-crisis period; fiscal procyclicality and monetary policy stance do not seem to matter as much. However, we also identify components of current account balances that can be only explained by country-specific factors. Extrapolating to the future, we find that for the U.S., fiscal consolidation alone cannot induce significant current account deficit reduction. For China, financial development may help shrink its current account surplus, but only when it is coupled with financial liberalization. These findings suggest that unless countries implement substantial policy changes, the global imbalances are unlikely to disappear.

Current Account Determinants for Oil-Exporting Countries

The paper aims at characterizing the main determinants of the medium-term current account balance for oil-exporting countries using dynamic panel estimation techniques. Previous studies included a very limited number of oil-exporting countries in their samples, raising concerns about the applicability of the estimated coefficients for oil countries. Furthermore, current approaches are not specifically tailored to oil-producing countries because they fail to capture the effects of oil wealth and the degree of maturity in oil production. This paper explores the underlying determinants of the current account balance for a large sample of oilexporting countries, and extends the specifications commonly used in the literature to include an oil wealth variable, as well as a proxy for the degree of maturity in oil production. The paper therefore contributes to the existing literature both in terms of the sample studied as well as the variables considered. The results reveal that factors that matter in determining the equilibrium current account balance of oil-exporting counties are the fiscal balance, the oil balance, oil wealth, age dependency, and the degree of maturity in oil production.

Current Account Determinants for Oil-Exporting Countries

The paper aims at characterizing the main determinants of the medium-term current account balance for oil-exporting countries using dynamic panel estimation techniques. Previous studies included a very limited number of oil-exporting countries in their samples, raising concerns about the applicability of the estimated coefficients for oil countries. Furthermore, current approaches are not specifically tailored to oil-producing countries because they fail to capture the effects of oil wealth and the degree of maturity in oil production. This paper explores the underlying determinants of the current account balance for a large sample of oilexporting countries, and extends the specifications commonly used in the literature to include an oil wealth variable, as well as a proxy for the degree of maturity in oil production. The paper therefore contributes to the existing literature both in terms of the sample studied as well as the variables considered. The results reveal that factors that matter in determining the equilibrium current account balance of oil-exporting counties are the fiscal balance, the oil balance, oil wealth, age dependency, and the degree of maturity in oil production.

Short- and Medium-Term Determinants of Current Account Balances in Middle East and North Africa Countries

The main aim of the paper is to examine the short- and medium-term empirical link between current account balances and a broad set of (economic) variables proposed by theoretical and empirical literature. The paper focuses on the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), an economically diverse region, which has so far mainly been neglected in such empirical analyzes. For this purpose, a (dynamic) panel-regression technique is used to characterize the properties of current account variations across selected MENA economies in the 1971-2005 period. The results, which are generally consistent with theoretical and previous empirical analyses, indicate that higher (domestic and foreign) investment, government expenditure and foreign interest rates have a negative effect on the current account balance. On the other hand, a more open economy, higher oil prices and domestic economic growth generate an improvement in the external balance, whereas the latter implies that the domestic growth rate is associated with a larger increase in domestic savings than investment. Finally, the results show a relatively high persistency of current accounts and reject the validity of the stages of development hypothesis as poorer countries in the region reveal a higher current account surplus (or lower deficit).

Determinants of current account balances of Bangladesh

Abstract This article analyses the developments of current account balances of Bangladesh since the 1950s. Available evidence suggests that the loss of the Indian raw jute market in the 1950s and the arrival of jute substitutes in the international market in the 1960s have had lasting impacts on the current account position of Bangladesh. An empirical investigation of the effects of external factors on the current account balances of Bangladesh for the 1973–89 period suggests that the real effective exchange rate of Bangladesh Taka and the economic activity in the industrial countries were the major determinants of current account balances of Bangladesh. Indeed, empirical results reject the strict version of the twin-deficit hypothesis for Bangladesh.

Determinants of Current Account Balances of Non-Oil Developing Countries in the 1970s: Comment on Khan and Knight

IN A RECENT ARTICLE in Staff Papers Mohsin Khan and Malcolm Knight investigated the impact of internal factors (the fiscal deficit and the appreciation in real effective exchange rates) and external factors (the deterioration in the terms of trade, the slowdown of economic growth in developing nations, and the increase in foreign real interest rates) on the evolution of the current account balances of non-oil developing countries during the 1970s.1 Their results, from regression analysis for a cross-section time-series sample of 32 non-oil developing countries from 1973 through 1980, indicate that both external and internal factors were important in affecting the current account balances of the countries under review.