{"title":"Current Account Imbalances Coming Back","authors":"Joseph E. Gagnon","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.1739916","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.1739916","url":null,"abstract":"This paper finds statistically robust and economically important effects of fiscal policy, external financial policy, net foreign assets, and oil prices on current account balances. The statistical model builds upon and improves previous explanations of current account balances in the academic literature. A key advance is that the model captures the effect of external financial policies, including exchange rate policies, through data on net official financial flows. Based on current and expected future policies, current account imbalances in major G-20 economies are likely to widen much more in the next five years than projected by the International Monetary Fund (IMF). This paper concludes with a discussion of appropriate policies to prevent widening imbalances.","PeriodicalId":18164,"journal":{"name":"Macroeconomics: National Income & Product Accounts eJournal","volume":"14 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2011-01-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"72732366","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Why are Saving Rates so High in China?","authors":"D. Yang, Junsen Zhang, Shaojie Zhou","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.1732344","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.1732344","url":null,"abstract":"In this paper, we define \"The Chinese Saving Puzzle\" as the persistently high national saving rate at 34-53 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) in the past three decades and a surge in the saving rate by 11 percentage points from 2000-2008. Using data from the Flow of Funds Accounts (FFA) and Urban Household Surveys (UHS) supplemented by the findings from existing studies, we analyze the sources and causes of China's high and rising saving rates in the government, corporate, and household sectors. Although the causes of China's high saving are complex, we suggest that the evolving economic, demographic, and policy trends in the internal and external environments of the Chinese economy will likely lead to a decline in national saving in the foreseeable future.","PeriodicalId":18164,"journal":{"name":"Macroeconomics: National Income & Product Accounts eJournal","volume":"22 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2010-12-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"84661499","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"ESA 2010 Chapter Regional Accounts","authors":"F. Bos","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.2127575","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2127575","url":null,"abstract":"This chapter of the new European guidelines on national accounting (ESA 2010) describes the regional accounts and its major uses.","PeriodicalId":18164,"journal":{"name":"Macroeconomics: National Income & Product Accounts eJournal","volume":"22 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2010-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"83567071","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"ESA 2010 Chapter 22 Satellite Accounts","authors":"F. Bos","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.2127572","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2127572","url":null,"abstract":"This chapter of the new European guidelines on national accounting (ESA 2010) describes and discusses satellite accounts. Satellite accounts elaborate or modify the tables and accounts in the central framework of the national accounts to serve specific data needs. The major characteristics of satellite accounts are discussed. Furthermore, nine different satellite accounts are described briefly: agricultural accounts, environmental accounts, health accounts, household production accounts, labour accounts and social accounting matrices, productivity and growth accounts, R&D accounts, social protection accounts and tourism accounts.","PeriodicalId":18164,"journal":{"name":"Macroeconomics: National Income & Product Accounts eJournal","volume":"28 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2010-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"76432112","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"ESA 2010 Chapter 12 Quarterly Accounts","authors":"F. Bos","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.2127578","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2127578","url":null,"abstract":"This chapter of the new European guidelines on national accounting (ESA 2010) sets out the major principles and characteristics of quarterly national accounts, like seasonal adjustments.","PeriodicalId":18164,"journal":{"name":"Macroeconomics: National Income & Product Accounts eJournal","volume":"44 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2010-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"73991087","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The Impact of External Shocks and Preferential Trade Arrangements on the Agricultural Gross Domestic Product of Peru, 1950-2007","authors":"Mario D. Tello","doi":"10.7835/JCC-BERJ-2010-0047","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.7835/JCC-BERJ-2010-0047","url":null,"abstract":"This paper examines the impact of external shocks and six preferential trade arrangements faced by the Peruvian economy during the period 1950-2007. The focus was the agricultural gross domestic product (GDP), its external and internal components, and the associated two sets of relative prices. The main results are on the one hand, that the per capita GDP shocks have affected the per capita agricultural GDP, its two components, and the associated price indices of the external agricultural GDP component. The impact on the prices of the agricultural GDP, particularly on the internal component, has been weaker. On the other hand, the set of six preferential arrangements has not affected the rate of growth of the per capita agricultural GDP and its internal GDP component in a statistically significant way. These arrangements affected, with different degrees of robustness, the agricultural GDP associated prices, particularly the external component.","PeriodicalId":18164,"journal":{"name":"Macroeconomics: National Income & Product Accounts eJournal","volume":"13 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2010-09-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"81678995","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The Duration of Business Cycle Expansions and Contractions: Are There Change-Points in Duration Dependence?","authors":"Vitor Castroa","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.1670761","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.1670761","url":null,"abstract":"The issue of whether the likelihood of an expansion or contraction ending is dependent on its age, i.e whether they are duration dependent, is widely addressed in the business cycles literature and evidence of positive duration dependence is found in several studies. However, there is an important issue that has not been explored in this literature yet: the presence of change-points in duration dependence. All the studies in this field depart from the assumption that the magnitude of duration dependence is the same over time. However, we conjecture that the degree of likeliness of an expansion or contraction ending as it gets older might change after a specific duration. To test for that possibility, this paper will allow for the presence of a change-point in the analysis of the duration of expansions and contractions for a group of 13 European and Non-European industrial countries over the period 1948-2009. The evidence provided by the estimation of a continuous-time Weibull duration model shows strong support for the presence of positive duration dependence, which is stronger for contractions than for expansions. Results also show that contractions have become longer over time and that their length is negatively affected by the length of the previous expansion. Most importantly, this paper provides quite interesting evidence for the presence of a change-point in duration dependence for expansions, but not for contractions. Results show that the magnitude of the duration dependence parameter decreases significantly when an expansion surpasses 10 years of duration. In particular, evidence of positive duration dependence is no longer found when an expansion surpasses that threshold.","PeriodicalId":18164,"journal":{"name":"Macroeconomics: National Income & Product Accounts eJournal","volume":"126 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2010-09-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"78810258","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"U.S. Trade Policy Agenda 2010: Could We Double Our Export in the Next Five Years?","authors":"Surendra Bhandari","doi":"10.2139/SSRN.1670435","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/SSRN.1670435","url":null,"abstract":"The Trade Policy Agenda 2010 (TPA) targets to double the U.S. export by 2014. On average, a twenty percent increase of export per year for the period will achieve the target of the TPA. In 1960, the total value of the U.S. export was 25.9 billion. Since then the U.S. export has increased tremendously. From 2000, it has crossed the level of trillion. In 2008 it was 1.8 trillion and slightly came down to 1.6 trillion in 2009. In fact, during the period of 2000-2008, the U.S. export was almost doubled. To double the U.S. export in the next five years, a strong partnership between government agencies, private sector, non-profit organizations, and research institutions is must. This partnership can forge a common ground to expand markets, search new markets, reduce trade barriers, and expedite advocacy programs. The target of the TPA is ambitious but not impossible. If the pattern of trade could be changed, the target of the TPA is achievable.","PeriodicalId":18164,"journal":{"name":"Macroeconomics: National Income & Product Accounts eJournal","volume":"90 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2010-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"80071487","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Why the Current Account Matters in a Monetary Union: Lessons from the Financial Crisis in the Euro Area","authors":"F. Giavazzi, L. Spaventa","doi":"10.1017/CBO9781139044554.015","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781139044554.015","url":null,"abstract":"The current account has always been a neglected variable in the management of the Euro area and in the assessment of its members' performance; so has, as a consequence, the savings-investment balance. This paper first reviews the arguments that explain this attitude and justify, under some conditions and in some cases, the persistence of current account deficits. It then examines some peculiar features of the growth experience under monetary union in four Euro area countries which do not conform to the conventional convergence pattern. Models establishing the optimality of a succession of current account deficits in a catching-up process implicitly assume that the intertemporal budget constraint is satisfied, so that the accumulation of foreign liabilities is matched by future surpluses. In section 3 we first introduce explicitly this constraint in a simple two-period, two-good model and show that its fulfilment requires that growth be driven by an adequate increase of the country's production capacity of traded goods and services. By examining the composition of output and demand we show that this has not been the case in the four countries considered and argue that monetary union has helped relax the necessary discipline. The common monetary policy moreover did nothing to prevent an extraordinary growth of credit that fed the imbalances in the four countries. The paper closes addressing some policy issues related to the future sustainability o the monetray union.","PeriodicalId":18164,"journal":{"name":"Macroeconomics: National Income & Product Accounts eJournal","volume":"8 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2010-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"89138686","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"On the Measurement of Technological Progress Across Countries","authors":"J. Growiec","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.1744021","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.1744021","url":null,"abstract":"We construct 14 alternative measures of technological progress for 19 OECD countries over the period 1970–2000, distinguishing between measures of productivity gains actually obtained in a given country (TFP growth, Malmquist index) and technological progress at the world technology frontier (potential TFP growth, the “frontier shift” index). We then compare these measures according to a range of characteristics, shedding light on some of their relative weaknesses and strengths. We find that these characteristics are sensitive to the precision of estimates of the world technology frontier, and then we demonstrate that this precision can be increased substantially by allowing for imperfect substitutability between unskilled and skilled labor and using US state-level data apart from cross-country data for estimating the world technology frontier. Because none of the 14 measures dominates all others on all dimensions, we conclude that the choice of appropriate measurement method should be suited to the question addressed in each particular study.","PeriodicalId":18164,"journal":{"name":"Macroeconomics: National Income & Product Accounts eJournal","volume":"31 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2010-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"83622609","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}