Labor and Product Market Reforms and External Imbalances

We explore the impact of major labor and product market reforms on current account dynamics using a new “narrative” database of major changes in employment protection for regular workers and product market regulation for non-manufacturing industries covering 26 advanced economies over the past four decades. Our main finding is that product market deregulation is associated with a weakening of the current account, while labor market deregulation is associated with an improvement. These effects are transitory and driven by both saving and investment responses. Labor and product market reforms both have a more positive impact on the current account balance when implemented under weak macroeconomic conditions. Our results are broadly consistent with predictions from recent DSGE models with endogenous producer entry and labor market frictions.

Re-examining public debt and current account dynamics: SVAR evidence from Ethiopia

PurposePublic debt management is now an integral part of overall macroeconomic management in many developing and emerging market economies. Preventing unsustainable debt accumulation and maintaining healthy fiscal profile begins with understanding its key drivers both in the short and in the long run. The purpose of this paper is to analyze public debt and current account dynamics in Ethiopia.Design/methodology/approachThis study applies structural vector auto-regressive (SVAR) model on annual time series data to study general government debt and current account dynamics in Ethiopia for the period 1980–2018.FindingsBoth the impulse response and forecast error variance decomposition results confirm that fiscal balance exerts the strongest influence on both government debt and current account balance in the short run. In addition, own shock as well as shocks stemming from gross fixed capital formation and growth have significant effects on general government debt. The findings were robust to alternative data transformation, differing Choleski ordering of the model variables, and inclusion of exogenous deterministic terms that capture changes in the political landscape.Practical implicationsThe most important implication is that since fiscal balance is the strongest determinant of both public debt and current account balance, public investment efficiency is relevant here than anywhere else in the national economy. A recent study by Barhoumi et al. (2018) found that the sub-Saharan region lags behind its peers in terms of public sector investment efficiency with inefficiency gap of as large as 54% depending on the indicator variable for public investment output. Improving public investment spending efficiency would reduce government debt by enhancing productivity and growth – which has significant negative effect on public debt.Originality/valueFirst, the few studies conducted on Ethiopia are dominated by single equation specifications and do not account for the possibility of endogenous feedback effects among the model variables. Second, still equally important is the role of rising gross fixed capital formation in Ethiopia, which increased from about 13% (relative to GDP) in the 1980s to about 35% in the 2010s. Ignoring this variable amounts to a major model misspecification when analyzing short-run macro dynamics in low-income economies. Finally, the paper complements existing limited studies on Ethiopia by comparing the strength of shock propagation mechanisms using alternative data transformation techniques.

Re-Examining Public Debt and Current Account Dynamics in Ethiopia: SVAR Evidence

Public debt management is now an integral part of overall macroeconomic management in many developing and emerging market economies. Preventing unsustainable debt accumulation and maintaining healthy fiscal profile begins with understanding its key drivers both in the short- and in the long run. This study applies structural vector auto-regressive (SVAR) model on annual time series data to study general government debt and current account dynamics in Ethiopia for the period 1980–2018. Both the impulse response and forecast error variance decomposition results confirm that fiscal balance exerts the strongest influence on both government debt and current account balance in the short run. In addition, own shock as well as shocks stemming from gross fixed capital formation and growth have significant effects on general government debt. The findings were robust to alternative data transformation, differing Choleski ordering of the model variables, and inclusion of exogenous deterministic terms that capture changes in the political landscape.JEL classification: E60, E63, C32, H63

Causes of Current Account Fluctuations in West African Monetary Union

This study analyzes the sources of current account fluctuations in the West African Monetary Union (WAEMU) economies over the period from 1980 to 2017. It is part of the inter-temporal approach which considers that the dynamics of the current account of a country is influenced by global shocks and transient or permanent domestic shocks. Thus, we developed a three-variable structural autoregressive vector model. This is the international real interest rate that represents the aggregate shock, the ratio of current account to gross domestic product which is the proxy for transient domestic shocks, and the ratio of net output to gross domestic product to measure impact of permanent shocks to the current account. From the theoretical model, structural shocks are identified by applying the long-term restrictions imposed by the inter-temporal approach in the analysis of current account dynamics. The study leads to three major results: 1) current account fluctuations within WAEMU are explained by transient domestic shocks, 2) net product fluctuations are due to permanent domestic shocks, 3) Global or exogenous shocks have a modest contribution to current account fluctuations, but their effects on net income are still significant, especially in the long run.

Determinants of Current Account in Cases of Serbia and Romania: Time-Varying Parameters Approach

Following competing theories, the paper brings the determinants of the Serbian and Romanian current account dynamics with policy implications. The research sample consists of quarterly time series data over the period 2004q1–2017q2 and 2007q1-2017q4 for the cases of Serbian and the Romanian case, respectively. The estimates from the state space model with time-varying parameters (TVP) approach suggest that role of domestic demand is significant in both cases even though more prominent in case of Serbia. Marshall-Lerner conditions were fulfilled in case of Serbia while not in the Romanian case. The effects of money supply on the current account is found to be in line with the monetary approach in case of Romania while in the Serbian case the effect of an increase in the money supply is positive. Consequently, to resolve the issue of the current account deficit the research findings suggest the country-specific policy mix for each country.

CURRENT ACCOUNT DYNAMICS AND THE REAL EXCHANGE RATE: DISENTANGLING THE EVIDENCE

We study the main shocks driving current account (CA) fluctuations for the G6 economies, using a standard two-good intertemporal model. We build a structural vector autoregression model including the world real interest rate, net output (NO), the real exchange rate, and the CA and identify four structural shocks. Our results suggest four main conclusions: (i) there is substantial support for the two-good intertemporal model with time-varying interest rate, since both external supply and preference shocks account for an important proportion of CA fluctuations; (ii) temporary domestic shocks account for a large proportion of CA fluctuations, albeit smaller than in previous studies; (iii) our results alleviate the puzzle in the literature that a shock that explains little about NO changes can explain a large proportion of CA changes; (iv) the nature of the shock matters to shape the relationship between the CA and the real exchange rate.

Demographic Dynamics, Savings, Investment and Current Account

<p class="Default">The upturn in the world economy brought with it the renewed attention to the issues of current account imbalances. Whereas large part of it is political, the issue still attracts some economic attention. In this paper the empirical side of the current account dynamics is addressed. We enquire of the relationships between the current account and savings dynamics, with the emphasis on the role of the “high savings” demographic cohorts (the population and/or labor force between 40 and 64). With the emphasis on the EUs “large” countries, we conclude that there is a significant role of this “high saving” population group in determining the current account dynamics for the consistent “high” surpluses countries of Germany and Netherlands.</p><p class="Default">The role of this population group is, however, rejected for France, Italy and Spain. In those countries the current account dynamics is dominated by (seemingly unexpected) liberalization of capital flows and the subsequent need for stabilization policies. Similarly, the dominant role of the demographic dynamic is rejected for the comparison, floating exchange rate countries of USA and Japan.</p>