Financial flows and international imbalances: The role of catching up by late-industrializing developing countries

While the traditional approach to the adjustment of international imbalances assumes industrialized countries at a similar level of development and with similar production structures, such imbalances have historically been the result of a process of catching up by late-industrializing developing countries. This may call for an alternative approach that assesses how these imbalances can be managed in order to support developing countries' efforts to achieve successful industrialization and integration into the global trade and financial system. In this light, the paper presents an alternative explanation of the existence and persistence of the currently high levels of imbalances and suggests reasons why they may persist in the medium term.