Conceptual ambiguities and statistical weaknesses hamper the assessment of external competitiveness. The term competitiveness, while applied extensively, is often imprecisely defined, which can result in analytical errors and mistaken policy advice. Furthermore, aggregate statistical measures of...

This paper studies the effects of government spending under limited international capital mobility, as featured by most developing countries. While external financing of government debt mitigates the crowding-out effect, it generates real appreciation, which contracts traded output and lowers...

This paper examines the relationship between financial regulation and the current account in an intertemporal model of the current account where financial regulation affects the current account through liquidity constraints. Greater liquidity constraints decrease the size and persistence of the...

This paper presents a new model for studying international capital flows and debt dynamics that emphasizes the role played by expectations concerning future trade flows and returns. I use the model to estimate the drivers of the U.S. external position and capital flows between 1973 and 2008. The...

The report reflects the collective assessment of the Sub Committee of the Financial Stability and Development Council (FSDC) on potential risks to financial stability. [RBI]. URL:[http://rbidocs.rbi.org.in/rdocs/Bulletin/PDFs/FFSR260612_FL.pdf].

This paper examines why surges in capital flows to emerging market economies (EMEs) occur, and what determines the allocation of capital across countries during such surge episodes. We use two different methodologies to identify surges in EMEs over 1980-2009, differentiating between those mainly...

Capital markets in the East African Community (EAC) face common challenges of low capitalization and liquidity, but to different degrees. EAC member countries have made noticeable progress in developing domestic capital markets through a regional approach, removing constraints on capital...

The discussion of global and regional imbalances has put the spotlight on the possible link between current accounts and structural policies. Drawing on standard empirical current account models, the paper finds that the commonly recommended structural factors cannot explain the widening of...

This paper examines the empirical link between fiscal policy and the current account focusing on microstates defined as countries with a population of less than 2 million between 1970 and 2009. The paper employs panel regression and panel vector autoregression (VAR) on 155 countries of which 42...