Die hohen Leistungsbilanzüberschüsse Deutschlands der vergangenen Jahre stehen international in der Kritik. Sie übersteigen deutlich die Zielvorgaben der Europäischen Union im Rahmen des Makroökonomischen Überwachungsverfahrens. Der folgende Beitrag gibt einen kurzen Überblick über die...

Does an improvement in growth prospects lead to a fall in the trade balance? The relevance of this question stems from the tendency for countercyclical fluctuations in the trade balance stressed by both the academic literature and policymakers. However, we do not find that improved growth...

We apply a "new" conventional (CAPB-based) measure of fiscal policy, which is less prone to endogeneity issues, and find that a 1-percent of GDP fiscal consolidation leads to the improvement of the current account-to-GDP ratio by approximately 0.8 percent of GDP, while previous research based on...

It is a well-established regularity that permanent oil price shocks do not have a permanent effect on the current account deficit. This requires that sub-components of the current account or trade balance will make the necessary adjustments to accommodate the higher energy bill of a country...

There is a symmetrical debate in two Euro area core countries: in France about the restrictive fiscal policy of Germany, leading to a huge external surplus, in Germany about the insufficient compliance with fiscal rules and the lack of structural reforms in France. What are the real causes of...

This paper examines the regional and global growth effects of current account imbalances in Japan, Germany, and the People's Republic of China (PRC) - the three largest persistent surplus countries - and the United States and United Kingdom, the two largest persistent deficit countries....

We apply a "new" conventional (CAPB-based) measure of fiscal policy, which is less prone to endogeneity issues, and find that a 1-percent of GDP fiscal consolidation leads to the improvement of the current account-to-GDP ratio by approximately 0.8 percent of GDP, while previous research based on...