The euro area crisis is often linked to the emergence of current account imbalances. As most of the deficit countries experienced pronounced credit booms at the same time that these imbalances were building up, this paper investigates the link between domestic credit developments and the current...

The paper evaluates current account dynamics in countries with different exchange rate regimes within the EU. In this, the empirical analysis explicitly differentiates between countries with a flexible and a fixed exchange rate regime and members of a monetary union. In addition, we model the...

We estimate a panel VAR model for the euro area to quantitatively assess how the uneven recourse of national banking systems in the euro area to the ECB's unconventional refinancing operations that led to the accumulation of large TARGET2 balances, has contributed to the propagation of different...

Between 1999 and the onset of the economic crisis in 2008 real exchange rates in Greece, Ireland, Italy, Portugal and Spain appreciated relative to the rest of the euro area. This divergence in competitiveness was reflected in the emergence of current account imbalances. Given that exchange rate...

Between 1999 and the onset of the economic crisis in 2008 real exchange rates in Greece, Ireland, Italy, Portugal and Spain appreciated relative to the rest of the euro area. This divergence in competitiveness was reflected in the emergence of current account imbalances. Given that exchange rate...

We assess to what extent wage inflation policies in Germany could contribute to an economic rebalancing in the euro area and the rest of the world. We find that a rise in nominal wage inflation has positive short-run effects on inflation and output in Germany and the rest of the euro area. The...

This paper shows that demographic change plays an important role in the formation of a country's net foreign asset position. An ageing population both lowers the demand and increases the supply of capital in an economy. Fewer workers reduce the required capital stock. As a longer life span leads...

Since 1991, survey expectations of long-run output growth for the U.S. relative to the rest of the world exhibit a pattern strikingly similar to that of the U.S. current account, and thus also to global imbalances. We show that this finding can to a large extent be rationalized in a two-region...

Large current account deficits, and the corresponding reliance on capital flows from abroad, can increase a country's vulnerability to periods of heightened risk and uncertainty. This paper develops a framework to evaluate such vulnerabilities. It highlights the central importance of two...