This paper discusses some technical issues in Balance of Payment compilation and analysis. It summarized major components of the BOP statistics, the various account balances as well as the interrelationship between them and other macroeconomic aggregates. It goes further to discuss data related...

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 response of an economy to a windfall of foreign exchange (be it aid or natural resource revenues) is often constrained by absorptive capacity. We provide a micro-founded analysis of absorption constraints, based on the idea that expanding the economy’s capital stock (in aggregate or...

This paper investigates the impact of the exchange rate regime on the current account adjustment process. In a first step, the present analysis assesses previous empirical work supporting the predominant view that more flexible exchange rate regimes facilitate current account adjustments. Using...

This paper studies the links between current accounts and relative price levels, finding that current account changes are associated with sizable future relative price levels effects. This is done in panel regressions of the Penn effect, adding a lagged current account/GDP and other explanatory...

This paper uses an open economy DSGE model with a commodity sector and nominal and real rigidities to ask what factors account for current account developments in two small commodity exporting countries. We estimate the model, using Bayesian techniques, on Chilean and on New Zealand data, and...

This paper studies the links between current accounts and relative price levels, finding that current account changes are associated with sizable future relative price levels effects. This is done in panel regressions of the Penn effect, adding a lagged current account/GDP and other explanatory...

The balance of payments is an accounting identity. Many wonder how the current and capital accounts, which add up to zero, can influence exchange rates. This paper shows how payment flows arising from balance of payments imbalances affect the demands for different currencies in the foreign...