Desequilibris de balança de pagaments

  In the last twenty years there have been sharp increases in current account imbalances at a global level. A country's external balance of payments, in accounting terms, is balanced; but if we break this down into its two most important components, the current account and the financial account, persistent deficits or surpluses in each of these can be seen in many countries. What's the problem? Persistent current account deficits mean an accumulation of external debt and can signal competitiveness problems. On the other hand, continued surpluses can lead to an excessive accumulation of reserves and point to an undervalued exchange rate.

  The paradigmatic case is the United States and China. The former is suffering from a chronic current account deficit that peaked at over 800 billion dollars in 2006. A significant proportion of this deficit is the result of buying goods from China, a country posting high surpluses since the mid-1990s. These surpluses mean accumulating financial assets in the form of foreign reserves, largely made up of US debt. Thus the circle is completed: excessive spending on consumption by US households is financed by the Chinese government buying up US public debt.

  Academics and politicians have debated the origins and consequences of global imbalances at great length. Two opposing positions emerge from this debate. In simplistic terms, some believe that these imbalances constitute an anomalous, unsustainable phenomenon that is jeopardizing the stability of capital flows and is a serious risk to the foreign exchange market. Others, on the other hand, estimate that imbalances are a result of structural factors or policies adopted by the economic authorities of other countries and, providing these determining factors don't vary, imbalances can continue for a long time.

  What role or influence have these imbalances had on the global crisis that erupted in 2008? In general, they are not ranked among its main causes. However, the collapse of international liquidity had a direct effect on countries with high deficits and with a more negative external position (the United States being the exception to this rule, thanks to the privileged position of the dollar in the international monetary system). This destabilizing power of global imbalances has led the G-20 to target the reduction of current account imbalances to «sustainable levels», within a framework of actions aimed at achieving high, balanced growth in the world economy.

  Imbalances have also warranted special attention at the level of the European Union. Increasing commercial and financial integration, helped by the creation of the euro, has been accompanied by growing external imbalances which have become a problem difficult to resolve once the crisis erupted and given the impossibility of devaluation within monetary union. Nonetheless, the crisis itself has led to a sharp fall in external deficits, both due to plummeting activity as well as the bursting of some asset bubbles. There is still the need, however, to redress deficiencies in external competitiveness in deficit countries, requiring significant changes in terms of relative prices, a better allocation of resources among production sectors and the elimination of rigid regulations in the labour and product markets. Otherwise, the growth potential of these countries will be seriously compromised and the exit to the crisis will be slower than is desirable.

All documents are in Adobe Acrobat format (PDF).
To view a document in PDF format you need the Adobe Acrobat Reader. If you don’t have it already loaded on your computer, you can donwload it now.