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The "Great Moderation" and the US External Imbalance

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Author Info
Alessandra Fogli () (Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, Research Department)
Fabrizio Perri () (University of Minnesota, Department of Economics)
Abstract

The early 1980s marked the onset of two striking features of the current world macro-economy: the fall in US business cycle volatility (the "great moderation") and the large and persistent US external imbalance. In this paper we argue that an external imbalance is a natural consequence of the great moderation. If a country experiences a fall in volatility greater than that of its partners, its relative incentives to accumulate precautionary savings fall and this results in an equilibrium permanent deterioration of its external balance. To assess how much of the current US imbalance can be explained by this channel, we consider a standard two country business cycle model in which households are subject to country specific shocks they cannot perfectly insure against. The model suggests that a fall in business cycle volatility like the one observed for the US relatively to other major economies can account for about 20% of the current total US external imbalance.

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Paper provided by CAS in its series Working Papers with number CAS_RN_2007_5.

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Length: 23 pages
Date of creation: Nov 2006
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Handle: RePEc:cas:wpaper:cas_rn_2007_5

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F32 - International Economics - - International Finance - - - Current Account Adjustment; Short-term Capital Movements
F34 - International Economics - - International Finance - - - International Lending and Debt Problems
F41 - International Economics - - Macroeconomic Aspects of International Trade and Finance - - - Open Economy Macroeconomics

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Cited by:
(explanations, Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.)

  1. Antinori, Carlo, 2004. "La Contabilità pratica prima di Luca Pacioli: Origine della Partita Doppia. (Accounting Practice before Luca Pacioli: Emergence of Double entry)," De Computis "Revista Española de Historia de la Contabilidad". De Computis "Spanish Journal of Accounting History"., Asociación Española de Contabilidad y Administración de Empresas (AECA). Spanish Accounting and Business Administration Association., issue 1, pages 4-23, December. [Downloadable!]
  2. James Feigenbaum & Geng Li, 2008. "A Nonparametric Characterization of Income Uncertainty over the Lifecycle," Working Papers 359, University of Pittsburgh, Department of Economics, revised Jul 2008. [Downloadable!]
  3. Marcel Fratzscher & Luciana Juvenal & Lucio Sarno, 2007. "Asset prices, exchange rates and the current account," Working Paper Series 790, European Central Bank. [Downloadable!]
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