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Endogenous Discounting, the World Saving Glut and the U.S. Current Account

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Author Info
Horag Choi
Nelson C. Mark
Donggyu Sul

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Abstract

We study the evolution of the U.S. current account in a two-country dynamic stochastic endowment model in which a single non-state contingent bond is the only internationally traded asset. The paper focuses on the world `saving glut' as the primary cause of continual deterioration in the current account and departs from the standard framework by introducing a three-parameter model of the subjective discount factor that depends on societal (per capita) variables that are external to household choices. When agents in the model are presented with U.S. and rest-of-world endowment data as the realization of the exogenous state vector, endogenously driven short-run international differences in subjective discounting that display increasing relative U.S. impatience create saving and current account imbalances that matches patterns observed in the data.

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Paper provided by National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc in its series NBER Working Papers with number 13571.

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Date of creation: Nov 2007
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Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:13571

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Find related papers by JEL classification:
F32 - International Economics - - International Finance - - - Current Account Adjustment; Short-term Capital Movements
F41 - International Economics - - Macroeconomic Aspects of International Trade and Finance - - - Open Economy Macroeconomics

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