Trend shocks and the countercyclical U.S. current account
Abstract
From 1960-2009, the U.S. current account balance has tended to decline during expansions and improve in recessions. We argue that trend shocks to productivity can help explain the countercyclical U.S. current account. Our framework is a two-country, two-good real business cycle (RBC) model in which cross-border asset trade is limited to an international bond. We identify trend and transitory shocks to U.S. productivity using generalized method of moments (GMM) estimation. The specification that best matches the data assigns a large role to trend shocks. The estimated model generates a countercyclical current account without excessive consumption volatility.Download Info
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Paper provided by University Library of Munich, Germany in its series MPRA Paper with number 40147.Length:
Date of creation: Jan 2012
Date of revision:
Handle: RePEc:pra:mprapa:40147
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Keywords: Current account; trend shocks; business cycles; open economy macroeconomics; DSGE models; GMM estimation;Find related papers by JEL classification:
- E32 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles - - - Business Fluctuations; Cycles
- 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
- E21 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Macroeconomics: Consumption, Saving, Production, Employment, and Investment - - - Consumption; Saving; Wealth
This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:
- NEP-ALL-2012-07-29 (All new papers)
- NEP-BEC-2012-07-29 (Business Economics)
- NEP-DGE-2012-07-29 (Dynamic General Equilibrium)
- NEP-MAC-2012-07-29 (Macroeconomics)
- NEP-OPM-2012-07-29 (Open Economy Macroeconomic)
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