Current Account Deficits: The Australian Debate
Abstract
This paper documents the clear change of view, which has taken place in Australia over the past three decades or so, concerning the relevance of the current account deficit for policy. Historical experience under a fixed exchange rate regime suggested that large persistent deficits were unsustainable and could leave the economy vulnerable to sudden reversals in sentiment. These concerns persisted after the floating of the Australian dollar and financial deregulation, and it was thought that all arms of policy should help to rein in the then much larger current account deficits. However, these policies were shown to be ineffective and, by the early 1990s, the argument that current account deficits represent the optimal outcomes of decisions made by ‘consenting adults’ gained wide support. This paper presents some empirical evidence consistent with optimal smoothing in the face of temporary shocks; the persistence of the deficit is attributed to a modest degree of impatience relative to the rest of the world. Although it is now widely accepted that policy should not seek to influence the current account balance, the issue of external vulnerability remains of interest. Here, country-specific considerations are important, and it is argued that the factors that have made Australia relatively resilient to external shocks are also those that helped to attract foreign capital in the first place.Download Info
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Paper provided by Reserve Bank of Australia in its series RBA Research Discussion Papers with number rdp2007-02.Length:
Date of creation: Mar 2007
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Handle: RePEc:rba:rbardp:rdp2007-02
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Related research
Keywords: current account; external vulnerability; exchange rate regimes;Find related papers by JEL classification:
- E60 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Macroeconomic Policy, Macroeconomic Aspects of Public Finance, and General Outlook - - - General
- F32 - International Economics - - International Finance - - - Current Account Adjustment; Short-term Capital Movements
- N10 - Economic History - - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics; Industrial Structure; Growth; Fluctuations - - - General, International, or Comparative
This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:
- NEP-ALL-2007-03-17 (All new papers)
- NEP-CBA-2007-03-17 (Central Banking)
- NEP-IFN-2007-03-17 (International Finance)
- NEP-MAC-2007-03-17 (Macroeconomics)
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