IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/ebl/ecbull/eb-12-00823.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Consolidation first - About twin deficits and the causal relation between fiscal budget and current account imbalances

Author

Listed:
  • Matthias Hartmann

    () (Alfred-Weber-Institute for Economics, University of Heidelberg)

  • Helmut Herwartz

    () (Department of Econonomics, University of Göttingen)

Abstract

During recent years, large trade- and budget deficits have accumulated especially in advanced economies. This study examines if this coincidence actually reflects a causal relation. Economic theory and previously documented findings on causality between trade and government balances are inconclusive. Summarizing evidence over a cross section of 19 advanced economies, we document that the budget balance influences the current account in a more pronounced way than vice versa. Moreover, the documented causal influence is characterized by a stronger tendency towards a twin deficit (or -surplus) rather than a twin divergence.

Suggested Citation

  • Matthias Hartmann & Helmut Herwartz, 2012. "Consolidation first - About twin deficits and the causal relation between fiscal budget and current account imbalances," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 32(4), pages 3313-3319.
    • Handle: RePEc:ebl:ecbull:eb-12-00823
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.accessecon.com/Pubs/EB/2012/Volume32/EB-12-V32-I4-P319.pdf
    Download Restriction: no

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. John Bluedorn & Daniel Leigh, 2011. "Revisiting the Twin Deficits Hypothesis: The Effect of Fiscal Consolidation on the Current Account," IMF Economic Review, Palgrave Macmillan;International Monetary Fund, vol. 59(4), pages 582-602, November.
    2. Barro, Robert J, 1974. "Are Government Bonds Net Wealth?," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 82(6), pages 1095-1117, Nov.-Dec..
    3. Maurice Obstfeld & Kenneth S. Rogoff, 1996. "Foundations of International Macroeconomics," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 0262150476, August.
    4. Ahmad Zubaidi Baharumshah & Evan Lau, 2009. "Structural breaks and the twin deficits hypothesis: Evidence from East Asian countries," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 29(4), pages 2517-2524.
    5. Pesaran, M. Hashem & Smith, Ron, 1995. "Estimating long-run relationships from dynamic heterogeneous panels," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 68(1), pages 79-113, July.
    6. Alberto Bagnai, 2010. "Twin deficits in CEEC economies: evidence from panel unit root tests," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 30(2), pages 1071-1081.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Malte Rengel, 2020. "Sustainability of European fiscal balances: Just a statistical artifact?," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 58(4), pages 1681-1712, April.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Fiscal policy; trade imbalances; Granger causality; forecasting;

    JEL classification:

    • H6 - Public Economics - - National Budget, Deficit, and Debt
    • F3 - International Economics - - International Finance

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ebl:ecbull:eb-12-00823. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: (John P. Conley). General contact details of provider: .

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service hosted by the Research Division of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis . RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.