IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/ebl/ecbull/eb-14-00330.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

A note on Italy's current account sustainability: 1861-2010

Author

Listed:
  • Alberto Rinaldi

    () (University of Modena and Reggio Emilia and RECent)

  • Barbara Pistoresi

    () (University of Modena and Reggio Emilia and RECent)

Abstract

By using an original dataset, this paper analyzes the sustainability of Italy's current accounts over the years 1861-2010. We find empirical support to sustainability: the Italian economy used external deficits (surpluses) to smooth aggregate consumption. Persistent current account deficits from 1861 to WW1 seem to have been used to prompt the nation's productivity and economic efficiency and so they do not seem to have undermined the nation's intertemporal solvency.

Suggested Citation

  • Alberto Rinaldi & Barbara Pistoresi, 2014. "A note on Italy's current account sustainability: 1861-2010," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 34(2), pages 1197-1204.
    • Handle: RePEc:ebl:ecbull:eb-14-00330
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.accessecon.com/Pubs/EB/2014/Volume34/EB-14-V34-I2-P110.pdf
    Download Restriction: no

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Annie Corbin, 2004. "Capital mobility and adjustment of the current account imbalances: a bounds testing approach to cointegration in 12 countries (1880-2001)," International Journal of Finance & Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 9(3), pages 257-276.
    2. Husted, Steven, 1992. "The Emerging U.S. Current Account Deficit in the 1980s: A Cointegration Analysis," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 74(1), pages 159-166, February.
    3. Vicente Donoso & Victor Martin, 2014. "Current account sustainability in Latin America," The Journal of International Trade & Economic Development, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 23(5), pages 735-753, August.
    4. Kwiatkowski, Denis & Phillips, Peter C. B. & Schmidt, Peter & Shin, Yongcheol, 1992. "Testing the null hypothesis of stationarity against the alternative of a unit root : How sure are we that economic time series have a unit root?," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 54(1-3), pages 159-178.
    5. Broadberry, Stephen & Giordano, Claire & Zollino, Francesco, 2011. "A Sectoral Analysis of Italy's Development: 1861 -2010," CAGE Online Working Paper Series 62, Competitive Advantage in the Global Economy (CAGE).
    6. Thierry Bracke & Matthieu Bussière & Michael Fidora & Roland Straub, 2010. "A Framework for Assessing Global Imbalances," The World Economy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 33(9), pages 1140-1174, September.
    7. Fenoaltea,Stefano, 2014. "The Reinterpretation of Italian Economic History," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9781107658080, December.
    8. Anthony P. Thirlwall, 2011. "The Balance of Payments Constraint as an Explanation of International Growth Rate Differences," PSL Quarterly Review, Economia civile, vol. 64(259), pages 429-438.
    9. Barbara Pistoresi & Alberto Rinaldi, 2013. "External constraint and economic growth in Italy: 1861-2000," Department of Economics (DEMB) 0011, University of Modena and Reggio Emilia, Department of Economics "Marco Biagi".
    10. Wu, Jyh-Lin, 2000. "Mean reversion of the current account: evidence from the panel data unit-root test," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 66(2), pages 215-222, February.
    11. Alberto Baffigi, 2011. "Italian National Accounts, 1861-2011," Quaderni di storia economica (Economic History Working Papers) 18, Bank of Italy, Economic Research and International Relations Area.
    12. Taylor, Alan M., 2002. "A century of current account dynamics," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 21(6), pages 725-748, November.
    13. Kim, Bong-Han & Min, Hong-Ghi & Hwang, Young-Soon & McDonald, Judith A., 2009. "Are Asian countries' current accounts sustainable? Deficits, even when associated with high investment, are not costless," Journal of Policy Modeling, Elsevier, vol. 31(2), pages 163-179.
    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. Santosh Kumar Dash, 2017. "Analyzing Current Account Sustainability through the Saving-Investment Correlation," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 37(4), pages 2860-2870.
    2. Amba Oyon Claude Marius & Taoufiki Mbratana & Kane Gilles Quentin, 2017. "Assessing the current account sustainability in ECCAS economies: A dual cointegration analysis," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 37(3), pages 1873-1894.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Mariam Camarero & Josep Lluís Carrion-i-Silvestre & Cecilio Tamarit, 2010. "External imbalances in a monetary union. Does the Lawson doctrine apply to Europe?," Working Papers 10-09, Asociación Española de Economía y Finanzas Internacionales.
    2. Chen, Shyh-Wei, 2011. "Current account deficits and sustainability: Evidence from the OECD countries," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 28(4), pages 1455-1464, July.
    3. Barbara Pistoresi & Alberto Rinaldi, 2013. "External constraint and economic growth in Italy: 1861-2000," Department of Economics (DEMB) 0011, University of Modena and Reggio Emilia, Department of Economics "Marco Biagi".
    4. Chen, Shyh-Wei, 2011. "Are current account deficits really sustainable in the G-7 countries?," Japan and the World Economy, Elsevier, vol. 23(3), pages 190-201.
    5. Chortareas Georgios E & Kapetanios George & Uctum Merih, 2004. "An Investigation of Current Account Solvency in Latin America Using Non Linear Nonstationarity Tests," Studies in Nonlinear Dynamics & Econometrics, De Gruyter, vol. 8(1), pages 1-19, March.
    6. Baffigi, Alberto & Bontempi, Maria Elena & Felice, Emanuele & Golinelli, Roberto, 2015. "The changing relationship between inflation and the economic cycle in Italy: 1861–2012," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 56(C), pages 53-70.
    7. Oscar Bajo-Rubio & Carmen D Roldᮠ & Esteve, 2014. "Sustainability of external imbalances in the OECD countries," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 46(4), pages 441-449, February.
    8. Amba Oyon Claude Marius & Taoufiki Mbratana & Kane Gilles Quentin, 2017. "Assessing the current account sustainability in ECCAS economies: A dual cointegration analysis," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 37(3), pages 1873-1894.
    9. Barbara Pistoresi, 2013. "Italy's current account sustainability:a long run perspective, 1861-2000," Center for Economic Research (RECent) 092, University of Modena and Reggio E., Dept. of Economics "Marco Biagi".
    10. Tahir Mukhtar & Aliya H. Khan, 2016. "The Current Account Deficit Sustainability: An Empirical Investigation for Pakistan," The Pakistan Development Review, Pakistan Institute of Development Economics, vol. 55(4), pages 397-419.
    11. Santosh Kumar Dash, 2017. "Analyzing Current Account Sustainability through the Saving-Investment Correlation," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 37(4), pages 2860-2870.
    12. Chu, Hsiao-Ping & Chang, Tsangyao & Chang, Hsu-Ling & Su, Chi-Wei & Yuan, Young, 2007. "Mean reversion in the current account of forty-eight african countries: Evidence from the Panel SURADF test," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 384(2), pages 485-492.
    13. Kim, Bong-Han & Min, Hong-Ghi & Hwang, Young-Soon & McDonald, Judith A., 2009. "Are Asian countries' current accounts sustainable? Deficits, even when associated with high investment, are not costless," Journal of Policy Modeling, Elsevier, vol. 31(2), pages 163-179.
    14. Shyh-Wei Chen, 2010. "Testing for the Sustainability of the Current Account Deficit in Four Industrial Countries: A Revisitation," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 30(2), pages 1474-1495.
    15. Lau, Evan & Baharumshah, Ahmad Zubaidi & Haw, Chan Tze, 2006. "Current account: mean-reverting or random walk behavior?," Japan and the World Economy, Elsevier, vol. 18(1), pages 90-107, January.
    16. Juncal Cunado & Luis Alberiko Gil-Alana & Fernando Perez de Gracia, 2008. "New Evidence on US Current Account Sustainability," International Journal of Business and Economics, School of Management Development, Feng Chia University, Taichung, Taiwan, vol. 7(1), pages 1-21, April.
    17. Monastiriotis, Vassilis & Tunali, Cigdem Borke, 2020. "The sustainability of external imbalances in the European periphery," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 101540, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    18. Matthieu Bussiere & Aikaterini Karadimitropoulou & Miguel A. Leon-Ledesma, 2017. "Current account dynamics and the real exchange rate: Disentangling the evidence," University of East Anglia School of Economics Working Paper Series 2017-06, School of Economics, University of East Anglia, Norwich, UK..
    19. Aizenman, Joshua & Jinjarak, Yothin, 2008. "The US as the “demander of last resort” and its implications on China’s current account," Santa Cruz Department of Economics, Working Paper Series qt986646mz, Department of Economics, UC Santa Cruz.
    20. Fenoaltea, Stefano, 2017. "The Growth of the Italian Economy, 1861-1913: Revised Second-Generation Production-Side Estimates," MPRA Paper 83508, University Library of Munich, Germany.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Current account sustainability; economic growth; Italy; unit root tests; Granger causality;

    JEL classification:

    • E3 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles
    • O1 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development

    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-14-00330. 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.