Private Versus Public Sector Saving-Investment Gap In The Macedonian Economy – A Comparative Study

This paper aims to analyze and evaluate the size of the macroeconomic imbalances, in terms of saving-investment gap, amongst the countries, with special reference to the case of Republic of Macedonia. Particularly, the sectors (private and government) saving – investment gap is investigated in order to determine which sector is the major contributor to the overall macroeconomic imbalances in the countries with different level of development. To do this the methodological framework from national income accounting is used. The results suggest that government sector in more developed countries realizes continuous negative saving-investment gap, that is completely/largely financed by the net savings of the private sector. This is not the case with the South-Eastern countries where both government and private sector realize negative saving-investment gap. The crisis caused significant changes in the behavior of private and government sector leading to “improvements” in the balance of payments current account of almost all countries.