IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/oup/econjl/v129y2019i618p897-924..html

The Expectations-driven US Current Account

Author

Listed:
  • Mathias Hoffmann
  • Michael U Krause
  • Thomas Laubach

Abstract

During the 1990s and 2000s, survey expectations of long-run output growth for the US relative to the rest of the world were highly correlated with the US current account, and thus, with global imbalances. We show that this finding is, to a large extent, predicted by a two-region stochastic growth model simulated using expected trend growth based on surveys. In line with the intertemporal approach to the current account, a major part of the build-up and subsequent reversal of the US current account deficit appears to be consistent with an optimal response of households and firms to changing growth prospects.

Suggested Citation

  • Mathias Hoffmann & Michael U Krause & Thomas Laubach, 2019. "The Expectations-driven US Current Account," The Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 129(618), pages 897-924.
    • Handle: RePEc:oup:econjl:v:129:y:2019:i:618:p:897-924.
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1111/ecoj.12539
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version below or

    for a different version of it.

    Other versions of this item:

    Citations

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


    Cited by:

    1. Juan Equiza Goni, 2014. "Sovereign Debt in the U.S. and Growth Expectations," Working Papers ECARES ECARES 2014-25, ULB -- Universite Libre de Bruxelles.
    2. Dibooglu, Sel & Kapounek, Svatopluk, 2021. "The US current account, sustainability, and the international monetary system," Economic Systems, Elsevier, vol. 45(4).
    3. Daniele Siena, 2021. "The Euro Area Periphery and Imbalances: Is it an Anticipation Story?," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 40, pages 278-308, April.
    4. Robert Kollmann, 2015. "Exchange Rates Dynamics with Long-Run Risk and Recursive Preferences," Open Economies Review, Springer, vol. 26(2), pages 175-196, April.
    5. Inagaki, Kazuyuki, 2021. "How are the international capital flows of rapidly aging countries affected by the elderly working longer?," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 97(C), pages 285-297.
    6. Adrian Ifrim & Robert Kollmann & Philipp Pfeiffer & Marco Ratto & Werner Roeger, 2025. "Persistent Global Growth Differences and Euro Area Adjustment: Real Activity, Trade and the Real Exchange Rate," Working Papers ECARES 2025-11, ULB -- Universite Libre de Bruxelles.
    7. Harrison, Andre & Reed, Robert R., 2023. "Gross capital inflows, the U.S. economy, and the response of the Federal Reserve," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 139(C).
    8. Jaccard, Ivan & Smets, Frank, 2017. "Structural asymmetries and financial imbalances in the eurozone," Working Paper Series 2076, European Central Bank.
    9. Rabah Arezki & Valerie A. Ramey & Liugang Sheng, 2017. "News Shocks in Open Economies: Evidence from Giant Oil Discoveries," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 132(1), pages 103-155.
    10. Ivan Jaccard & Frank Smets, 2020. "Structural Asymmetries and Financial Imbalances in the Eurozone," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 36, pages 73-102, April.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • F32 - International Economics - - International Finance - - - Current Account Adjustment; Short-term Capital Movements
    • E13 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - General Aggregative Models - - - Neoclassical
    • E32 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles - - - Business Fluctuations; Cycles
    • D83 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Search; Learning; Information and Knowledge; Communication; Belief; Unawareness
    • O40 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Growth and Aggregate Productivity - - - General

    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:oup:econjl:v:129:y:2019:i:618:p:897-924.. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    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.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using 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.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Oxford University Press or the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/resssea.html .

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

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.