IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/taf/applec/v41y2009i5p677-683.html

Current account composition and sustainability of external debt

Author

Listed:
  • Gianpaolo Rossini
  • Paolo Zanghieri

Abstract

If an economy runs a current account (CA) deficit and finances it via a corresponding net inflow of equity capital the external debt (ED) does not change, i.e. the CA deficit does not add to ED. This is no paradox. It simply comes from the definition of CA deficit and ED, and points to different degrees of sustainability of CA deficits according to the way they are financed and to the composition of the CA itself. By the evaluation of the determinants of interest rates spreads vis a vis US lending rates we assess the sustainability of CA deficits. We find that FDI net inflows (proxy of equity capital) allow emerging economies to sustain larger CA imbalances with respect to CA deficits financed by inflows of more liquid assets. Equity capital is a way to finance the CA. It does not contribute to the ED and it affects the solvency assessment of a country.

Suggested Citation

  • Gianpaolo Rossini & Paolo Zanghieri, 2009. "Current account composition and sustainability of external debt," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 41(5), pages 677-683.
    • Handle: RePEc:taf:applec:v:41:y:2009:i:5:p:677-683
    DOI: 10.1080/00036840601007427
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00036840601007427
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1080/00036840601007427?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    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:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Buiter, Willem & Sibert, Anne, 2005. "How the Eurosystem?s Treatment of Collateral in its Open Market Operations Weakens Fiscal Discipline in the Eurozone (and what," CEPR Discussion Papers 5387, Centre for Economic Policy Research.
    2. Maurice Obstfeld & Kenneth S. Rogoff, 1996. "Foundations of International Macroeconomics," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 0262150476, December.
    3. repec:tcd:wpaper:tep16 is not listed on IDEAS
    4. Swati R. Ghosh & Atish R. Ghosh, 2003. "Structural Vulnerabilities and Currency Crises," IMF Staff Papers, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 50(3), pages 1-7.
    5. Milesi-Ferreti, Gian Maria & Razin, Assaf, 1996. "Current account sustainability," Sede de la CEPAL en Santiago (Estudios e Investigaciones) 34294, Naciones Unidas Comisión Económica para América Latina y el Caribe (CEPAL).
    6. Lane, Philip R. & Milesi-Ferretti, Gian Maria, 2004. "Financial globalization and exchange rates," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 19926, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    7. Mr. Axel Schimmelpfennig & Nouriel Roubini & Paolo Manasse, 2003. "Predicting Sovereign Debt Crises," IMF Working Papers 2003/221, International Monetary Fund.
    8. Philip R. Lane & Gian Maria Milesi-Ferretti, 2007. "A Global Perspective on External Positions," NBER Chapters, in: G7 Current Account Imbalances: Sustainability and Adjustment, pages 67-102, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    9. Hong G. Min, 1998. "Determinants of emerging market bond spread : do economic fundamentals matter?," Policy Research Working Paper Series 1899, The World Bank.
    10. repec:wbk:wbpubs:12426 is not listed on IDEAS
    11. Philip R. Lane, 2006. "Global Bond Portfolios and EMU," International Journal of Central Banking, International Journal of Central Banking, vol. 2(2), May.
    12. World Bank, 2005. "World Development Indicators 2005," World Bank Publications - Books, The World Bank Group, number 12425, April.
    13. G. Rossini & P. Zanghieri, 2003. "A simple test of the role of foreign direct investment in the Feldstein- Horioka puzzle," Applied Economics Letters, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 10(1), pages 39-41.
    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. repec:mod:depeco:0011 is not listed on IDEAS
    2. Mihajlo Djukic & Drasko Nikolic, 2012. "Economic Integration and Analysis of External Debt Position of Serbia," Book Chapters, in: Paulino Teixeira & António Portugal Duarte & Srdjan Redzepagic & Dejan Eric (ed.), European Integration Process in Western Balkan Countries, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 26, pages 512-528, Institute of Economic Sciences.
    3. 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".
    4. 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".

    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. Stijn Claessens & Daniela Klingebiel & Sergio L. Schmukler, 2007. "Government Bonds in Domestic and Foreign Currency: the Role of Institutional and Macroeconomic Factors," Review of International Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 15(2), pages 370-413, May.
    2. Apergis, Nicholas & Tsoumas, Chris, 2009. "A survey of the Feldstein-Horioka puzzle: What has been done and where we stand," Research in Economics, Elsevier, vol. 63(2), pages 64-76, June.
    3. Konstantinou, Panagiotis Th., 2010. "Adjustment of US external imbalances: At what horizon?," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 106(3), pages 166-168, March.
    4. Sebastian Edwards, 2007. "On Current Account Surpluses and the Correction of Global Imbalances," NBER Working Papers 12904, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    5. Papaioannou, Elias & Portes, Richard & Siourounis, Gregorios, 2006. "Optimal currency shares in international reserves: The impact of the euro and the prospects for the dollar," Journal of the Japanese and International Economies, Elsevier, vol. 20(4), pages 508-547, December.
    6. Obstfeld, Maurice, 2012. "Financial flows, financial crises, and global imbalances," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 31(3), pages 469-480.
    7. Corsetti, Giancarlo & Pesenti, Paolo & Roubini, Nouriel, 1999. "What caused the Asian currency and financial crisis?," Japan and the World Economy, Elsevier, vol. 11(3), pages 305-373, October.
    8. Coeurdacier, Nicolas & Kollmann, Robert & Martin, Philippe, 2010. "International portfolios, capital accumulation and foreign assets dynamics," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 80(1), pages 100-112, January.
    9. Christopher M. Meissner & Alan M. Taylor, 2006. "Losing our marbles in the new century?: the great rebalancing in historical perspective," Conference Series ; [Proceedings], Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, vol. 51.
    10. Maurice Obstfeld & Kenneth S. Rogoff, 2005. "The unsustainable U.S. current account position revisited," Proceedings, Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, issue feb.
    11. Marcos Chamon & Paolo Manasse & Alessandro Prati, 2007. "Can We Predict the Next Capital Account Crisis?," IMF Staff Papers, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 54(2), pages 270-305, June.
    12. Aleksander Aristovnik, 2005. "Current Account Reversals In Selected Transition Countries," International Finance 0510021, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    13. Giancarlo Corsetti & Paolo Pesenti & Nouriel Roubini, 1998. "What Caused the Asian Currency and Financial Crisis? Part II: The Policy Debate," NBER Working Papers 6834, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    14. Ahmet Atil Asici, 2010. "Parametric and non-parametric approaches to exits from fixed exchange rate regimes," International Journal of Finance & Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 15(4), pages 381-406.
    15. Aleksander Aristovnik, 2005. "Twin Deficits Hypothesis And Horioka-Feldstein Puzzle In Transition Economies," International Finance 0510020, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    16. Moura, Guilherme V. & Richard, Jean-François & Liesenfeld, Roman, 2007. "Dynamic Panel Probit Models for Current Account Reversals and their Efficient Estimation," Economics Working Papers 2007-11, Christian-Albrechts-University of Kiel, Department of Economics.
    17. Philip Lane, 2010. "External Imbalances and Fiscal Policy," The Institute for International Integration Studies Discussion Paper Series iiisdp314, IIIS.
    18. Juan Carlos Cuestas & Paulo José Regis, 2013. "On the relationship between exchange rates and external imbalances: East and Southeast Asia," Working Papers 13-08, Asociación Española de Economía y Finanzas Internacionales.
    19. Iris Claus & David Haugh & Grant Scobie & Jonas Tornquist, 2001. "Saving and growth in an open economy," Treasury Working Paper Series 01/32, New Zealand Treasury.
    20. Tille, Cédric & van Wincoop, Eric, 2010. "International capital flows," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 80(2), pages 157-175, March.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • E44 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Money and Interest Rates - - - Financial Markets and the Macroeconomy
    • F34 - International Economics - - International Finance - - - International Lending and Debt Problems

    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:taf:applec:v:41:y:2009:i:5:p:677-683. 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.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic 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.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Chris Longhurst (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.tandfonline.com/RAEC20 .

    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.