IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/cdl/ucscec/qt3zx245jn.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Global Imbalances: Is Germany the new China? A Skeptical View

Author

Listed:
  • Aizenman, Joshua
  • Sengupta, Rajeswari

Abstract

In this paper we evaluate the current account patterns of China and Germany. Wepoint out that China's current account surplus as a share of global GDP in recent yearsresembles that of Germany’s. Yet, an important difference is that the Euro block’scurrent account inclusive of Germany has overall been balanced, whereas emergingAsia's current account inclusive of China has mostly been characterized by sizablesurpluses. We further find that both China and Germany's current account surplusesseem to be accounted for by common factors. However we have reasons to doubt thelong run viability of these current account trends in future decades. Demographictransitions in China and Germany are projected to reduce their surpluses, and thiseffect is stronger for Germany. We also discuss plausible reasons to doubt the extentto which the Euro block will move towards significant surplus in the coming years.

Suggested Citation

  • Aizenman, Joshua & Sengupta, Rajeswari, 2010. "Global Imbalances: Is Germany the new China? A Skeptical View," Santa Cruz Department of Economics, Working Paper Series qt3zx245jn, Department of Economics, UC Santa Cruz.
    • Handle: RePEc:cdl:ucscec:qt3zx245jn
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.escholarship.org/uc/item/3zx245jn.pdf;origin=repeccitec
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Maurice Obstfeld & Kenneth S. Rogoff, 1996. "Foundations of International Macroeconomics," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 0262150476, December.
    2. Robert C. Feenstra & Shang-Jin Wei, 2010. "Introduction to "China's Growing Role in World Trade"," NBER Chapters, in: China's Growing Role in World Trade, pages 1-31, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    3. Michael P. Dooley & David Folkerts-Landau & Peter M. Garber, 2005. "An essay on the revived Bretton Woods system," Proceedings, Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, issue Feb.
    4. Michael D. Bordo & David C. Wheelock, 2004. "Monetary policy and asset prices: a look back at past U.S. stock market booms," Review, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, vol. 86(Nov), pages 19-44.
    5. Chamon, Marcos & Liu, Kai & Prasad, Eswar, 2013. "Income uncertainty and household savings in China," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 105(C), pages 164-177.
    6. Robert C. Feenstra & Shang-Jin Wei, 2010. "China's Growing Role in World Trade," NBER Books, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc, number feen07-1, March.
    7. Peter H. Lindert, 2003. "Why the Welfare State Looks Like a Free Lunch," NBER Working Papers 9869, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    8. Gruber, Joseph W. & Kamin, Steven B., 2007. "Explaining the global pattern of current account imbalances," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 26(4), pages 500-522, June.
    9. Aizenman, Joshua & Sun, Yi, 2010. "Globalization and the sustainability of large current account imbalances: Size matters," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 32(1), pages 35-44, March.
    10. Aizenman, Joshua & Jinjarak, Yothin, 2009. "Current account patterns and national real estate markets," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 66(2), pages 75-89, September.
    11. Chinn, Menzie D. & Prasad, Eswar S., 2003. "Medium-term determinants of current accounts in industrial and developing countries: an empirical exploration," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 59(1), pages 47-76, January.
    12. Eswar S. Prasad & Raghuram G. Rajan & Arvind Subramanian, 2007. "Foreign Capital and Economic Growth," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 38(1), pages 153-230.
    13. Reuven Glick & Kevin J. Lansing, 2009. "U.S. household deleveraging and future consumption growth," FRBSF Economic Letter, Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, issue may15.
    14. Harris Dellas & George S. Tavlas, 2011. "The fatal flaw: the revived Bretton-woods system, liquidity creation, and commodity-price bubbles," Working Papers 122, Bank of Greece.
    15. Spaventa, Luigi & Giavazzi, Francesco, 2010. "Why the current account may matter in a monetary union: Lessons from the financial crisis in the Euro area," CEPR Discussion Papers 8008, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    16. Peter H. Lindert, 2003. "Why the Welfare State Looks Like a Free Lunch," NBER Working Papers 9869, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    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. Yin-Wong Cheung & Sven Steinkamp & Frank Westermann, 2020. "A Tale of Two Surplus Countries: China and Germany," Open Economies Review, Springer, vol. 31(1), pages 131-158, February.
    2. Guangfeng Zhang & Ronald MacDonald, 2014. "Real Exchange Rates, the Trade Balance and Net Foreign Assets: Long-Run Relationships and Measures of Misalignment," Open Economies Review, Springer, vol. 25(4), pages 635-653, September.
    3. Carlos A. Carrasco & Patricia Peinado, 2015. "On the Origin of European Imbalances in the Context of European Integration," Panoeconomicus, Savez ekonomista Vojvodine, Novi Sad, Serbia, vol. 62(2), pages 177-191, June.
    4. Carlos A. Carrasco & Felipe Serrano, 2014. "Global and European Imbalances:A critical review," Working papers wpaper42, Financialisation, Economy, Society & Sustainable Development (FESSUD) Project.
    5. Gu, Xinhua & Tam, Pui Sun & Lei, Chun Kwok, 2021. "The effects of inequality in the 1997–98 Asian crisis and the 2008–09 global tsunami: The case of five Asian economies," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 110(C).
    6. Marchetti, Juan & Ruta, Michele & Teh, Robert, 2012. "Trade imbalances and multilateral trade cooperation," WTO Staff Working Papers ERSD-2012-23, World Trade Organization (WTO), Economic Research and Statistics Division.
    7. Hoffmann, Mathias, 2013. "What drives China's current account?," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 32(C), pages 856-883.
    8. Robert N. McCauley & Guonan Ma, 2013. "Global and Euro Imbalances: China and Germany," SUERF 50th Anniversary Volume Chapters, in: Morten Balling & Ernest Gnan (ed.), 50 Years of Money and Finance: Lessons and Challenges, chapter 2, pages 43-72, SUERF - The European Money and Finance Forum.

    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. Smith, Constance E., 2011. "External balance adjustment: An intra-national and international comparison," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 30(6), pages 1195-1213, October.
    2. Duncan, Roberto, 2015. "A threshold model of the US current account," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 48(C), pages 270-280.
    3. Menzie D. Chinn & Barry Eichengreen & Hiro Ito, 2014. "A forensic analysis of global imbalances," Oxford Economic Papers, Oxford University Press, vol. 66(2), pages 465-490.
    4. Joshua Aizenman, 2015. "Internationalization of the RMB, Capital Market Openness and Financial Reforms in China," Pacific Economic Review, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 20(3), pages 444-460, August.
    5. Florian Morvillier, 2018. "On the impact of the launch of the euro on EMU macroeconomic vulnerability," EconomiX Working Papers 2018-51, University of Paris Nanterre, EconomiX.
    6. Herrmann, Sabine & Winkler, Adalbert, 2009. "Real convergence, financial markets, and the current account - Emerging Europe versus emerging Asia," The North American Journal of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 20(2), pages 100-123, August.
    7. Mariam Camarero & Josep Lluís Carrion‐i‐Silvestre & Cecilio Tamarit, 2021. "External imbalances from a GVAR perspective," The World Economy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 44(11), pages 3202-3245, November.
    8. Leonor Coutinho & Alessandro Turrini & Stefan Zeugner, 2018. "Methodologies for the Assessment of Current Account Benchmarks," European Economy - Discussion Papers 086, Directorate General Economic and Financial Affairs (DG ECFIN), European Commission.
    9. Aizenman, Joshua & Jinjarak, Yothin & Marion, Nancy P., 2014. "The People's Republic of China's Growth, Stability, and Use of International Reserves," ADBI Working Papers 455, Asian Development Bank Institute.
    10. Joshua Aizenman & Yothin Jinjarak & Nancy Marion, 2014. "China’s Growth, Stability, and Use of International Reserves," Open Economies Review, Springer, vol. 25(3), pages 407-428, July.
    11. Joshua Aizenman, 2015. "Internationalization of the RMB, Capital Market Openness and Financial Reforms in China," Pacific Economic Review, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 20(3), pages 444-460, August.
    12. Lone Christiansen & Alessandro Prati & Luca Antonio Ricci & Thierry Tressel, 2010. "External Balance in Low-Income Countries," NBER Chapters, in: NBER International Seminar on Macroeconomics 2009, pages 265-322, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    13. Slavov, Slavi T., 2009. "Do common currencies facilitate the net flow of capital among countries?," The North American Journal of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 20(2), pages 124-144, August.
    14. repec:zbw:bofitp:2015_004 is not listed on IDEAS
    15. Lane, Philip R. & Milesi-Ferretti, Gian Maria, 2012. "External adjustment and the global crisis," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 88(2), pages 252-265.
    16. Dramane Coulibaly & Blaise Gnimassoun & Valérie Mignon, 2018. "The tale of two international phenomena: International migration and global imbalances," Working Papers 2018-02, CEPII research center.
    17. Hoffmann, Mathias, 2013. "What drives China's current account?," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 32(C), pages 856-883.
    18. Chen, Qiuyu & Feng, Ling & Li, Zhiyuan & Lin, Ching-Yi, 2021. "Housing prices and trade surpluses in China: An inter-temporal approach," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 110(C).
    19. Joshua Aizenman & Brian Pinto, 2013. "Managing Financial Integration and Capital Mobility—Policy Lessons from the Past Two Decades," Review of International Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 21(4), pages 636-653, September.
    20. Blaise Gnimassoun & Valérie Mignon, 2013. "Current-account adjustments and exchange-rate misalignments," Working Papers hal-04141182, HAL.
    21. Blaise Gnimassoun, 2014. "The importance of the exchange rate regime in limiting current account imbalances in sub-Saharan African countries," Working Papers hal-04141342, HAL.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Social and Behavioral Sciences; current accounts; demographic transitions; global imbalances;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • F15 - International Economics - - Trade - - - Economic Integration
    • F32 - International Economics - - International Finance - - - Current Account Adjustment; Short-term Capital Movements

    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:cdl:ucscec:qt3zx245jn. 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: Lisa Schiff (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/ecucsus.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.