IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/nbr/nberwo/1336.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

External Debt, Budget Deficits and Disequilibrium Exchange Rates

Author

Listed:
  • Rudiger Dornbusch

Abstract

The paper investigates the sources of debt and debt difficulties for a group of Latin American countries. It is argued that external shocks -- oil, interest rates, world recession and the fall in real commodity prices -- cannot account by themselves for the problems. Budget deficits that accommodate terms of trade deterioration and disequilibrium exchange rates are central to a complete explanation. The paper documents that in Chile an extreme currency overvaluation led to a massive shift into imported consumer durables while in Argentina overvaluation in conjunction with financial instability led to large-scale capital flight. In the case of Brazil the budget deficit is the explanation for the growth in external indebtedness.The difference in the experience of the three countries reflects the difference in their openness to the world economy.

Suggested Citation

  • Rudiger Dornbusch, 1984. "External Debt, Budget Deficits and Disequilibrium Exchange Rates," NBER Working Papers 1336, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:1336
    Note: ITI IFM
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.nber.org/papers/w1336.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Barro, Robert J, 1974. "Are Government Bonds Net Wealth?," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 82(6), pages 1095-1117, Nov.-Dec..
    2. Obstfeld, Maurice, 1983. "Intertemporal price speculation and the optimal current-account deficit," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 2(2), pages 135-145, August.
    3. Jeffrey Sachs, 1982. "LDC Debt in the 1980s: Risk and Reforms," NBER Working Papers 0861, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    4. Bruno, Michael, 1976. "The Two-Sector Open Economy and the Real Exchange Rate," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 66(4), pages 566-577, September.
    5. Dornbusch, Rudiger, 1983. "Real Interest Rates, Home Goods, and Optimal External Borrowing," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 91(1), pages 141-153, February.
    6. Olivier Jean Blanchard, 1983. "Debt and the Current Account Deficit in Brazil," NBER Chapters, in: Financial Policies and the World Capital Market: The Problem of Latin American Countries, pages 187-198, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Tarlok Singh, 2007. "Intertemporal Optimizing Models Of Trade And Current Account Balance: A Survey," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 21(1), pages 25-64, February.
    2. Maurice Obstfeld, 1985. "The Capital Inflows Problem Revisited: A Stylized Model of Southern Cone Disinflation," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 52(4), pages 605-625.
    3. Etro, Federico, 2017. "Research in economics and macroeconomics," Research in Economics, Elsevier, vol. 71(3), pages 373-383.
    4. LAL, Deepak & van Wijnbergen, Sweder, 1985. "Government deficits, the real interest rate and LDC debt : On global crowding out," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 29(2), pages 157-191.
    5. Philip L. Brock, 2009. "Collateral Constraints and Macroeconomic Adjustment in an Open Economy," Working Papers UWEC-2009-03, University of Washington, Department of Economics.
    6. Joshua Aizenman, 1985. "Wage Flexibility and Openness," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 100(2), pages 539-550.
    7. Davis, George K. & Miller, Norman C., 1996. "Exchange rate mean reversion from real shocks within an intertemporal equilibrium model," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 15(6), pages 947-967, December.
    8. Chae-Deug Yi, 2003. "An Empirical Analysis of Ricardian Equivalence on Real Exchange Rate and Current Account: Korea," International Economic Journal, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 17(4), pages 61-83.
    9. Chen Fang & Po-Sheng Lin, 2013. "Traded Bond Denominations, Shock Persistence and Current Account Dynamics: Another Look at the Harberger–Laursen–Metzler Effect," Pacific Economic Review, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 18(4), pages 502-529, October.
    10. wei-bin zhang, 2016. "Public Debt and Economic Growth in Uzawa?s Two-Sector Model with Public Goods," International Journal of Economic Sciences, International Institute of Social and Economic Sciences, vol. 5(4), pages 51-72, December.
    11. Michael Mussa, 1985. "The Real Exchange Rate as a Tool of Commercial Policy," NBER Working Papers 1577, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    12. Joshua Aizenman & Marcelo Selowsky, 1987. "Costly Adjustment and Limited Borrowing: A Welfare Analysis of Policiesto Achieve External Balance," NBER Working Papers 2315, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    13. Luis Zambrano Sequín & Matías Riutort & Rafael Muñoz & Juan Carlos Guevara, 1998. "El ahorro privado en Venezuela: Tendencias y determinantes," Research Department Publications 3021, Inter-American Development Bank, Research Department.
    14. Obstfeld, Maurice & Stockman, Alan C., 1985. "Exchange-rate dynamics," Handbook of International Economics, in: R. W. Jones & P. B. Kenen (ed.), Handbook of International Economics, edition 1, volume 2, chapter 18, pages 917-977, Elsevier.
    15. Keuschnigg, Christian & Kohler, Wilhelm K., 1991. "An intertemporal CGE model for Austria: Model structure and calibration," Discussion Papers, Series II 152, University of Konstanz, Collaborative Research Centre (SFB) 178 "Internationalization of the Economy".
    16. Ragnar Torvik, 1997. "Real exchange rate dynamics and trade liberalization: the case of multiple tariffs and unemployment," The Journal of International Trade & Economic Development, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 6(3), pages 329-344.
    17. Aizenman, Joshua & Frenkel, Jacob A., 1988. "Sectorial wages and the real exchange rate," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 24(1-2), pages 69-91, February.
    18. Gundlach, Erich & Scheide, Joachim & Sinn, Stefan, 1990. "Die Entwicklung nationaler Auslandsvermögenspositionen: Konsequenzen für die Wirtschaftspolitik," Open Access Publications from Kiel Institute for the World Economy 414, Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel).
    19. Alogoskoufis, George, 2021. "Asymmetries of financial openness in an optimal growth model," The Journal of Economic Asymmetries, Elsevier, vol. 23(C).
    20. Serven, Luis, 1999. "Terms-of-trade shocks and optimal investment: another look at the Laursen-Metzler effect," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 18(3), pages 337-365.

    More about this item

    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:nbr:nberwo:1336. 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: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/nberrus.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.