How "Global" Are Global Imbalances?

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home > think tank > center for geoeconomic studies > Geo-Graphics > How “Global” Are Global Imbalances?

Posted on Monday, November 23rd, 2009

By the Center for Geoeconomic Studies

Global imbalances, as reflected in the current account deficits and surpluses of the world's major regions, fell with the collapse of trade and oil prices in 2008, but should rise again as both recover. This chart shows that global imbalances are driven primarily by the U.S. and China. Absent significant macroeconomic policy changes in one or both, the likelihood of a sustained, significant improvement in global imbalances, without another crisis, is small.

Dunaway: The U.S.-China Economic Relationship Dunaway: Global Imbalances and the Financial Crisis Frieden: Global Imbalances, National Rebalancing, and the Political Economy of Recovery Backgrounder: Confronting the China-U.S. Economic Imbalance

This entry was posted on Monday, November 23rd, 2009 at 2:25 pm and is filed under 2008/9 Downturn, China, U.S.. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

great figure! Could you send me the underlying data – that is the numbers for total and US-China? Of course, things would look even more extreme if you did ROW rather than total. I have written a piece arguing that imbalances are not going away and that it will be a major challenge for the g-20 to deal with. The paper will come out in a new LSE journal Global Policy is January. You can access the draft here: http://ussc.edu.au/s/media/docs/publications/0911_garrett_g20.pdf

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