This paper analyses the emergence of current account imbalances as a result of the co-existence of trade flows and financial flows. The literature has tended to view these factors in isolation: many post-Kaleckian models, as well as Net-saving approaches assume that financial flows will adjust to trade flows. Models focusing on financial crises feature a strong role for financial flows but ignore drivers of trade flows. Similarly, empirical analyses either ignore drivers of financial flows or insufficiently capture determinants of trade flows. The paper, first, proposes a simple macroeconomic framework of the current account which gives equal emphasis to trade flows, determined by price competitiveness, and financial flows, determined by asset prices. Second, we test a reduced form of the model for 28 OECD countries for the period 1971-2014. Our results indicate that cost competitiveness as well as asset prices play a role in the determination of current accounts, but asset prices have dominated in the last two decades.

中文翻译：

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经常账户是由成本竞争力还是资产价格驱动？综合模型和实证检验

本文分析了贸易流动和金融流动并存导致经常账户失衡的出现。文献倾向于孤立地看待这些因素：许多后 Kaleckian 模型以及净储蓄方法都假设金融流量将根据贸易流量进行调整。关注金融危机的模型在金融流动方面发挥了重要作用，但忽略了贸易流动的驱动因素。同样，实证分析要么忽略了资金流动的驱动因素，要么没有充分捕捉贸易流动的决定因素。该文件首先提出了一个简单的经常账户宏观经济框架，该框架同等重视由价格竞争力决定的贸易流量和由资产价格决定的金融流量。其次，我们测试了 1971-2014 年期间 28 个 OECD 国家的模型的简化形式。