We show that the current account balance (CA) is systematically distorted by an inflation effect, which arises because income on debt is recorded as nominal interest in the currency of denomination. Since nominal interest includes compensations for expected inflation, increases in the latter must impact the CA. Guided by the relevant international accounting rules, we impute the inflation effect for 50 economies between 1991 and 2017. When adjusting for the inflation effect, the absolute value of yearly CAs drops by 0.13% of GDP on average. Over the full period, the reduction is a sizable 22.85% of initial GDP for the average country (26.4% for the U.S.). As the flip side of the CA distortions, the inflation effect contributes systematically to the well-known valuation effect of net foreign assets. For the average country, the inflation effect accounts for a twelfth of the valuation effect, for the U.S., it accounts for well over a half.

我们表明，经常账户余额（CA）受到通货膨胀效应的系统扭曲，这是由于债务收入记录为以计价货币表示的名义利息。由于名义利息包括对预期通货膨胀的补偿，因此后者的增加必须影响CA。在相关国际会计准则的指导下，我们估算了1991年至2017年之间50个经济体的通货膨胀效应。在调整通货膨胀效应后，年度CA的绝对值平均下降GDP的0.13％。在整个时期内，平均每个国家的减少幅度约为初始GDP的22.85％（美国为26.4％）。随着CA失真的另一面，膨胀效应有系统地为国外资产净值的知名度评估做出贡献。对于普通国家而言，通货膨胀效应占估值效应的十二分之一，对美国而言，通货膨胀效应占一半以上。