Original scientific paper
https://doi.org/10.1080/1331677X.2017.1340179
External imbalances in emerging and advanced European countries
Boris Cota
orcid.org/0000-0002-0943-2198
; Department of Macroeconomics and Economic Development, Faculty of Economics and Business, University of Zagreb, Zagreb, Croatia
Nataša Erjavec
orcid.org/0000-0002-0943-2198
; Department of Statistics, Faculty of Economics and Business, University of Zagreb, Zagreb, Croatia
Željko Bogdan
; Department of Macroeconomics and Economic Development, Faculty of Economics and Business, University of Zagreb, Zagreb, Croatia
Abstract
This paper aims to explain some developments in current accounts
across advanced and emerging European countries with a fixed
exchange rate. Our main goal is to identify key factors affecting
the external imbalances. This assessment of the cause of external
imbalances will help us understand what has to be changed in
European economies to recover the external balances going
forward. We estimated a panel VAR model over the period 1999 to
2014 for a sample of 11 European countries that were split into two
groups: advanced and emerging. The obtained results show that
the real effective exchange rate has a negative effect on the current
account balance in both groups of countries, although the effect is
more pronounced in emerging than in advanced countries. Other
variables such as the budget balance, economic growth, and output
gap affect current account balance positively in advanced countries
and negatively in emerging countries. Economic activity captured by
output gap explains the highest portion of current account variations
in emerging countries. In advanced countries, in addition to economic
activity, the real exchange rate also plays a prominent role in current
account imbalances.
Keywords
Current account balance; price competitiveness; fiscal balance; capital nflow; panel VAR
Hrčak ID:
193199
URI
Publication date:
1.12.2017.
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