The current account deficit of the United States is more than six percent of its gross domestic product—an all-time high. And the rest of the world, including other G7 countries such as Japan and Germany, must collectively run current account surpluses to finance this deficit. How long can such unevenness between imports and exports be sustained, and what form might their eventual reconciliation take? Putting forth scenarios ranging from a gradual correction to a crash landing for the dollar, G7 Current Account Imbalances brings together economists from around the globe to consider the origins, status, and future of those disparities. An esteemed group of collaborators here examines the role of the bursting of the dot-com bubble, the history of previous episodes of current account adjustments, and the possibility of the Euro surpassing the dollar as the leading international reserve currency. Though there are areas of broad agreement—that the imbalances will ultimately decline and that currency revaluations will be part of the solution—many areas of contention remain regarding both the dangers of imbalances and the possible forms of adjustment. This volume will be of tremendous value to economists, politicians, and business leaders alike as they look to the future of the G7 economies.

This volume collects the eleven original papers that were written for the NBER Project on G7 Current Account Imbalances. Four major themes emerged from the papers written for the project. First, there was broad agreement that the current account imbalances that prevailed among the G7 countries as of June 2005 would ultimately decline, although there was no consensus on when or how this would occur . Second, there was agreement that adjustments in global currency markets would likely be associated with the shifts in global saving and investment patterns that would be required to bring about the ultimate decline in G7 current account imbalances. Third, while the focus of the conference was on current account imbalances in the G7 countries, it was recognized that the aggregate excess of saving over investment that existed among the emerging market economies at the time of the conference, as well as the currency intervention policies of some of these countries, were contributing to the current imbalances in the G7 that prevailed as of June 2005. Fourth, there was a consensus that re-valuation of the evolving foreign asset and liability positions of the G7 countries would play a role during process by which current account imbalances narrowed, although there was range of opinion concerning how large a role such revaluation effects would play.

We find evidence of threshold behavior in current account adjustment for the G7 countries, such that the dynamics of adjustment towards equilibrium depend upon whether the current-account/ net-output ratio breaches estimated, country specific current account surplus or deficit thresholds. Both the speeds of adjustment and the size of the thresholds are found to differ significantly across countries. In addition, we also find evidence of shifts in means and variances of exchange rate changes, stock returns, and interest differentials that coincide with the current account adjustment regimes identified by the model.

Economic indicators such as GDP, current account deficit, foreign direct investment, and total credit, have played an important role in adjusting a country's economy. In order to obtain desirable results, policy makers should understand how much valuable these economic tools can be while they are making their decisions. This book intends to help create an understanding of how these indicators can be managed and made use of in adjusting a country's economy policies not only for policy makers but also for academics and those dealing with the market. With this respect, the relationship among economic indicators such as current account deficit, GDP, foreign direct investment, and total credits for G7 countries for the period between 1990-2011 was studied using panel co-integration tests and causality tests developed by leading academics all around the world.

"Gross stocks of foreign assets have increased rapidly relative to national outputs since 1990, and the short-run capital gains and losses on those assets can amount to significant fractions of GDP. These fluctuations in asset values render the national income and product account measure of the current account balance increasingly inadequate as a summary of the change in a country's net foreign assets. Nonetheless, unusually large current account imbalances, especially deficits, should remain high on policymakers' list of concerns, even for the richer and less credit-constrained countries. Extreme imbalances signal the need for large and perhaps abrupt real exchange rate changes in the future, changes that might have undesired political and financial consequences given the incompleteness of domestic and international asset markets. Furthermore, of the two sources of the change in net foreign assets -- the current account and the capital gain on the net foreign asset position -- the former is better understood and more amenable to policy influence. Systematic government attempts to manipulate international asset values in order to change the net foreign asset position could have a destabilizing effect on market expectations"--NBER website