Balance of payments
From Hobson's Choice
The balance of payments is the systematic record of all economic transactions that take place during a given period of time between residents of the reporting country and the rest of the world; apprebviated "BoP." The outline of national income and product accounting below is derived from IMF standards.
US BALANCE OF PAYMENTS (millions of $)
(credits +, debits -)
Line # Category Value Current Account 1 Exports of goods, services and income receipts 2,591,233 3 Goods 1,276,994 4 Services 549,602 13 Income receipts on US assets abroad 761,593 14 Direct investment receipts 370,747 15 Other private receipts 385,940 16 US government receipts 4,906 18 Imports of goods, services, and income -3,168,938 20 Goods -2,117,245 21 Services -405,287 30 Income payments on foreign assets in the US -636,043 31 Direct investment payments -120,862 32 Other private payments -349,871 33 US government payments -165,310 35 Unilateral transfers, net -128,363 Capital Account 39 Capital Account transactions, net 953 Financial Account 40 US assets abroad (incr./financial outflow) -106 41 US official reserve assets -4,848 46 US government assets -529,615 50 US private assets 534,357 51 Direct investment -332,012 52 Foreign securities 60,761 53 US claims reported by US non-banks 372,229 54 US claims reported by US banks 433,379 55 Foreign assets in the US (increase/financial inflow) 534,071 56 Foreign official assets in US 487,021 63 Other foreign assets in US, net 47,050 64 Direct investment 319,737 65 US treasury securities 196,619 66 US securities other than t-bills -126,737 67 US currency 29,187 68 US liabilities reported by US non-banks -45,167 69 US liabilities reported by US banks -326,589 71 Statistical Discrepancy (sum of above with sign reversed) 200,055
The implications of a large BoP deficit by any one country is a matter of controversy. Some have argued that, as long as a critical mass of currency markets regard the US dollar as reliable, the US dollar acts as a sort of new gold exchange standard, a commodity-money standard that just happens to be universally accepted. This cheerful view of the matter is convincingly refuted by Roubini & Setser (2005).[1] Generally speaking, there is a grave danger that the vast global stockpile of US dollars abroad will become, in effect, an unsecured liability. A safeguard against this would be to contrive trade policy to ensure that a time-discounted value of future US trade surpluses is not significantly different from the net accumulation of past balances. This would, of course, require many years.
Notes
- ↑ Nouriel Roubini & Brad Setser, "Will the Bretton Woods 2 Regime Unravel Soon? The Risk of a Hard Landing in 2005-2006"
; paper written for Symposium on the "Revived Bretton Woods System: A New Paradigm for AsianDevelopment?" organized by Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco and UC Berkeley, (Feb 2005)
Also at this Site
Net international investment position (NIPA)
Capital account balance (NPNNA)
Current account balance (CAB)
Financial account balance (NKT)
External Links
- Nouriel Roubini & Brad Setser, "Will the Bretton Woods 2 Regime Unravel Soon? The Risk of a Hard Landing in 2005-2006" ; paper written for Symposium on the "Revived Bretton Woods System: A New Paradigm for Asian Development?" organized by Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco and UC Berkeley, (Feb 2005)
- Brad Setser's weblog
- Bureau of Economic Analysis, International Economic Accounts (statistics)
James R MacLean (16:07, 25 June 2009 (PDT))
