16.5 Balance of trade concerns  (Page 2/9)

Concerns over international flows of capital

Recall from The Macroeconomic Perspective that a trade deficit    exists when a nation’s imports exceed its exports. In order for a trade deficit to take place, foreign countries must provide loans or investments, which they are willing to do because they expect they will be repaid eventually (that the deficit will become a surplus). A trade surplus    , you may remember, exists when a nation’s exports exceed its imports. So, in order for a trade deficit to switch to a trade surplus, a nation’s exports must rise and its imports must fall. Sometimes this happens when the currency decreases in value. For example, if the U.S. had a trade deficit and the dollar depreciated, imports would become more expensive. This would, in turn, benefit the foreign countries who provided the loans or investments.

The expected pattern of trade imbalances in the world economy has been that high-income economies will run trade surpluses, which means they will experience a net outflow of capital to foreign destinations or export more than they import, while low- and middle-income economies will run trade deficits, which means that they will experience a net inflow of foreign capital.

This pattern of international investing can benefit all sides. Investors in the high-income countries benefit because they can receive high returns on their investments, and also because they can diversify their investments so that they are at less risk of a downturn in their own domestic economy. The low-income economies that receive an inflow of capital presumably have potential for rapid catch-up economic growth, and they can use the inflow of international financial capital to help spur their physical capital investment. In addition, inflows of financial capital often come with management abilities, technological expertise, and training.

However, for the last couple of decades, this cheerful scenario has faced two “dark clouds.” The first cloud is the very large trade or current account deficits in the U.S. economy. (See The International Trade and Capital Flows .) Instead of offering net financial investment abroad, the U.S. economy is soaking up savings from all over the world. These substantial U.S. trade deficits may not be sustainable according to Sebastian Edwards writing for the National Bureau of Economic Research . While trade deficits on their own are not bad, the question is whether they will be reduced gradually or hastily. In the gradual scenario, U.S. exports could grow more rapidly than imports over a period of years, aided by a depreciation of the U.S. dollar. An unintended consequence of the slow growth since the Great Recession has been a decline in the size of the U.S. current account deficit from 6% pre-recession to 3% most recently.

The other option is that the U.S. trade deficit could be reduced in a rush. Here is one scenario: if foreign investors became less willing to hold U.S. dollar assets, the dollar exchange rate could weaken. As speculators see this process happening, they might rush to unload their dollar assets, which would drive the dollar down still further.