Research On Influencing Factors To Global Imbalances From The Countries Comparative Perspective

In recent years, Global Imbalances has become a prominent phenomenon presentedin the world economy operation. On the one hand, the current account balance of somedeveloped countries, represented by the United States, has been in huge deficit for years;on the other hand, the emerging and developing economies represented by China haveremained a huge current account surplus. The depths of the current account imbalancesbetween countries take huge systemic risks to the world economy operation; the outbreakof the global financial crisis in2008was the concentrated release because of continuedaccumulation of Global Imbalances. This article hopes to reveal the deep-seated reasonswhich impact of Global Imbalances through the study of the influencing factors to GlobalImbalances.On the basis of reviewing previous research literature and classical theory of theGlobal Imbalances, this paper selected countries with different economic backgroundsincluding China, Germany and ASEAN-5as the object of countries comparative study.We first compared and summarized the stylized facts of the current account imbalances ofthese countries in recent years, on this basis; we selected the relevant variables anddivided empirical analysis on country comparison of the Global Imbalances into two parts.One part take China and Germany as a sample, use Unit Root Test, Cointegration Test,and set up Error Correction Models in both countries to compared and summarized theircurrent account imbalances; another part take each country of the ASEAN-5as across-section in panel data analysis, and use cross-section Seemingly UnrelatedRegression (SUR) method to analyze the influencing factors to the current accountimbalances of the ASEAN-5.Through the empirical analysis, and after summarized and compared the factorsaffect the fluctuation of current account of countries with different economic backgrounds,we got the following conclusions: the Gross capital formation (%of GDP) and Grossdomestic savings (%of GDP) are the combined effect of the current Global Imbalances,but compared to Germany and ASEAN-5, China’s current account is more affected by external factors, especially the fluctuation of U.S. current account. Considering theconclusions based on the empirical analysis, we put forward some policy suggestionswhich should be taken by China to face the external risk of the current Global Imbalances,and point out the direction of further research.