IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/fip/fedder/y1996iqivp10-20.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Trade deficits: causes and consequences

Author

Listed:
  • David M. Gould
  • Roy J. Ruffin

Abstract

According to conventional wisdom, trade balances reflect a country's competitive strength-the lower the trade deficit, the stronger the country's industries and the higher its rate of economic growth. In this article, David Gould and Roy Ruffin review the history of the conventional wisdom and empirically examine whether large overall trade deficits or bilateral trade imbalances are associated with lower rates of economic growth. They find that, once the fundamental determinants of growth have been accounted for, trade imbalances have little effect on rates of economic growth.

Suggested Citation

  • David M. Gould & Roy J. Ruffin, 1996. "Trade deficits: causes and consequences," Economic and Financial Policy Review, Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas, issue Q IV, pages 10-20.
    • Handle: RePEc:fip:fedder:y:1996:i:qiv:p:10-20
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.dallasfed.org/~/media/documents/research/er/1996/er9604b.pdf
    File Function: Full Text
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. N. Gregory Mankiw & David Romer & David N. Weil, 1992. "A Contribution to the Empirics of Economic Growth," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 107(2), pages 407-437.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Gazi M. Hassan & Mark J. Holmes, 2016. "Do Remittances Facilitate a Sustainable Current Account?," The World Economy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 39(11), pages 1834-1853, November.
    2. Mubasher Iqbal & Rukshana Kalim & Noman Arshed, 2019. "Domestic and Foreign Incomes and Trade Balance - A Case of South Asian Economies," Asian Development Policy Review, Asian Economic and Social Society, vol. 7(4), pages 355-368, December.
    3. Aliyev, Khatai, 2014. "Expected Macroeconomic Impacts of the Accession to WTO on Azerbaijan Economy: Empirical Analysis," MPRA Paper 55096, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    4. Arize, Augustine C., 2002. "Imports and exports in 50 countries: Tests of cointegration and structural breaks," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 11(1), pages 101-115, April.
    5. Heidari, Hassan & Katircioglu, Salih Turan & Davoudi, Narmin, 2012. "Are current account deficits sustainable? New evidence from Iran using bounds test approach to level relationships," Economics - The Open-Access, Open-Assessment E-Journal (2007-2020), Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel), vol. 6, pages 1-18.
    6. Turner, Elizabeth H. & Pacheco-Paredes, Arturo & Wheatley, Clark, 2024. "Transfer of knowledge: Do trade surpluses foster quality in accounting practices?," Economic Analysis and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 81(C), pages 436-451.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Gianfranco DI VAIO & Michele BATTISTI, 2010. "A Spatially-Filtered Mixture of Beta-Convergence Regression for EU Regions, 1980-2002," Regional and Urban Modeling 284100013, EcoMod.
    2. Rao, B. Bhaskara, 2010. "Estimates of the steady state growth rates for selected Asian countries with an extended Solow model," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 27(1), pages 46-53, January.
    3. Youngho Kang & Byung-Yeon Kim, 2018. "Immigration and economic growth: do origin and destination matter?," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 50(46), pages 4968-4984, October.
    4. repec:zbw:rwidps:0030 is not listed on IDEAS
    5. Esa Mangeloja, 2004. "Interrelationship of economic growth and regional religious properties," ERSA conference papers ersa04p94, European Regional Science Association.
    6. Atolia, Manoj & Chatterjee, Santanu & Turnovsky, Stephen J., 2010. "How misleading is linearization? Evaluating the dynamics of the neoclassical growth model," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 34(9), pages 1550-1571, September.
    7. Vieira, Flávio & MacDonald, Ronald & Damasceno, Aderbal, 2012. "The role of institutions in cross-section income and panel data growth models: A deeper investigation on the weakness and proliferation of instruments," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 40(1), pages 127-140.
    8. Cooray, Arusha, 2011. "The role of the government in financial sector development," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 28(3), pages 928-938, May.
    9. Cécile Couharde & Rémi Generoso, 2015. "Hydro-climatic thresholds and economic growth reversals in developing countries: an empirical investigation," EconomiX Working Papers 2015-26, University of Paris Nanterre, EconomiX.
    10. Erich Gundlach, 2003. "Growth Effects of EU Membership: The Case of East Germany," Empirica, Springer;Austrian Institute for Economic Research;Austrian Economic Association, vol. 30(3), pages 237-270, September.
    11. Kutuk, Yasin, 2022. "Inequality convergence: A world-systems theory approach," Structural Change and Economic Dynamics, Elsevier, vol. 63(C), pages 150-165.
    12. Kar, Sabyasachi & Pritchett, Lant & Raihan, Selim & Sen, Kunal, 2013. "Looking for a break: Identifying transitions in growth regimes," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 38(PB), pages 151-166.
    13. Iamsiraroj, Sasi, 2016. "The foreign direct investment–economic growth nexus," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 42(C), pages 116-133.
    14. Kieran McQuinn & Karl Whelan, 2007. "Solow ( 1956 ) as a model of cross-country growth dynamics," Oxford Review of Economic Policy, Oxford University Press and Oxford Review of Economic Policy Limited, vol. 23(1), pages 45-62, Spring.
    15. Lee, Jong-Wha, 2005. "Human capital and productivity for Korea's sustained economic growth," Journal of Asian Economics, Elsevier, vol. 16(4), pages 663-687, August.
    16. Guohua Feng & Jiti Gao & Fei Liu & Bin Peng, 2023. "Estimation and Inference for Three-Dimensional Panel Data Models," Monash Econometrics and Business Statistics Working Papers 20/23, Monash University, Department of Econometrics and Business Statistics.
    17. Wang, Ke & Yang, Kexin & Wei, Yi-Ming & Zhang, Chi, 2018. "Shadow prices of direct and overall carbon emissions in China’s construction industry: A parametric directional distance function-based sensitive estimation," Structural Change and Economic Dynamics, Elsevier, vol. 47(C), pages 180-193.
    18. Feng, Qu & Wu, Guiying Laura, 2018. "On the reverse causality between output and infrastructure: The case of China," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 74(C), pages 97-104.
    19. van de Klundert, T.C.M.J. & Smulders, J.A., 1991. "Reconstructing growth theory : A survey," Other publications TiSEM 19355c51-17eb-4d5d-aa66-b, Tilburg University, School of Economics and Management.
    20. Antonio Ciccone & Giovanni Peri & Douglas Almond, "undated". "Capital, Wages, and Growth: Theory and Evidence," Working Papers 152, IGIER (Innocenzo Gasparini Institute for Economic Research), Bocconi University.
    21. Phiri, Andrew, 2018. "Is Swaziland on a path of convergence towards her main trading partners?," MPRA Paper 88790, University Library of Munich, Germany.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Deficit financing; Free trade;

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:fip:fedder:y:1996:i:qiv:p:10-20. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Amy Chapman (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/frbdaus.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.