Global imbalances in the XIX, XX and the XXI centuries.

摘要

We establish a new stylized fact: while the current account and the trade balances are positively correlated during the second globalization (1990s–2010s), they were negatively correlated during the first globalization (1870s–1910s). We show that the reason behind is that the world interest rate is currently low relatively to the world growth rate due to a “global saving glut”, while this was not the case during the first globalization.