Current account imbalance and the inequality ratio of income to consumption: evidence from China and other Asian countries

Chunyu Lei, Nian Liu, Fei Guo, Junmei Chen, Wanyu Yang and Guotao Yang

The Journal of International Trade & Economic Development, 2024, vol. 33, issue 6, 1232-1249

Abstract: This paper deals with global imbalances as an increasingly important issue in our age. While the literature establishes that current accounts are inversely related to the ratio of income to consumption inequality in OECD, our study finds that this relationship is reversed in Asia. That ratio has much to do with various schemes of consumption smoothing, which are affected by policy interventions to alleviate the effects of rising income inequality. Different policies may generate opposite outcomes. In OECD, policy encourages consumer credit and deficit spending among low-income people so that consumption inequality is kept artificially low, leading up to a current account deficit. In Asia, policy promotes output growth via high savings with no well-developed smoothing schemes designed to help poor households, so that consumption inequality moves in line with income inequality, with excess savings recycled into a current account surplus. Hence, any reduction in global imbalances requires both regions to adjust their policies for mitigating income inequality and optimizing smoothing schemes.

Date: 2024
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DOI: 10.1080/09638199.2023.2242958

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