EconPapers    
Economics at your fingertips  
 

The private and public savings gaps in Malta and their impact on the current account

Aaron Grech

MPRA Paper from University Library of Munich, Germany

Abstract: Any difference that arises between the level of domestic saving and investment is reflected in the nation's current account position. Both domestic saving and investment can be sub-divided into private and public sector components, and gaps between these two variables can be easily computed. This paper analyses the relationship between the private and public saving gaps in Malta during the 1970-1997 period and then proceeds to discern their respective impact on the current account position. In particular, it finds that the deterioration in the current account in the 1990�s was the result of higher government net borrowing, and that there was no statistically significant relationship between the private and public saving gap during the period. Given that in the coming decades economic restructuring and the ageing of the population will probably lead to higher investment and a drop in saving, the article concludes that public finances must be strengthened significantly if a further deterioration in the country�s external imbalance is to be prevented.

Keywords: current account sustainability; fiscal policies and the behaviour of economic agents; saving and investment trends (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: E21 E22 F32 F41 H3 H62 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2000-03
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

Published in Central Bank of Malta Quarterly Review March 2000 (2000): pp. 51-61

Downloads: (external link)
https://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/33208/1/MPRA_paper_33208.pdf original version (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:pra:mprapa:33208

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in MPRA Paper from University Library of Munich, Germany Ludwigstraße 33, D-80539 Munich, Germany. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Joachim Winter ().

 
Page updated 2025-03-19
Handle: RePEc:pra:mprapa:33208