Current Account Imbalances in Asia’s Countries : The Contributing Elements

• Main Authors: Xin Lin, Soo, Jerome, Kueh, Rossazana, Ab Rahim, Josephine, Yau Tan Hwang
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Human Resource Management Academic Research Society 2023
• Subjects: HB Economic Theory; HJ Public Finance
• Online Access: http://ir.unimas.my/id/eprint/42663/3/Current.pdf; http://ir.unimas.my/id/eprint/42663/; https://hrmars.com/index.php/IJARBSS/article/view/17378/Current-Account-Imbalances-in-Asias-Countries-The-Contributing-Elements

The current account has emerged as one of the primary indicators of external imbalances in the global economy, and it may be used to assess the strength of a nation's economy. Since the 1990s, it has been a prevalent trend for Asia region to always demonstrate a current account surplus condition and continue to reinforce in the early 2000s. Although it experiences a huge drop of current account balance in 2009 during the mortgage crisis period, the region persists in its current account surplus. Hence, the aim of this study is to assess the determinants of current account imbalances in Asia region. This study is a panel regression model that covered a total of 48 Asia countries from 1990 to 2021 annually. The dependent variable is current account balance and the independent variables are fiscal balance, public debt, age dependency ratio for old, age dependency ratio for young, ICT, and real GDP. The empirical methods that employed are including of panel unit root tests, panel cointegration tests, and pooled mean group (PMG) estimation. The major finding demonstrates that the determinants of current account imbalances are fiscal balance, public debt, age dependency ratio for old, age dependency ratio for young, and real GDP.