“…challenges misconceptions that distort our economic debates.” - Arthur Brooks, President of the American Enterprise Institute
“Unintended Consequences is full of substance, it is one of the must-read books of the year, and once I finish it I will be giving it a second read through right away.” - Tyler Cowen, Professor, George Mason University
“…reminds us that inequality sends a signal of what society lacks most, in America’s case, entrepreneurship and risk taking.” - Lawrence Lindsey, CEO, The Lindsey Group, former Director of the National Economic Council
“…a comprehensive explanation of the modern economy.” - Julian Robertson, Founder, Tiger Management
“…a must-read for serious students of economic policy.” - Glenn Hubbard, Dean, Columbia Business School, and former Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers
“…serious thinking for serious thinkers. …a thought-provoking blueprint for growing middle- and working-class incomes.” - Mitt Romney, former Governor of Massachusetts
“…reminds us that inequality sends a signal of what society lacks most, in America’s case, entrepreneurship and risk taking.” - Lawrence Lindsey, CEO, The Lindsey Group, former Director of the National Economic Council
“There are an amazing number of good ideas and interesting points made in Unintended Consequences. The thinking underlying it, and the obvious depth of understanding of the author, are very impressive.” - Steven Levitt, coauthor of Freakonomics; 2004 John Bates Clark Medal
“Unintended Consequences provides a provocative interpretation of the causes of the global financial crisis and the policies needed to return to rapid growth. Whether you agree or not, this analysis is well worth reading.” - Nouriel Roubini, New York University; Chairman, Roubini Global Economics
“…a fresh argument for the productive value of inequality.” - David Autor, Professor of Economics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
“Unintended Consequences represents the most cogent and persuasive analysis of the Financial Crisis to date.” - Andrei Shleifer, 1999 John Bates Clark Medal Winner
“…challenges misconceptions that distort our economic debates.” - Arthur Brooks, President of the American Enterprise Institute

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The Global Financial Resource Curse

Martin Wolf Working Paper

Date Posted:: July 6, 2020
Is Database:: Database

US capital inflows target non-tradable sectors, depressing tradable sectors & slowing US innovation, according to @MartinWolf Working Paper. This dynamic creates a feedback loop where reduced innovation in the US leads to slower global growth.

Capital inflows to the US predominantly target the non-tradable sector, leading to a relative decline in the tradable sector, which is crucial for innovation. This shift is significant as the tradable sector is responsible for pushing the global technological frontier. The model suggests that when capital is diverted from tradable to non-tradable sectors, it results in a slowdown of US innovation, which in turn affects global productivity growth. The US, being a primary source of technological advancement, sees its role diminished as other countries rely on absorbing US innovations. This dynamic creates a feedback loop where reduced innovation in the US leads to slower global growth, highlighting the unintended consequences of capital allocation preferences driven by global financial flows.

Gianluca Benigno, Luca Fornaro and Martin Wolf, "The Global Financial Resource Curse," Working Paper, June 2020, https://www.dropbox.com/s/6wch3u3pjdrz927/globfincurse_june2020.pdf

New paper (model based ) that attempts to connect the global saving glut and productivity growth. Worth noting in the model innovation by US firms pushes the world technological frontier. Other countries grow by absorbing knowledge from the US. Those are the only two agents.

Ed Comment:Add to data base. Interesting idea but it seems a bit outdated. The savings glut definitely shifts the US economy from manufacturing to the non-tradable domestic service sectors where productivity growth has been slower, albeit where US productivity is higher than the rest of the world’s. $3 an hour offshore wages put enormous pressure on domestic manufacturing, which was forced to selectively prune off low-productivity production, and which has accelerated productivity growth in the remaining manufacturing sectors beyond growth in the demand for manufactured goods, which hollows out manufacturing employment and drives talent into other sectors with more promising career opportunities, especially when big legacy pensions that can no longer by paid with declining domestic demand, employment, and profit margins “bankrupts” large collective enterprises needed for manufacturing. America never abandoned the technological frontier. Unlike Europe and Japan, America, out of necessity, abandoned the manufacturing technological frontier and shifted its talent to IT, which fortunately proved to be more valuable than the old manufacturing frontier, especially given the interlocking developments described above, although it was probably more valuable regardless of these developments but without them, we might have been slow to make the shift, like Europe and Japan. Not only has the future of IT proven to be more promising relative to manufacturing, it reduces the importance of capital relative to talent/ideas, and makes it easier to make and measure individual contributions by talent (which are power law distributed)—good dynamics for talent, especially when there is a shortage of talent. (My chapter made these points, but Diana insisted on taking them out because she misguidedly insisted on defending the success of domestic manufacturing and, oddly, couldn’t accept these points because of her agenda.) Sorry for the run on sentences.

The key feature is that sectors producing tradable goods are the engine of growth. Capital flows from the chronic surplus countries to the US boost demand for our non-tradable sectors/goods (construction), and depress economic activity in the US tradable sectors (manufacturing). The result is lower investment in innovation by US firms. Since US innovation determines the world technological frontier, global growth slows down. Effect similar to natural resource curse, but financial and global in nature. Hence, we dub it the global financial resource curse.

"...Since the late 1990s, the United States has received large capital flows from developing countries - a phenomenon known as the global saving glut - and experienced a productivity growth slowdown. Motivated by these facts, we provide a model connecting international financial integration and global productivity growth. The key feature is that the tradable sector is the engine of growth of the economy. Capital flows from developing countries to the United States boost demand for U.S. non-tradable goods, inducing a reallocation of U.S. economic activity from the tradable sector to the non-tradable one.In turn, lower profits in the tradable sector lead firms to cut back investment in innovation. Since innovation in the United States determines the evolution of the world technological frontier, the result is a drop in global productivity growth. This effect, which we dub the global financial resource curse, can help explain why the global saving glut has been accompanied by subdued investment and growth, in spite of low global interest rates..."

How To Buy A Trade Surplus

Joseph Gagnon and Nishtha Agrawal Peterson Institute For International Economics

Date Posted:: July 29, 2026
Is Database:: Database
Is Important:: Important

Using annual data for 146 countries from 1985 – 2024, Gagnon and Agrawal find that a $1 increase in a country’s cyclically adjusted fiscal deficit is associated with a 22–38¢ increase in its current-account deficit, with most of the estimates ~30¢.

Table 1 presents regression results. The evidence strongly suggests that governments can buy current account surpluses. Raising the fiscal balance by $1 tends to raise the current account by $0.30 [Table 1, first row]. Issuing $1 of domestic currency debt to buy foreign-currency assets (foreign exchange intervention) raises the current account anywhere from $0.20 to $1.00, with a value around $0.50 to $0.60 most plausible [Rows 2 though 5]. NOF is Net Official Flows, and NOS is the stock of net official foreign assets. The most powerful policy, as exemplified by Norway and Singapore, is to run a fiscal surplus and invest the proceeds in foreign-currency assets. In that case, $1 buys a current account surplus of around $0.80 or so. The results are supported by annual panel regressions of current accounts and cross-country stock regressions of cumulated current accounts or stocks of net foreign assets. The estimated effects in the panel regressions may be biased down slightly by incomplete modeling of lagged effects.

Honey, Who Shrunk the U.S. Income Surplus?

Matthew Higgins and Thomas Klitgaard Liberty Street Economics

Date Posted:: May 19, 2026
Is Database:: Database

The US net international investment position worsened by about $16tn between 2019 and 2025, driven by roughly $5.5tn in net inflows and $10tn in valuation losses, as higher rates hit a larger net liability stock, raising interest rate-sensitivity.

Foreign holdings of U.S. financial assets are immense, with official estimates putting their current market value at $69 trillion. U.S. holdings of foreign assets are also impressive but much smaller, at $41 trillion. The shortfall in U.S. foreign assets relative to foreign liabilities has been mounting for decades. Yet U.S. investment income receipts—in profits, dividends, and interest—comfortably exceeded income payments until recently. Payments on U.S. assets owned by foreign investors represent a servicing burden for the U.S. economy. Profits, dividends, and interest payments that would otherwise accrue to domestic investors instead flow abroad. Given the need to sell U.S. assets to finance ongoing trade deficits, this servicing burden seems likely to mount. The related buildup in the U.S. net liability position in interest-bearing assets will also make the income balance more sensitive to swings in interest rates. This increased sensitivity is already in evidence. At present, with the asset-liability gap at -$15 trillion, a 1 percentage point increase in U.S. and foreign interest rates would subtract $150 billion from the U.S. net income balance. (A 1pp fall in rates would result in a similar improvement.) Only five years ago, a 1 percentage point rise in rates would have subtracted $100 billion.

Takeaways by Macro Roundup^® AI

The $28tn gap between foreign holdings of U.S. assets ($69tn) and U.S. foreign holdings ($41tn) drives mounting income payments abroad.
A 1pp interest rate rise now subtracts $150bn from U.S. net income—50% more than five years ago—as the $15tn net.
Ongoing trade deficits force asset sales to foreign investors, leading to larger servicing burdens and greater exposure to interest rate.

Don't Blame America's Current Account Deficit On the Dollar

Maurice Obstfeld Peterson Institute for International Economics

Date Posted:: April 14, 2026
Is Database:: Database

Noting the minimal relationship between official liabilities and the CA, Obstfeld argues that the reserve currency role of the dollar is not the cause of the trade deficit. He urges reduction in the US fiscal deficit to increase national saving.

Critics of the dollar's global role have argued that foreign official dollar purchases (labeled US incurrence of official liabilities in the figure) feed one-for-one into US current account deficits. To illustrate the true loose relationship between these two variables, the figure shows both of them over the 2003–25 period, as percentages of GDP. US net incurrence of liabilities to official holders, reported with a minus sign as in standard balance-of-payments methodology, is usually far too small to mirror the US current account deficit. And since roughly 2014, net official financial inflows have fluctuated around zero as the current account deficit has widened. To be sure, the strong international demand for dollars may make the dollar stronger against foreign currencies than it would be otherwise, [but] while they imply a smaller current account balance, they do not necessarily imply a negative balance and certainly not a rising negative balance, especially when foreign dollar reserve holdings have been shrinking relative to global economic activity (as figure 1 also implies). The euro is the world's second reserve currency, yet the euro area has a current account surplus. Britain had surpluses up until World War I despite issuing the world's premier global currency and hosting its leading financial center. Reducing the US fiscal deficit materially and sustainably is the most important US policy prerequisite for global current account rebalancing.

Takeaways by Macro Roundup^® AI

I cannot generate the requested takeaways because the source material contains no quantitative data, numerical findings, or comparative metrics. The.
To produce compliant takeaways, I would need data such as: current account deficit figures, dollar reserve holdings, asset sale volumes.

Understanding Global Imbalances

IMF Staff International Monetary Fund

Date Posted:: April 7, 2026
Is Database:: Database

As of 2024, the US, China, Germany, and Japan accounted for ~2/3 of total global imbalances (the sum of the absolute value of each economy’s current account deficit and surplus). The US CA deficit is between 0.8 and 1% of world GDP.

Four economies—the US, China, Germany, and Japan—account for roughly two-thirds of global imbalances. The US deficit—equivalent to 4% of GDP as of 2024—has been financed by capital inflows and portfolio investors seeking dollar assets. Germany and Japan’s surpluses have been driven by high saving rates, joined by substantial surpluses in China beginning in the 2000s. Oil-exporting countries’ surpluses fluctuate with commodity prices, creating episodic contributions to global imbalances. In earlier decades, surpluses and deficits were more cyclical: countries moved in and out of surplus depending on business cycles, commodity shocks, and exchange rate movements. While there is no standard definition of persistence, the average duration of a deficit or surplus spell roughly doubled since the 1980s. Persistent surpluses over the past two decades have accumulated into very large net foreign asset positions for economies such as China, Germany, and Japan, with each holding net foreign assets equivalent to 3–3.5% of global GDP in 2024. Similarly, persistent deficits have built up into large net liability positions, most notably in the US where the NIIP stands at about -25% of global GDP in 2024, underscoring the central role of the US position in global balances (Figure 6).

Takeaways by Macro Roundup^® AI

Surplus durations have doubled since the 1980s, accumulating massive foreign asset positions for China, Germany, and Japan.
Understanding Global Imbalances.
Germany and Japan’s surpluses have been driven by high saving rates, joined by substantial surpluses in China beginning in the.

China’s Cheap Money Is Shaking $9.5 Trillion Global Loan Market

Bloomberg Staff Bloomberg

Date Posted:: March 5, 2026
Is Database:: Database

China’s savings glut and “monetary easing to counter slowing growth” are manifesting themselves in credit expansion overseas, as bankers seek higher yields than they can get at home amidst deflationary pressure.

Chinese banks, flush with low-cost funds, are reshaping parts of the global loan market, underscoring how deflationary pressures in the world’s second-largest economy are increasingly influencing competition with international lenders. Much like US and European manufacturers who have long complained about being undercut by cheaper Chinese rivals, bankers at global institutions now say they’re facing the financial equivalent: being priced out of some of Asia’s most sought-after borrowers as Chinese lenders extend cheaper credit across borders. Enabled by Beijing’s monetary easing to counter slowing growth, Chinese banks are expanding overseas lending amid weakening domestic credit demand. That edge may prove even more significant as the Iran crisis threatens to upend global energy markets, raising the likelihood that major central banks will hold off easing interest rates amid mounting uncertainty.

Tariffs and "International Payments Problems"

Matt Klein The Overshoot

Date Posted:: March 4, 2026
Is Database:: Database

The worsening of the US net international investment position – from -20% of US GDP in 2010, to -53% pre-pandemic, and to -89% as of the end of 2025Q3 – reflects valuation gains on US stocks relative to stocks in the rest of the world.

Foreigners are accumulating more financial claims on Americans than Americans are accumulating on foreigners across every single category: FDI, stocks, bonds, physical currency, deposits, and loans. Foreign official investors supposedly have been mild sellers of U.S. assets over the past 12 months, but the standard measure does not include state-affiliated institutions that operate on behalf of foreign governments. Meanwhile, the U.S. net international investment position has swung massively over the past few years, from -20% of U.S. GDP in 2010, to -53% of U.S. GDP on the eve of the pandemic to -89% as of the end of 2025Q3. Almost all of that reflects massive valuation gains on U.S. stocks relative to stock markets in the rest of the world. The good news is that actual U.S. indebtedness has not meaningfully increased, and the methods used to assign market values to FDI in the U.S. and abroad make the situation look more extreme than it is. (U.S. FDI assets in Ireland are overwhelmingly big tech and big pharma, for example, but the market value of those assets is imputed based on the performance of the maker of Kerrygold.) The bad news is that, if the current level of the NIIP is unsustainable, the easiest way for it to revert is for U.S. stock prices to fall dramatically.

US capital inflows target non-tradable sectors, depressing tradable sectors & slowing US innovation, according to @MartinWolf Working Paper. This dynamic creates a feedback loop where reduced innovation in the US leads to slower global growth.

Using annual data for 146 countries from 1985 – 2024, Gagnon and Agrawal find that a $1 increase in a country’s cyclically adjusted fiscal deficit is associated with a 22–38¢ increase in its current-account deficit, with most of the estimates ~30¢.

Related Articles:

The US net international investment position worsened by about $16tn between 2019 and 2025, driven by roughly $5.5tn in net inflows and $10tn in valuation losses, as higher rates hit a larger net liability stock, raising interest rate-sensitivity.

Is rising interest rates widening America's foreign investment income gap?

Takeaways by Macro Roundup® AI

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Noting the minimal relationship between official liabilities and the CA, Obstfeld argues that the reserve currency role of the dollar is not the cause of the trade deficit. He urges reduction in the US fiscal deficit to increase national saving.

Is the current account deficit driven by dollar demand or asset sales?

Takeaways by Macro Roundup® AI

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As of 2024, the US, China, Germany, and Japan accounted for ~2/3 of total global imbalances (the sum of the absolute value of each economy’s current account deficit and surplus). The US CA deficit is between 0.8 and 1% of world GDP.

Takeaways by Macro Roundup® AI

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China’s savings glut and “monetary easing to counter slowing growth” are manifesting themselves in credit expansion overseas, as bankers seek higher yields than they can get at home amidst deflationary pressure.

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The worsening of the US net international investment position – from -20% of US GDP in 2010, to -53% pre-pandemic, and to -89% as of the end of 2025Q3 – reflects valuation gains on US stocks relative to stocks in the rest of the world.

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Takeaways by Macro Roundup^® AI

Takeaways by Macro Roundup^® AI

Takeaways by Macro Roundup^® AI