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Twin deficits hypothesis

The twin deficits hypothesis posits that a nation's government budget deficit and its current account deficit are causally linked, such that increases in fiscal deficits—often from expansionary policies like tax cuts or spending rises—tend to widen trade imbalances by boosting domestic absorption over production, drawing in foreign goods and capital.^[1]^[2] This relationship derives from the national accounts identity equating private saving minus investment plus the government surplus to net exports, or equivalently, (S - I) + (T - G) = NX, where a larger budget deficit (G - T > 0) implies lower net exports (NX < 0) if private saving-investment balances remain stable, assuming no full crowding out of investment or Ricardian equivalence effects that offset fiscal expansion through higher private saving.^[1] The hypothesis gained prominence in the 1980s amid simultaneous U.S. fiscal and trade deficits under Reagan-era policies, prompting debates on whether fiscal profligacy directly exported unemployment or merely reflected deeper structural issues like declining competitiveness.^[3] Empirical tests across countries yield mixed results, with stronger evidence of fiscal-to-current-account causality in cases like Italy and Greece but weaker or nonlinear links elsewhere, including bidirectional influences or independence driven by factors such as demographics, productivity, or global capital flows rather than budgets alone.^[2]^[4] Critics highlight that the accounting linkage does not guarantee causation, as real-world adjustments via exchange rates, saving responses, or monetary policy can decouple the deficits, rendering the hypothesis more a conditional correlation than a universal rule, particularly in reserve-currency economies like the U.S. where foreign demand for safe assets sustains imbalances independently.^[1]^[5]

Theoretical Foundations

Core Definition and Mechanisms

The twin deficits hypothesis posits a causal link whereby government budget deficits lead to current account deficits, reflecting reduced national saving that necessitates foreign borrowing to finance domestic investment and consumption.^[6] This relationship stems from the national accounts identity, which equates the current account balance (CA) to the sum of private net saving (S - I) and the government budget balance (T - G), where S denotes private saving, I investment, T tax revenues, and G government spending.^[7] A fiscal deficit (T - G < 0) implies that, absent offsetting increases in private net saving, the current account must deteriorate to balance the equation, as domestic absorption exceeds output.^[3] Mechanistically, the hypothesis operates through demand-side effects in open economies: expansionary fiscal policy, via higher G or lower T, boosts aggregate demand, elevating interest rates and appreciating the real exchange rate, which crowds out net exports (NX) and widens the current account gap.^[6] This channel, rooted in the Mundell-Fleming model under imperfect capital mobility, assumes that fiscal expansions do not fully crowd out private investment or stimulate sufficient private saving to neutralize the impact on external balances.^[8] Empirical formulations emphasize policy innovations, such as tax cuts or spending increases, that alter fiscal stances without corresponding adjustments in private sector behavior.^[9] The identity holds ex post by accounting definition, but the hypothesis asserts directional causality from fiscal to external imbalances, contingent on factors like capital market integration and saving propensities; in highly open capital markets, fiscal deficits may instead attract inflows that finance investment without immediate current account deterioration, though long-term sustainability concerns arise from accumulating external debt.^[10] Proponents argue this linkage underscores fiscal discipline's role in external stability, as evidenced in models where Ricardian equivalence fails and consumers do not fully anticipate future tax hikes.^[11]

Link to National Savings-Investment Identity

The twin deficits hypothesis derives from the national savings-investment identity in open-economy national accounts, which equates the current account balance to the sum of the private saving-investment gap and the government budget balance. This identity emerges from two fundamental GDP identities: the expenditure approach, Y = C + I + G + NX, where Y is gross domestic product, C is private consumption, I is domestic investment, G is government spending, and NX is net exports; and the uses-of-income approach, Y = C + S_p + T, where S_p is private saving and T is tax revenue.^[12]^[13] Subtracting the latter from the former and rearranging yields S_p + (T - G) = I + NX, or national saving equals domestic investment plus the current account balance (approximating NX as the current account for simplicity).^[12] Further rearrangement produces (S_p - I) + (T - G) = NX, linking public dissaving (budget deficits, where T - G < 0) directly to external imbalances unless offset by private sector adjustments.^[13]^[3] As an accounting tautology, the identity always holds ex post but implies no inherent causality; the hypothesis introduces directionality by assuming the private saving-investment differential S_p - I is relatively invariant or determined by factors orthogonal to fiscal policy, such as productivity growth or demographics, forcing budget deficits to crowd out net exports via capital inflows and currency appreciation.^[10]^[3] For instance, an increase in the budget deficit reduces national saving, raising domestic interest rates and attracting foreign capital, which appreciates the real exchange rate, reduces export competitiveness, and widens the trade deficit to balance the identity.^[13] This mechanism underpinned early formulations during the 1980s U.S. fiscal expansion, where federal deficits averaged 4.0% of GDP from 1983 to 1986, coinciding with current account deficits exceeding 3% of GDP, as private saving rates hovered around 15-18% of disposable income without sufficient offset.^[3] The link's empirical relevance hinges on the stability of S_p - I; deviations occur if private saving rises endogenously (e.g., via Ricardian equivalence, where households anticipate future taxes) or investment falls, but the hypothesis posits these responses are incomplete, especially in low-saving economies reliant on foreign financing.^[10] Cross-country evidence supports this in high-debt contexts, where fiscal deteriorations correlate with external deficits at coefficients around 0.2-0.5, implying partial pass-through after private adjustments.^[3] Thus, the identity frames twin deficits not as coincidence but as manifestations of fiscal imbalances spilling into external accounts when domestic saving fails to absorb public dissaving.^[13]

Underlying Assumptions

The twin deficits hypothesis derives from the national saving-investment identity, which states that the current account balance equals the private saving-investment gap plus the government budget surplus: CA = (S_p - I) + (T - G). For the hypothesis to imply a causal link from budget deficits to current account deficits, it assumes that the private saving-investment imbalance (S_p - I) remains relatively stable or exogenous to fiscal policy changes, such that increases in government dissaving (G - T) directly translate into larger current account deficits without significant offsetting adjustments in private sector behavior.^[14]^[15] A foundational assumption is the rejection of Ricardian equivalence, under which rational households would increase private saving to fully offset anticipated future tax hikes from current budget deficits, leaving national saving unchanged and preventing twin deficits. The hypothesis instead posits that households exhibit myopic behavior, liquidity constraints, or imperfect foresight, causing private saving to rise less than proportionally—or not at all—to public dissaving, thereby reducing overall national saving and necessitating net foreign borrowing.^[16]^[17] This assumption aligns with empirical observations where fiscal expansions, such as the U.S. tax cuts in the 1980s, coincided with subdued private saving responses.^[16] The theory further assumes high international capital mobility, enabling countries to finance resulting current account deficits through capital inflows without prohibitive rises in domestic interest rates that might otherwise crowd out investment or restore balance via appreciation. In small open economy models like Mundell-Fleming, this implies fixed world interest rates and flexible exchange rates, where fiscal deficits boost aggregate demand, appreciate the currency, and worsen net exports. For larger economies like the U.S., the assumption holds if domestic saving shortfalls attract sufficient foreign capital, as observed in the 1980s when U.S. Treasury yields drew global funds amid rising deficits.^[3] These mechanisms presuppose short-run Keynesian dynamics, with sticky prices and output below potential, rather than full-employment classical adjustments.^[2]

Historical Development

Emergence in 1980s United States

The twin deficits hypothesis emerged amid the United States' economic experience in the 1980s, when expansionary fiscal policies under President Ronald Reagan coincided with a rapid widening of both the federal budget deficit and the current account deficit. The Economic Recovery Tax Act of 1981 substantially reduced personal and corporate income tax rates, while defense spending surged to counter Soviet influence, propelling the budget deficit from 2.6 percent of GDP in fiscal year 1980 to a peak of 6.0 percent in 1983.^[18] ^[19] Tight monetary policy by the Federal Reserve, aimed at quelling double-digit inflation inherited from the 1970s, elevated real interest rates and drove a 50 percent appreciation of the dollar's trade-weighted value between 1980 and 1985, which eroded U.S. export competitiveness and amplified import growth.^[3] ^[20] As these deficits expanded in tandem—the current account balance deteriorating from a modest surplus of 0.5 percent of GDP in 1980 to a deficit exceeding 3 percent by 1987—economists began attributing the external imbalance to the fiscal expansion's impact on national saving.^[21] ^[22] Drawing from the national income identity, where the sum of private saving minus investment and the government surplus equals net exports, analysts posited that increased government dissaving crowded out domestic saving or investment, necessitating foreign capital inflows that manifested as a current account deficit to maintain equilibrium.^[3] This causal interpretation gained prominence through empirical correlations observed in the data, macroeconomic model simulations demonstrating deficit spillovers, and policy discussions highlighting how fiscal profligacy, absent offsetting private sector adjustments, transmitted to the trade balance via higher interest rates and currency strength.^[20] ^[3] The phrase "twin deficits" entered economic discourse to encapsulate this observed parallelism, reflecting concerns among policymakers and academics that the budget shortfall was not merely coincidental with but a driver of the external imbalance.^[23] ^[24] Monetarists invoked the hypothesis to advocate fiscal restraint, arguing it justified tighter budgets to mitigate trade vulnerabilities, though early formulations emphasized the accounting linkage over strict long-run causality.^[25] By the mid-1980s, the concept had crystallized as a framework for interpreting the decade's imbalances, influencing debates on sustainable fiscal paths amid global capital mobility.^[22]

Key Proponents and Early Formulations

The twin deficits hypothesis emerged as a policy-oriented interpretation of the national savings-investment identity in open economies, expressed as NX = (S - I) + (T - G), where NX is net exports (approximating the current account), S - I is the private saving-investment balance, and T - G is the government budget balance. This identity, derived from standard national accounts, holds ex post but implies a causal channel under assumptions of sticky prices, limited capital mobility adjustments, or fiscal policy dominance: government dissaving (budget deficits) reduces national saving, raises domestic interest rates, attracts foreign capital inflows, appreciates the currency, and widens the current account deficit to finance the imbalance. Early formulations emphasized these transmission mechanisms in a Mundell-Fleming framework adapted to the U.S. context, where fiscal expansion crowds out net exports rather than domestic investment alone.^[26] Martin Feldstein, Harvard economist and Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers from 1982 to 1984, was a primary early proponent, highlighting the risks of Reagan-era fiscal policies. He argued that surging budget deficits—rising from 2.7% of GDP in 1980 to 5% in 1986—were fueling capital inflows, dollar overvaluation (peaking at 50% real appreciation by 1985), and a corresponding trade deficit expansion to 3.5% of GDP by 1987, rather than merely offsetting private investment.^[3]^[27] In analyses like his 1986 essay "The Budget Deficit and the Dollar," Feldstein detailed how anticipated deficits sustained high real interest rates (reaching 8-10% in the early 1980s), linking fiscal profligacy directly to external imbalances and warning of unsustainable debt accumulation without correction.^[28] His public testimonies and writings framed the hypothesis as an urgent macroeconomic concern, influencing debates on Gramm-Rudman-Hollings deficit reduction targets enacted in 1985.^[26] Other notable early voices included Brookings Institution economists like Barry Bosworth, who in mid-1980s studies corroborated Feldstein's views with vector autoregression models showing positive correlations between fiscal shocks and trade gaps in U.S. data from 1960-1985.^[29] The hypothesis's formulation also drew from international economists such as Michael Mussa, who integrated exchange rate overshooting into the narrative, positing that fiscal deficits amplify current account deterioration via volatile capital flows in imperfectly integrated markets. These contributions solidified the causal narrative amid synchronized U.S. deficits, though later critiques by Feldstein himself questioned the tightness of the link beyond the 1980s identity.^[27]

Evolution Through Economic Models

The twin deficits hypothesis derives its initial theoretical support from the Mundell-Fleming model, formulated in the early 1960s by Robert Mundell and Marcus Fleming. This open-economy extension of the IS-LM framework posits that expansionary fiscal policy, such as increased government spending or tax cuts, boosts domestic income and absorption, thereby raising imports and deteriorating the current account balance, particularly under fixed exchange rates or limited capital mobility.^[6]^[30] The model highlights transmission channels including higher interest rates attracting capital inflows, currency appreciation under flexible rates that crowds out net exports, and incomplete crowding out of private investment.^[8] During the 1970s and 1980s, the hypothesis evolved through extensions of Mundell-Fleming into broader open-economy Keynesian models, incorporating dynamics like J-curve effects and varying degrees of capital mobility. These frameworks, applied to analyze rising U.S. deficits from 1980 to 1986—where the federal budget deficit expanded from 2.7% to 5% of GDP alongside a current account deficit surge—emphasized causal links via reduced national saving and increased foreign borrowing.^[3] Proponents integrated the national saving-investment identity, (S - I) + (T - G) = NX, to argue that persistent fiscal imbalances necessitate external financing absent full domestic adjustment.^[31] In subsequent decades, the hypothesis adapted to real business cycle (RBC) and New Keynesian models, which introduced microfoundations, rational expectations, and intertemporal optimization. RBC frameworks, dominant in the 1980s-1990s, often weakened the fiscal-current account nexus by assuming Ricardian equivalence or high intertemporal substitution, where private saving offsets public dissaving.^[8] New Keynesian open-economy models, evolving from the 1990s, restored partial causality through nominal rigidities and monopolistic competition, simulating how fiscal shocks propagate to trade balances via demand spillovers and terms-of-trade effects, though the strength depends on parameters like the elasticity of substitution between domestic and foreign goods.^[32] Contemporary developments incorporate heterogeneous-agent and global general equilibrium models, as seen in analyses of post-2008 fiscal stimuli. These reveal that debt-financed transfers generate twin deficits over longer horizons through excess saving dynamics and incomplete pass-through of fiscal policy to private consumption, contrasting short-run divergences under high uncertainty.^[31] Such models underscore conditional validity, with stronger links in economies featuring low private saving responses or barriers to capital flows, refining the hypothesis beyond static Keynesian assumptions.^[32]

Empirical Evidence

United States Case Studies

The 1980s represent a foundational case study for the twin deficits hypothesis in the United States, where expansionary fiscal policy under President Reagan coincided with deteriorating external balances. The Economic Recovery Tax Act of 1981 reduced tax revenues, while defense spending rose amid Cold War tensions, propelling the federal budget deficit to 5.9% of GDP in fiscal year 1983 from 2.6% in 1981.^[18] Over the decade, the current account balance shifted from approximate balance in 1980 (0.0% of GDP) to a deficit of 3.4% by 1987, as national savings fell short of investment needs, drawing in foreign capital.^[33] Proponents cite this sequence—fiscal loosening preceding external imbalances—as direct empirical validation, with reduced public savings transmitting to lower net exports via the national accounts identity.^[10]^[34] In contrast, the late 1990s decoupled fiscal improvement from external accounts, underscoring limitations of the hypothesis. Buoyed by the tech boom and bipartisan budget agreements like the 1997 Balanced Budget Act, the U.S. recorded surpluses averaging 1.4% of GDP from 1998 to 2001.^[18] Nevertheless, the current account deficit expanded from 2.4% of GDP in 1998 to 4.2% in 2000, driven by surging private investment in information technology and productivity gains outpacing savings.^[33]^[35] This divergence suggests that strong domestic demand and capital inflows, rather than fiscal deficits alone, sustained trade shortfalls, challenging unidirectional causality from budgets to current accounts. The early 2000s offered partial reaffirmation amid new confounders. Post-9/11 spending increases and the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts reversed surpluses, yielding deficits of 3.4% of GDP in 2004.^[18] The current account gap peaked at 5.8% in 2006, aligning with hypothesis predictions, yet global factors—a savings glut from emerging markets and U.S. housing investment—amplified imbalances beyond fiscal impulses.^[33]^[36] Following the 2008 financial crisis, massive fiscal stimuli pushed deficits to -9.8% of GDP in 2009, but the current account deficit contracted to -2.9% amid global recession and reduced imports.^[18]^[33] Subsequent consolidation narrowed fiscal gaps to around -3% by 2015, while external deficits stabilized near -2.5%, reflecting private sector dynamics and energy export gains. Empirical reviews of U.S. postwar data detect a positive long-run association, particularly nonlinear during fiscal expansions, yet find no robust year-to-year correlation since 1980, attributing divergences to private savings-investment gaps and capital mobility.^[4]^[35] These cases illustrate conditional support for the hypothesis, modulated by economic cycles and structural shifts.

Cross-Country Analyses

Cross-country empirical studies on the twin deficits hypothesis have generally yielded mixed results, with support varying by region, development level, and methodological approach, often influenced by factors such as capital account openness and exchange rate regimes. Panel data analyses frequently employ cointegration tests, vector autoregression (VAR) models, and Granger causality to assess bidirectional or unidirectional links between fiscal and current account balances.^[37]^[1] A panel analysis of nine Southeast Asian countries (Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, Indonesia, South Korea, Myanmar, Nepal, Sri Lanka, and the Philippines) over 1980–2001 used Im-Pesaran-Shin unit root tests, Pedroni cointegration, and dynamic ordinary least squares within a panel VAR framework, finding cointegration among current account deficits, budget deficits, interest rates, and exchange rates. Granger causality tests revealed bidirectional relationships, with budget deficits causing current account deterioration both directly and indirectly via higher interest rates and real exchange rate appreciation, thus supporting the hypothesis in this group.^[38] In advanced economies, evidence is weaker. For 17 OECD countries from 1978–2017, correlation analysis between primary fiscal balances and current account balances showed only 30% of 170 pairwise correlations as positive and statistically significant, with stronger but still inconsistent associations in Hodrick-Prescott filtered trends; no universal pattern of fiscal deficits systematically causing current account deficits emerged, attributing variability to cyclical factors and reverse influences.^[1] Similarly, a study of 25 OECD countries for 2005–2016, incorporating real exchange rate regimes, found the hypothesis holds more robustly under flexible exchange rates but less so under fixed regimes, highlighting the role of monetary policy transmission.^[37] Emerging and developing country panels often diverge from Keynesian predictions. An examination of six Latin American emerging economies using quarterly data from 1996–2006 applied VAR and impulse response functions, yielding partial support for budget deficits widening current account gaps but with significant offsets from private sector responses. In broader developing contexts, some analyses uncover "twin divergence," where fiscal expansions correlate with current account improvements due to crowding out of investment or private savings rises, rejecting standard twin deficits in favor of Ricardian-like mechanisms.^[39]^[40] These findings underscore that high capital mobility and structural differences can weaken or reverse the hypothesized linkage across borders.^[41]

Recent Empirical Developments (Post-2008)

Following the 2008 global financial crisis, empirical studies on the twin deficits hypothesis (TDH) in the United States revealed a temporary decoupling between fiscal and current account balances. Large fiscal deficits emerged from stimulus measures, peaking at 9.8% of GDP in 2009, yet the current account deficit narrowed from 4.9% of GDP in 2008 to 2.7% in 2010, driven by reduced imports amid recession-induced contraction in domestic demand rather than fiscal causation. This pattern aligned with "twin divergence," where fiscal expansion did not proportionally worsen the external deficit, as private savings rose and investment fell.^[10] In the Eurozone, particularly during the sovereign debt crisis (2010–2012), fiscal consolidation episodes provided stronger support for the TDH. In countries like Greece and Italy, structural fiscal adjustments—such as Greece's primary surplus shift from -10% to +1% of GDP by 2016—coincided with current account improvements, from deficits exceeding 10% of GDP to surpluses, with panel regressions estimating a 1% GDP fiscal tightening boosting the current account by 0.2–0.5%. Similar dynamics appeared in Spain and Portugal, though causality tests showed bidirectional links, with initial current account deficits exacerbating fiscal strains via higher borrowing costs. Time-varying analyses for the broader Euro area (1970–2020) indicated heightened TDH validity post-2008, attributed to reduced capital mobility and tighter fiscal constraints under the Stability and Growth Pact.^[2]^[42] Cross-country studies of developing economies post-2008 yielded mixed results, with the TDH holding more robustly in low-savings contexts. An IMF analysis of 55 emerging markets (2000–2015) found a 1% GDP increase in fiscal deficits worsening current accounts by 0.25% of GDP on average, though the effect was weaker in high-growth Asian exporters like China, where reverse causality dominated—current account surpluses financed fiscal expansion via sterilized interventions. In sub-Saharan Africa, such as Tanzania (1980–2015), Granger causality tests confirmed unidirectional fiscal-to-current account spillovers, with elasticities around 0.4. Overall, post-2008 evidence underscores the TDH's relevance under high public debt and limited global capital flows, but its magnitude varies with private sector responses and exchange rate regimes.^[43]^[44]^[6]

Criticisms and Debates

Challenges from Ricardian Equivalence

The Ricardian equivalence theorem, formalized by Robert Barro in 1974, asserts that forward-looking rational agents anticipate future tax liabilities to repay government debt incurred from current deficits, prompting an equivalent increase in private saving that fully offsets public dissaving. This neutrality holds under assumptions including perfect capital markets, no liquidity constraints, lump-sum taxes, and either infinite planning horizons or operative intergenerational altruism, rendering the timing of taxation irrelevant for aggregate demand and national saving. In the context of the twin deficits hypothesis, Ricardian equivalence undermines the causal chain by negating any reduction in national saving from budget deficits, which in standard open-economy models drives higher domestic interest rates, foreign capital inflows, real exchange rate appreciation, and deteriorating net exports. The national accounts identity CA = (S - I) + (T - G), where CA is the current account balance, S private saving, I investment, T taxes, and G government spending, illustrates this: equivalence predicts private S rises one-for-one with (T - G) deficits, stabilizing CA independent of fiscal policy. Empirical assessments, however, frequently reject strict Ricardian equivalence, with meta-analyses indicating deficits significantly boost current consumption rather than being saved, thus preserving a role for fiscal policy in influencing national saving and current account balances. Cross-country vector autoregression studies, such as those on APEC nations from 1980–2013, often find evidence against full offset, supporting twin deficits linkages over equivalence in practice.^[45] Even where partial equivalence appears, as in some Indian data spanning 1970–2010 showing muted twin deficits, violations of assumptions like binding liquidity constraints or distortionary taxes explain deviations, suggesting the challenge to twin deficits is theoretically potent but empirically limited.^[46] Recent post-2008 analyses, including IMF evaluations of fiscal consolidations, document rises in national saving inconsistent with equivalence, reinforcing causal fiscal impacts on trade balances in advanced economies.^[10]

Evidence of Reverse Causality or Independence

Empirical investigations in several developing and emerging economies have uncovered evidence suggesting reverse causality, whereby current account deficits influence fiscal deficits rather than the reverse, or no significant causal linkage from fiscal imbalances to external deficits. This challenges the standard twin deficits framework by highlighting how external shocks, trade dynamics, or commodity price fluctuations in open economies can drive fiscal responses, such as increased government spending to mitigate domestic hardships from deteriorating trade balances.^[47] ^[48] In Peru, a commodity-exporting small open economy, quarterly time series analysis from the post-liberalization period rejects the twin deficits hypothesis and supports reverse causality. Using vector autoregression models, the study finds that fiscal policy exerts no short-run effect on the current account, while positive shocks to the current account—often from external price improvements—lead to fiscal surpluses or reduced deficits over one year, as unsmoothed fiscal consumption responds to permanent income gains. This pattern aligns with vulnerability to global commodity cycles rather than domestic fiscal origins driving external imbalances.^[48] Similar reverse causality emerges in analyses of five Asian developing economies—India, Indonesia, Korea, Malaysia, and the Philippines—amid the late 1990s regional crisis context. Multivariate vector autoregression and Granger causality tests indicate that trade deficits Granger-cause fiscal deficits, prompting governments to expand spending in response to external trade weaknesses, with no evidence of the opposite direction. This suggests policy reactions to current account deterioration, influenced by shared macroeconomic factors like exchange rate pressures, override fiscal primacy in these cases.^[47] In Ghana, Granger causality testing on macroeconomic data supports reverse causality, rejecting the unidirectional fiscal-to-current account link of the twin deficits hypothesis. The findings attribute this to structural dependencies on exports and external financing, where current account shocks necessitate fiscal adjustments.^[49] Evidence of independence, or no causality from fiscal deficits to current account balances, appears in dynamic analyses of certain economies, such as Pakistan, where causality tests show no extension from fiscal deficits to the current account, though reverse influences may persist under nonlinear conditions. In Japan, post-1980s data reveal that budget deficits do not significantly deteriorate the current account, implying decoupling or absorption via private savings rather than causal transmission. These patterns underscore contextual factors like capital mobility and domestic saving responses that can sever or invert expected linkages.^[5] ^[50]

Influence of Exchange Rates and Capital Mobility

In open-economy macroeconomic models such as Mundell-Fleming, exchange rates serve as a critical transmission channel for the twin deficits hypothesis under floating regimes and high capital mobility. An expansionary fiscal policy raises domestic interest rates, drawing capital inflows that appreciate the currency, thereby reducing net exports and widening the current account deficit to offset the fiscal imbalance.^[3] This mechanism implies that real exchange rate appreciation induced by fiscal deficits directly contributes to the "twinning" of budget and trade imbalances, as higher currency values erode export competitiveness while boosting imports.^[10] Empirical observations from the 1980s United States exemplify this dynamic: the federal budget deficit climbed from 2.7% to 5% of GDP between 1980 and 1986 amid tight monetary policy, elevating interest rates and prompting dollar appreciation that deteriorated the current account to 3.5% of GDP ($153 billion).^[3] Cross-country evidence reinforces the role of exchange rate adjustments; for instance, fiscal consolidations correlate with real depreciations of approximately 1.5% in the first year, enhancing the current account balance by 0.6 percentage points of GDP within two years.^[10] In fixed exchange rate environments, however, this channel diminishes, shifting reliance to internal adjustments like wage and price compression, as seen in euro-area countries post-1999 where consolidation effects on the current account strengthened to 1.3 percentage points of GDP via domestic devaluation rather than nominal shifts.^[10] Capital mobility modulates the hypothesis by influencing how fiscal deficits interact with domestic saving and investment, per the national accounts identity where the current account equals the private saving-investment gap plus the government surplus. High capital mobility enables foreign financing of fiscal expansions without domestic investment crowding-out, channeling the imbalance into net capital inflows and a corresponding current account deficit, as domestic interest rates align closely with global levels under perfect mobility assumptions.^[16] ^[37] In contrast, low mobility constrains international borrowing, prompting greater domestic absorption through reduced investment or increased private saving, which can attenuate the fiscal-external linkage and favor a "harder" version of the hypothesis only where private balances remain stable.^[1] Empirical tests yield varied results on mobility's impact. Analyses of OECD and emerging economies (1978–2017) indicate inconsistent twin deficits causality, with stronger correlations in low-mobility cases like Norway (coefficients of 0.96–0.979 during 2008–2017), attributed to limited capital flow volatility and structural factors such as export dependence.^[1] Yet, in broader samples assuming Mundell-Fleming conditions of high mobility, the hypothesis holds more reliably under low real interest rate regimes, where fiscal deteriorations directly impair current accounts without significant investment offsets.^[37] These findings suggest capital mobility amplifies the hypothesis in integrated financial systems but introduces decoupling risks from volatile inflows, challenging universal applicability.^[1]

Policy Implications and Applications

Effects of Fiscal Consolidation

Fiscal consolidation, which involves reducing government budget deficits through spending cuts or tax increases, is expected to narrow current account deficits under the twin deficits hypothesis. This follows from the national accounting identity linking the fiscal balance to net exports: an improvement in the government surplus (T - G) raises national saving relative to investment, thereby boosting the trade balance (NX) assuming stable private sector behavior.^[10] Empirical analyses of historical episodes, including those identified via policy documents and narrative approaches, support this channel, showing that credible deficit reductions enhance external balances without relying solely on exchange rate adjustments.^[10] Quantitative estimates indicate modest but significant effects. A 1 percentage point of GDP fiscal consolidation typically reduces the current account deficit-to-GDP ratio by 0.1 to 0.3 percentage points, with stronger impacts in economies with high public debt where consolidation signals credibility to investors.^[10] Recent IMF research across advanced and emerging economies confirms that such adjustments lead to a rise in the external current account balance, aligning with the hypothesis, though the magnitude varies by the composition of the adjustment—expenditure-based consolidations prove more effective than revenue-based ones in improving net exports due to less distortionary effects on private investment.^[51] Short-term macroeconomic costs accompany these improvements, including contractions in real GDP and private demand, but the current account responds positively, often mitigating external vulnerabilities.^[52] In OECD countries, fiscal tightening has been linked to negative investment responses initially, yet overall current account gains persist, particularly when initial deficits are large.^[53] Cross-country panel studies further substantiate that consolidation-driven fiscal improvements correlate with twin deficit reversals, though outcomes depend on institutional factors like fiscal rules that enhance policy credibility.^[54]

Relevance to Contemporary Deficits (e.g., Post-COVID Era)

The unprecedented fiscal expansions in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, particularly in the United States, provided a real-world test of the twin deficits hypothesis, as government borrowing surged to finance stimulus measures totaling over $5 trillion between 2020 and 2022. The U.S. federal budget deficit reached 14.9% of GDP in fiscal year 2020 and remained elevated at 12.4% in 2021, driven by direct payments to households, enhanced unemployment benefits, and business support programs.^[55] Concurrently, the U.S. current account deficit widened from 2.4% of GDP in 2019 to 3.7% in 2020, reflecting increased imports relative to exports amid supply chain disruptions and shifting global demand. These patterns aligned with the hypothesis's prediction of a positive link between fiscal and external imbalances, though the magnitude was moderated by household behavior. A key dynamic observed post-COVID was the accumulation of excess private savings, which temporarily decoupled the fiscal impulse from immediate current account deterioration. Fiscal transfers boosted household liquidity, leading to a surge in U.S. personal savings rates from 7.5% in 2019 to 33.7% in April 2020, with excess savings estimated at $2.5 trillion by mid-2021.^[56] Economic models incorporating heterogeneous agents demonstrate that such debt-financed stimulus initially generates precautionary savings, resulting in smaller short-run current account deficits than a naive identity would suggest; however, as households draw down these savings and public debt accumulates, private wealth effects amplify consumption and imports, strengthening the twin deficits linkage over time.^[56] Empirical simulations from this framework attribute most post-pandemic excess savings to fiscal shocks rather than the COVID shock itself, with projections indicating persistent external deficits as savings normalize.^[57] By 2023-2025, as stimulus effects waned and excess savings declined—U.S. personal savings rates falling below 4% in late 2023—the current account deficit stabilized at around 3.1% of GDP in 2024, while fiscal deficits hovered at 6-7% of GDP, underscoring the hypothesis's relevance amid incomplete fiscal consolidation. Recent vector autoregression analyses confirm a nonlinear long-run cointegration between U.S. fiscal and trade deficits, with causality running from budget imbalances to external gaps, even after controlling for post-COVID variables like monetary policy.^[58] This persistence highlights risks for advanced economies: without offsetting private saving increases or export growth, ongoing high deficits could exacerbate external vulnerabilities, as seen in the U.S. goods and services deficit exceeding $900 billion annually by 2024. Policymakers invoking the hypothesis have advocated targeted fiscal restraint to mitigate trade pressures, though global capital inflows and dollar reserve status have sustained financing without immediate crises.

Broader Macroeconomic Lessons

The twin deficits hypothesis, grounded in the national saving identity (S - I) + (T - G) = NX, illustrates that fiscal deficits reduce national saving and, absent full offsets from private sector adjustments, necessitate financing through foreign borrowing, thereby widening current account deficits.^[59] This accounting tautology holds universally, implying that policymakers cannot pursue expansive fiscal stances without external repercussions in open economies; empirical vector autoregression analyses across OECD countries from 1970–2007 confirm a positive causal response of current account balances to fiscal contractions, with a 1% of GDP improvement in the budget balance associated with a 0.2–0.4% of GDP gain in the current account over 2–3 years.^[10] Such dynamics highlight the transmission of fiscal impulses via elevated interest rates, which attract capital inflows, appreciate the real exchange rate, and erode competitiveness, as observed in the U.S. during the 1980s when the fiscal deficit surged to 6% of GDP amid Reagan-era tax cuts and spending, coinciding with a current account deficit exceeding 3% of GDP.^[59] Broader implications extend to the sustainability of debt-financed growth: persistent twin deficits signal reliance on external surpluses from trading partners, fostering global imbalances that amplify vulnerability to sudden stops in capital flows, as evidenced in emerging markets during the 1990s Asian crises where fiscal slippages preceded current account reversals.^[8] In advanced economies with reserve currencies like the dollar, this tolerance for deficits may delay adjustments but risks eventual depreciation or inflation, underscoring the limits of indefinite foreign financing; panel data from 22 OECD nations over 1970–2015 show that fiscal rules strengthening budget discipline enhance the fiscal-current account nexus, with stronger rules correlating to a 0.5% larger current account response per percentage point of fiscal tightening.^[54] These findings caution against decoupling fiscal profligacy from external constraints, particularly in low-saving environments where private sector responses fail to materialize due to myopic consumption or credit booms. The hypothesis also informs the design of stabilization policies, revealing that fiscal consolidation—via spending cuts rather than tax hikes—yields more reliable current account improvements by avoiding distortionary incentives that might suppress private saving further.^[10] In contexts of high capital mobility, such as post-Bretton Woods floating regimes, the link strengthens, but deviations arise in savings-glut scenarios where excess global supply mutes exchange rate effects; nonetheless, U.S. data from 1960–2000 indicate that even amid high capital inflows, a 1% fiscal deficit increase explains roughly 0.3% of the current account deterioration, rejecting full independence.^[59] Ultimately, these patterns emphasize causal realism in macroeconomic management: ignoring the fiscal-external intertwinement invites asymmetric adjustments, where deficits accumulate until market forces enforce correction through recession or devaluation, as seen in Europe's sovereign debt episodes post-2010.^[8]

References

[1]
[PDF] The Twin Deficits Hypothesis: An Empirical Examination
Jul 13, 2019 · Abstract. The 'twin deficits hypothesis' (TDH) claims that there is a connection between fiscal and current account deficits.
[2]
Twin Deficits: Evidence From Portugal, Italy, Spain and Greece
This debate, known as the twin deficits hypothesis (TDH), is supported by Keynesian economists and implies that an increase in a government's budget deficit (BD) ...Missing: definition | Show results with:definition
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[PDF] Chapter 2: Whatever Happened to the "Twin Deficits"?
The two were called the “twin deficits” because they increased about the same amount and they derived from some of the same economic fundamentals. Many ...
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Revisiting the twin deficits hypothesis in the United States
Our empirical evidence suggests a nonlinear long-run relationship between the two variables, thus finding the presence of the twin deficits hypothesis. Further ...
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A Dynamic Analysis of the Twin-Deficit Hypothesis - PubMed Central
Apr 29, 2023 · A survey of empirical studies shows that there exists a lack of consensus over the twin-deficit hypothesis in the case of Pakistan. Many ...
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Twin deficit hypothesis and reverse causality: a case study of China
Aug 20, 2019 · The twin deficits hypothesis is based on the Mundell-Fleming model (Fleming, 1962; Mundell, 1963), which asserts that an increase in budget ...Missing: core definition<|separator|>
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The Twin-Deficit Identity
Twin deficits occur when a country has both a current account deficit and a government budget deficit at the same time. When twin deficits occur, the sum of net ...Missing: fiscal | Show results with:fiscal
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https://academic.oup.com/economicpolicy/article/21/48/598/2918735
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Twin deficits: squaring theory, evidence and common sense
The twin deficit hypothesis is formulated with reference to policy innovations whereby a government changes its fiscal stance; say, by reforming the tax code ...Missing: core | Show results with:core
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[PDF] Revisiting the Twin Deficits Hypothesis: The Effect of Fiscal ...
May 27, 2011 · Three issues arise with cyclical adjustment that complicate tests of the twin deficits hypothesis.
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Fiscal policy and the twin deficits: structural changes matter
Mar 27, 2023 · This paper empirically and theoretically investigates the relationship between budget balances and external balances, the so-called twin deficit hypothesis.
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[PDF] Government Debt - Federal Reserve Board
... G is government purchases of goods and services, and NX is net exports of goods and services. Combining these identities yields: S + (T-G) = I + NX . This ...
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[PDF] GOVERNMENT DEBT - Douglas W. Elmendorf N. Gregory Mankiw
Y = C + I + G + NX. > where I is domestic investment, G is government purchases of goods and services, and NX is net exports of goods and services ...
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Twin Deficits Hypothesis: Theory & Evidence
Oct 13, 2025 · TDH arises directly from the national income identity: ( S − I ) = ( G − T ) + N X (S - I) = (G - T) + NX (S−I)=(G−T)+NX where S S S is private ...
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[PDF] Current account and government budget: A case of twin deficits?
Twin deficits hypothesis: tendency for government budget deficits to cause current account deficits. • To evaluate this claim, decompose total national saving.
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[PDF] Slides for Chapter 8 The Twin Deficits - Columbia University
Sep 6, 2022 · When relaxing any of these three assumptions, as we will show next, tax cuts can lead to twin deficits. Main takeaway: Ricardian equivalence is ...
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[PDF] Lecture 8: Twin deficits and Ricardian equivalence - Paul Klein
Lecture 8: Twin deficits and Ricardian equivalence. The United States experienced twin deficits in the 1980s and also more recently: both the current account ...
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Federal Surplus or Deficit [-] as Percent of Gross Domestic Product
Graph and download economic data for Federal Surplus or Deficit [-] as Percent of Gross Domestic Product (FYFSGDA188S) from 1929 to 2024 about budget, ...
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Lessons from the Reagan Era on Managing Twin Deficits
The Reagan Administration blew up the federal deficit to 6 per cent of GDP in 1985 from just 2 per cent in 1980.
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[PDF] FRBSF WEEKLY LETTER - Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco
Oct 6, 1989 · u.s. economy has benefited from the emergence of the trade deficit in the 1980s. Twins·. According to the "twin-deficits" hypothesis, the.
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On the Causes of the US Current Account Deficit | PIIE
From 1980 to 1987 the trade deficit and current account deficit widened (the latter to $153 billion representing 3.5 percent of GDP), but then they narrowed ...
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FRB: Speech, Ferguson—-U.S. Current Account Deficit: Causes and ...
Apr 20, 2005 · ... 1980s, when the simultaneous emergence of fiscal and current account deficits in the United States gave rise to the "twin deficits" hypothesis.
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The Twin Deficits of the U.S. - Investopedia
Twin Deficit Hypothesis. Some economists believe that a large budget deficit is correlated to a large current account deficit. This macroeconomic theory is ...Missing: criticisms | Show results with:criticisms
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Evil Twins: US Federal Budget Deficits And US Trade – Analysis
May 8, 2024 · The twin deficits hypothesis arose to explain the experience of the US during the 1980s. Observers noted that federal budget deficits and trade deficits rose ...<|separator|>
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Twin deficits – another mainstream myth - Bill Mitchell
Sep 13, 2010 · The Twin Deficits Hypothesis (TDH) was used by monetarists to justify restrictive fiscal policy stances in the OECD economies during the 1980s ...
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[PDF] the budget and trade deficits aren't really twins
Jan 4, 1992 · As a result, net private domestic investment was reduced to only about 3 percent of GNP in 1990. Martin Feldstein. NBER. 1050 Massachusetts ...
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[PDF] nber working paper series - the dollar and the trade deficit
The sharp gyrations of the dollar and of the trade deficit in the 1980s were among the most novel and least understood economic developments of the decade.
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[PDF] The Budget Deficit and the Dollar Author(s): Martin S. Feldstein Source
The dol- lar's rise is necessary to create the trade deficit and associated current ... The Budget Deficit . 357 ness investment caused by the combination ...
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Twin deficits during the 1980s: An empirical investigation
This study uses multivariate time series analysis to examine the linkages between federal budget deficits and merchandise trade deficits.Missing: key | Show results with:key
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[PDF] The Twin Deficits Hypothesis: A Theoretical Phantasm Or ... - CERT
The Twin Deficits Hypothesis purports that there is a positive causal relationship between the fiscal balance and the current account balance, where for ...
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[PDF] Excess Savings and Twin Deficits: The Transmission of Fiscal ...
Abstract. We study the effects of debt-financed fiscal transfers in a general equilibrium, heterogeneous-agent model of the world economy. In the long run, ...
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Excess Savings and Twin Deficits: The Transmission of Fiscal ...
May 23, 2023 · We study the effects of debt-financed fiscal transfers in a general equilibrium, heterogeneous-agent model of the world economy.
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Current account balance (% of GDP) - United States
1980, 1979, 1978, 1977, 1976, 1975, 1974, 1973, 1972, 1971, 1970. Current account balance (BoP, current US$) · Net secondary income (BoP, current US$) · Net ...
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Should We Be Concerned about the Current Account?
For example, the record current account deficits of the mid-1980s coincided with large fiscal deficits, which led to the popular view that current account ...
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America’s Twin Deficits since 1980 - farmdoc daily
### Summary of Key Historical Data on US Twin Deficits (1980 Onwards)
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Why does the US have a trade deficit? - Brookings Institution
Apr 17, 2025 · But in the '80s, you also had a shift to very large government deficits under the Reagan administration, a much larger current account deficit.
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Does the twin deficit hypothesis hold in the OECD countries under ...
Twin deficits can be linked by two theoretical approaches. First approach which considers the Mundell–Fleming framework assuming perfect capital mobility ...
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[PDF] twin deficits hypothesis in seacen countries: a panel data - USC
In this paper, the twin deficits hypothesis was examined using the panel data of nine. SEACEN countries. Empirical results provide evidence to support the view ...
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An Empirical Investigation of Twin Deficits Hypothesis for Six ...
Apr 17, 2009 · This paper aims to analyze Keynesian well-known twin deficits hypothesis for a group of emerging countries using quarterly data between 1996 and 2006.
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[PDF] The twin deficits hypothesis in developing countries
Regarding the final strand of the empirical literature, Darrat (1988) provides evidence of a bi- directional causality between fiscal deficits and current ...
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Evidence from bootstrap panel Granger causality - ScienceDirect
It is often argued that the two deficits are both strongly and positively related, and have become known as the “twin deficits”. However, the relationship ...
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Twin deficits through the looking glass: time-varying analysis in the ...
Jun 30, 2023 · In the first step of our empirical strategy, we investigate the effects of the CAPB and the government balance on the current account balance.
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[PDF] Twin Deficits in Developing Economies, WP/18/170, July 2018
Abstract. This paper provides new evidence on the existence and magnitude of the “twin deficits” in developing economies. It finds that a one percent of GDP ...
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The Twin Deficits Hypothesis: An Empirical Analysis for Tanzania
In this paper, the empirical tests fail to reject the twin deficits hypothesis, indicating that rising budget deficits put more strain on the current account ...
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Twin Deficits or Ricardian Equivalence? Empirical Evidence in the ...
Jan 10, 2018 · The paper analyses the relationship between trade balance and government budget for the APEC countries over the 1980-2013 years.
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[PDF] Twin Deficits or Distant Cousins? Evidence from India
Given this theoretical ambiguity and its policy-implications, it is no surprise that the empirical literature examining the twin-deficits phenomenon is quite ...
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Current account and fiscal deficits: Evidence from five developing ...
This study finds trade deficits to cause fiscal deficits and not vice versa. A case for increased government spending in response to the domestic hardships.
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The twin deficits hypothesis and reverse causality: A short-run ...
Using quarterly data for the open economy, the outcomes reject the twin deficits hypothesis. Instead, the evidence points strongly to reverse causality, that is ...
[49]
The Twin Deficits Hypothesis: Evidence from Ghana
Jul 18, 2017 · Granger causality results find support for the reverse causality argument, thereby rejecting the twin-deficits hypothesis for Ghana.
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[PDF] Budget Deficits and the Balance of Trade
In summary, the data for Japan appear to support the view that budget deficits do not cause significant deterioration of the current account. Nevertheless ...
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Twin Deficits: Does the Composition of the Fiscal Adjustment Matter ...
Mar 28, 2024 · The study finds that fiscal consolidation leads to a rise in the external current account balance, in line with the “twin deficits” hypothesis.
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Macroeconomic effects of fiscal consolidation on economic activity in ...
The study finds that in the short run, fiscal consolidation reduces real GDP and private demand. In addition, the current account balance responds positively ...
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[PDF] Fiscal consolidation and the current account: OECD evidence
Our finding that the effect of fiscal consolidation on investment is negative - rather than positive as revealed by previous measures (Bluedorn and Leigh, 2011) ...
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Twin deficits revisited: A role for fiscal institutions? - ScienceDirect.com
We find that the twin-deficits hypothesis is confirmed. The impact of the budget balance on the current account balance is increased when fiscal rules are ...
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National Deficit | U.S. Treasury Fiscal Data
U.S. Deficit by Year Since 2001, the federal government's budget has run a deficit each year. Starting in 2016, increases in spending on Social Security, ...
[56]
Excess Savings and Twin Deficits: The Transmission of Fiscal ...
Jun 23, 2022 · We study the effects of debt-financed fiscal transfers in a general equilibrium, heterogeneous-agent model of the world economy.Missing: impact | Show results with:impact
[57]
Excess Savings and Twin Deficits: The Transmission of Fiscal ...
In other words, the spending-down phenomenon implies that the effects of fiscal deficits on current accounts are very persistent: twin deficits happen in slow ...
[58]
(PDF) Revisiting the twin deficits hypothesis in the United States
Jun 11, 2023 · Our empirical evidence suggests a nonlinear long-run relationship between the two variables, thus finding the presence of the twin deficits ...
[59]
Twin Deficits, Twenty Years Later - Federal Reserve Bank of New York
Recent declines in the U.S. current account and fiscal balances have sparked renewed debate over the twin-deficit hypothesis, which argues that a larger fiscal ...Missing: criticisms | Show results with:criticisms