Balances of Payments – Contemporary Problems

Abstract

Summary:

The article covers contemporary problems concerning the balances of payments in our dynamic world. The first problem concerns the economic importance of the information provided by the balance of payments. In principle nowadays a company can choose how to supply foreign markets – either by traditional export or by locating production on foreign countries’ territory. For quite a long period of time American companies have been locating production in many foreign countries. By doing this they actually “export” merchandise without it getting registered in the trade balance of the USA as an export. Under these circumstances can the balance on goods trade be considered a measure for national competitiveness? On the basis of officially used methodology, the problem concerning the American trade deficit, respectively the surpluses of the biggest trade partners of the USA has been analyzed. A very important question in the context of the global disbalances concerns the period of time they can be sustained. A comparison with the Bretton – Woods system is very useful in this respect. The analysis of the balances of payments of the emerging markets is an important part of the article and that includes Bulgaria’s balance of payments and the impact of the world financial crisis.