Talk:Balance of payments

message: Would it not be wise for someone to include an extensive writeup of Keynes' Bancor?  This seems particularly prudent as many superpowers like China have called for that system to be adopted.  It looks like someone was attempting to get to this point by titling a section Bretton Woods II. Anyway, I'm not entirely competent to do so myself. This is a huge issue today, and expanding the discussion of this important concept and its history going back to 1945 would be a tremendous asset for wikipedia readers.   — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.126.175.99 (talk) 12:17, 28 June 2017 (UTC)
thread_title: Keynes and the Bancor

message: New video from Office for National Statistics in the UK on the UK's current account and how it fits into the UK's balance of payments - thought it might fit nicely on this page: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cbJIVmsKOZU&list=UUFAmuev5BtHEh3o-WxgFA3g
Statshan (talk) 10:50, 31 October 2014 (UTC)
thread_title: Suggestion

message: What happened to the United States balance of payments? Please explain yourself before removing text.--Jerryseinfeld 21:56, 29 Jan 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: "The balance of payments is a measure of the payments that flow from one country to another." Are you sure? The balance of payments is generally understood to be the payments in and out of one particular country. The balance is between payments to all other countries and payments from all other countries. James James 04:32, 23 September 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: comments

message: "Some consider the system today to be based on oil, a universally desirable commodity due to the dependence of so much infrastructural capital on oil supply. Since OPEC prices oil in US dollars, the US dollar remains a reserve currency, but is increasingly challenged by the euro, and to some degree the Japanese yen."
This is incorrect, I believe. I don't know of any responsible economists who say that the balance of payments today is "based on oil". Please cite sources? 
And it is not true that the US dollar remains a reserve currency, "since OPEC prices oil in US dollars". The US dollar is a reserve currency primarily because it is a "refuge" from economic and political uncertainty elsewhere. The euro and the yen both have challenged that, but have proven themselves to be comparatively unstable recently, so forex "refuge" funds have remained in the dollar. Pricing oil or any other commodity in any other currency would not alter this, in fact would only reflect a change: oil is priced in dollars, still, precisely because the dollar is economically and politically stable. The reasoning is the reverse.
--Kessler 23:43, 27 September 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: in fact, compared to the euro, the dollar is now quite unstable. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by khhllhklkl
.198.8.211 (talk) 13:53, 18 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Oil? 

message: "For a country to have a zero balance of payments, a current account deficit must be balanced by a capital account surplus."
This statement is wrong. Per definition, a balance cannot have a surplus or a deficit. In terms of the balance of payments the sum of current account and capital account equals the foreign reserves.
See also: Mishkin, Frederic S., 2004, The Economics of Money, Banking, and Financial Marktes 7th Edition, p.468:
"Because the balance of payments must balance, the official reserve transactions balance, which equals the current account plus the capital account, tells us the net amount of international reserves that must move between governments (as represented by their central banks) to finance international transactions."
--Andreas Vester 10:42, 7 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  No surpluses or deficits in a balance 

message: could someone explain the importance of the BOP? What exactly is being paid for? imports alone? what about remittances? how does it effects the exchange rate? 
am I just not understanding the economics?
If its not clear to me I figure there is something lacking in the article itself.
--P Funk 17:20, 3 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Macroeconomic implications 

message: The first line in the Overview section mentions "our dollar". This appears to be U.S. specific. Would it be better to replace it with "a country's currency", "the currency of a particular country" or something similar? Feel free to make the change and then delete this section. Colin MacLaurin 11:02, 12 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  US-specific Terminology 

message: I think it is misleading to describe the situation where liabilities rise faster than assets as a surplus.  Wouldn't something "net capital inflows" be better? --Henrygb 12:22, 12 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Agree I concur, but it is technically correct. --Rchan89 14:17, 25 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Capital account surplus

message: Please keep aware of the possibility of future vandalism to the article.  The Balance of Payments Identity section was removed and replaced with "ho cares", which was later removed.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.66.83.101 (talk) 19:08, 6 November 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Vandalism

message: After reading that I was less educated than before. 
If, by definition of the IMF, the capital account contains income from foreign investment and the financial account is basically made up by transfer of capital, then where is the foreign exchange balance???  
:The IMF definition: "The balance of payments is a statistical statement that summarizes transactions between residents and nonresidents 
:during a period."[1] The balance of payments comprises the current account, the capital account, and the financial account. "Together, these
: accounts balance in the sense the sum of the entries is conceptually zero."[1]
:Changes in the official reserves account for the differences between the capital account and current account, and effectively represent 
:foreign exchange interventions; the magnitude of these changes will depend on monetary policy
There ends do not meet! If the balance of payments is made up by the current, capital and financial account whose sum is zero, you can hardly add another balance to even out what is allready zero.. 
Or does the IMF add the "reserve account" (or foreign exchange balance) to its capital account? That could explain why they list the biggest importer of capital, China, as the biggest exporter(!!). http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/gfsr/2007/01/pdf/statappx.pdf
::: -- I agree, I've just finished reading this article and I'm more confused than before as well. A clear line should be drawn between the IMF definition and the standard definition.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 91.67.221.151 (talk) 15:12, 26 May 2008 (UTC)
replies: text:  Sorry, people but the IMF definition is the only valid definition. Macro books only try to explain the real world, but IMF is the real world. Each member country of the IMF (all countries in the world) need to follow the IMF definition. The currenct manual is the BOP5 manual, and all countries in the world signed up to it. So please stop using the macro boook as a reference - it is most likely not up to date.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by PBES (talk • contribs) 04:27, 25 November 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Capital account - financial account mix up

message: Surely the opening sentence is incorrect. The Balance of Payments does not MEASURE anything. It is an account or list of transactions or summaries of transactions between one economy and all other economies. It is made up of a number of sub-accounts. It uses double entry, and both sides must sum to the same value - hence a balance. If they do not, a special account for errors and omisions is created so that they do balance.Ted (talk) 14:28, 31 July 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Hi Ted. Balance of Payment is a statistics? Would you agree? In statistics we usually, try to measure the real world. For instance inflation. And so in balance of payments we try to measure the cross-border transactions. The rest what you said is true, the b.o.p. is a double entry system, this does not however mean that we do not need to measure trade, reinvested earnings, foreing direct investment, loans, portfolio investment that make up the b.o.p. What happens if our measurements are wrong? We put the mistake in the errors and omisions account, as you correctly said. Cheers, --PBES (talk) 04:34, 25 November 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Definition

message: this page is terrible. and it's an important page. 
the sub-sections of 'components' are not clearly delineated as sub-ordinate, and the logic is very unclear. while the explanations of each term seem to be OK and textbookish, the links only make partial sense.
example -  
in the body formatting does not make it clear that "official international reserves" is intended to be a sub-section of "Financial Account (IMF) / Capital Account (economics)".  
furthermore while "official international reserves" is reasonably defined, there is no indication of why we are talking about it. what is the arithmetic link? we have been told "The Balance of Payments for a country is the sum of the current account, the capital account, the financial account" and then get a detailed equation of financial account and capital account, but NO PLACE are we shown how/where/why we have been told about "official international reserves" and how that relates to the previous calculations. 
I suspect this is typical wiki mediocrity-by-consensus-and-petty-bickering, but FYI, to a new reader of this page, it is a terrible read and despite some good parts, a fair bit makes no sense at all in context.
: Yes I broadly agree with you here. If theres no objection, I'll probably rewrite the page in next few days, similar to how Ive expanded Capital account , except for this article I'll probably remove several potentially misleading sentences entirely. FeydHuxtable (talk) 12:27, 17 December 2009 (UTC)
replies: text:  Have had a first stab at a re-write.  As BOP and correcting imbalances is likely to be a hot topic for 2010, it will be nice to get this article at least close to B class.  I plan to make further improvements over the next couple of weeks. FeydHuxtable (talk) 18:31, 10 January 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Structural disaster. 

message: Is it just me or does the third paragraph in the introduction directly contradict the second paragraph? The second paragraph states that the BOP must ALWAYS be equal to zero, then the third states that sometimes, it can be imbalanced. 219.89.240.49 (talk) 01:57, 30 January 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: thanks, I've changed teh 3rd paragraph to try to clarify.   Unfortuneatly this is not a topic that lends itself to a nice clear consistent treatment, as the term Balance of Payments is used in different ways even by the mainstream finnancial press. I hope its now as clear as can be while still supplying the reader with useful information about the various commong useages. FeydHuxtable (talk) 14:23, 1 February 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Contradiction 

message: As you can see here the colours of the UK, France and Germany are obviously false.
None of this countries has an external debt of 13 Trillion Dollar.
Its also manipulative and simply wrong, to make Japan darker than Russia.
I suggest to fundamentally overwork this grapic, or simply abbandon it.
With best regards,  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.65.33.183 (talk) 17:58, 13 January 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: I liked that pic but I guess if you take it as being an accurate gauge rather than roughly indicative, then it is misleading. So I removed it for now. PS - no reason why you or others cant directly make a change to the article yourself, we only need to use the talk page if we disagree. Thanks for the feedback and best wishes. FeydHuxtable (talk) 19:48, 14 January 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Incorrect Colours in  [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Country_foreign_exchange_reserves_minus_external_debt.png this graphic] 

message: "Global reserves had peaked at about $7,500bn in mid 2008, then declined by about $500 as countries without their own reserve currency used them to shield themselves"
That cannot be right. 500 dollars wouldn't even be seen in the 7,500bn figure. Should it be billion perhaps? --Ehsanit 09:58, 23 May 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks for that, yes youre right it should have said billion. I've updated now slightly more precise figures are available. FeydHuxtable (talk) 12:01, 23 May 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Billion? 

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*Reference : Mendoza, Enrique G & Quadrini, Vincenzo & Rios-Rull, Jose-Victor, 2007. "Financial Integration, Financial Deepness and Global Imbalances," CEPR Discussion Papers 6149, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
ExpertIdeasBot (talk) 15:48, 19 May 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  Dr. Rios-Rull's comment on this article 

message: Dr. Thorbecke has reviewed this Wikipedia page, and provided us with the following comments to improve its quality:
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*Reference : Thorbecke, Willem, 2011. "The Effect of Exchange Rate Changes on Trade in East Asia," ADBI Working Papers 263, Asian Development Bank Institute.
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thread_title:  Dr. Thorbecke's comment on this article 

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thread_title:  External links modified