nber working paper 11583 ; o. blanchard et al. „ the u. s. current account and the dollar ”, nber working paper 11137 and many others. thanks to the intensified scale of those phenomena and thanks to including an increasing number of countries into the international economic processes. taking into consideration the labour market, it may be observed that the inclusion of the cee countries as well as the former soviet union countries, india, china, and other developing countries resulted in an increase in the global labour supply of 2 billion workers. thus, we are witnesses to the establishment of the global labour market. actions of international corporations undertaken to relocate manufacturing or orders to countries with lower manufacturing costs simply make use of the existing comparative advantages. the foreign direct investment ( fdi ) inflow between 1990 and 2004 increased more than threefold, amounting to ca. usd 648 billion in 2004. in the same period, the fdi inflow to developing countries was six times higher and in 2004 it amounted to usd 233 billion 17. a significant factor contributing to intensification of the above phenomena is trade liberalisation, which involves reduction or elimination of customs tariff rates and all other non - tariff barriers that increase the costs of trade. studies undertaken so far 18 point to a significant role of preferential trade agreements, which in the years 1993 - 1997 involved about 70 % of all trade exchange of west european countries. apart from preferential trade agreements, a factor of vital importance to the liberalisation of global flows of goods are multilateral agreements within the wto / gatt forum. thanks to gatt agreements, there has been a sharp reduction in customs tariff rates from ca. 40 % after wwii to 6 % in the early 1990s and to 4 % at the turn of the century 19. a gradual reduction of barriers to trade is a slow process ; however, it brings permanent benefits to each of the interested parties, as it leads to specialisation in production, which brings notable benefits in the form of maintaining a competitive position on the global market. proofs of growing links among economies can be found e. g. in the world trade statistics, according to which exports of goods and services have increased fivefold since 1980 20. in 2005, the value of global exports corresponded to 29 % of the global gdp, compared to 20 % in 1980. this also indicates that trade develops at a much higher rate than the global domestic manufacturing. in the new eu member states the export - to -

that the budget deficit, from a substantial surplus in the year 2000, turned into a level estimated at 4. 7 % of the gdp in 2004. another factor that is often indicated is the change in the economic policy of the asian countries after the crisis of 1997 - 1998, when a decision was taken in many countries to establish huge foreign exchange reserves for the purpose of hedging against similar changes in the sentiment of financial markets in the future 12. other hypotheses indicate higher investment attractiveness of the usa in comparison to other regions, measured - inter alia - with the higher potential economic growth rate 13. there exists another hypothesis, according to which such a high current account deficit is optimal 14, in the face of the expected higher future growth rate of the american economy in comparison to that of other developed economies. this hypothesis is based on the assumption that americans increase their present consumption financed from loans, anticipating high future earnings that will allow them to pay off the loans, which is perfectly correct. finally, there are papers which try to prove that... there is no deficit. the above - mentioned article by hausmann and sturzenegger 15 arguing for the existence of “ dark matter ” is an example of this approach. in spite of many attempts to prove that the us current account deficit is in fact lower than it is believed to be and that it is even desirable, a vast majority of academic economists and many central bankers are seriously alarmed by the scale of global imbalances. many papers have been written recently that show what may be the consequences of the scenario in which the financial markets - in view of no adequate measures undertaken by economic decision - makers - initiate adjustment processes by themselves 16. if the financial markets start pricing in higher risk premium for american debt securities, the outflow of capital from this market - or even decreased capital inflows - may lead to a fall in bond prices, i. e. to a sharp increase in long - term interest rates, a slowdown on the property market, depreciation of the dollar and, consequently, stagnation or even recession, which may be observed globally. in order to mitigate the probability of such a scenario, structural reforms should be implemented in many countries. the usa should substantially reduce its budget deficit and - via a reform of the pension system - increase the household savings rate. in the eu and japan a series of structural reforms should be accelerated to raise the flexibility and competitiveness of the labour and