Talk:Current account

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[edit] Account definitions

The current account, capital account, financial account and change in official reserves together sum to zero as a result of accounting definitions.

This conflicts with balance of payments which appears to say that the financial and capital accounts are the same thingoip. -- Beland 23:55, 24 October 2006 (UTC) --195.195.255.50 12:22, 10 October 2007 (UTC) The capital and financial accounts are different, although they both belong on the opposite side of the BoP. The K account is generally quite insignificant, so many textbooks say it is the same thing as the Financial account. [Eric 14:25, 29 October 2006 (AEST)]

So can we remove the "dubious assertion," or should we wait for an empirical explanation as requested below? -- Andersem

Not sure the exact answer to this question, but I do know that there has been a change in naming conventions in recent years. Either the capital account or the financial account used to be referred to by the opposite name a few decades ago.

When interest rates are cut, inflation ultimately increases as spending rises. So in trying to control current account deficit by reducing inflation, it is necessary to increase interest rates (not cut them) - koko

The "dubious" distinction should be removed. As per the CFA Institute, balance-of-payment accounting tracks the exchange of funds of a country with its external trading partners. The central equation of this accounting methodology is as follows:

current account + capital account + offical reserve account = 0

The capital account and financial account are generally used as interchangeable terms.

LeBas 14:26, 15 March 2007 (EST)


This article is written in very inaccessible language. It uses technical accounting terminology that confuses the heck out of me, even though I have been investing in the share market and paying attention to macroeconomic movements for the past twenty years. Unfortunately, I don't have enough knowledge of the subject to confidently edit it. It would be appreciated if this could be re-written in a more accessible format by someone who has this confidence.

Adam —Preceding unsigned comment added by 192.94.41.42 (talk) 17:58, August 30, 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Empirical measurement

How is this figure empirically determined for any given country? -- Beland 00:00, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Dividends

The article says "However, for the few countries with substantial overseas assets or liabilities, net factor payments may be significant". FOr example, Czechia has trade surplus, but current account deficit at the same time, mostly due to dividend transfers. Does it mean it has "substantial overseas liabilities"? I am not sure, I do not understand the sentence (BTW why overseas?, why not foreign?) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Jirka6 (talkcontribs) 04:18, 7 September 2007 (UTC)