TY - BOOK ID - 84540740 TI - Current Account Imbalances in AsEAN Countries : Are they a Problem? PY - 1997 SN - 1462359116 1452776512 1281600806 1451894090 9786613781499 PB - Washington, D.C. : International Monetary Fund, DB - UniCat KW - Exports and Imports KW - Macroeconomics KW - Macroeconomics: Consumption KW - Saving KW - Wealth KW - Current Account Adjustment KW - Short-term Capital Movements KW - Open Economy Macroeconomics KW - Economywide Country Studies: Asia including Middle East KW - Aggregate Factor Income Distribution KW - International economics KW - Current account KW - Current account deficits KW - Consumption KW - Current account balance KW - Consumption distribution KW - Balance of payments KW - National accounts KW - Economics KW - Income distribution KW - Malaysia UR - https://www.unicat.be/uniCat?func=search&query=sysid:84540740 AB - Applying a consumption-smoothing model to five ASEAN countries reveals that excessive private consumption has not tended to characterize their widening external imbalances in recent years, except to a small degree in Indonesia and Malaysia. Beyond consumption smoothing, however, a number of factors influence the desirability of running large external deficits, including the level and composition of external liabilities, the flexibility of macroeconomic policies, and the health of banking systems. Even when the current account deficit appears sustainable, there is a case to reduce them in order to lower the risks arising from such factors. ER -