This paper uses principal components analysis to describe the evolution of current account imbalances in a sample of 18 Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development countries from 1950 to 2020. The analysis shows, using only statistical methods, how two groups of countries formed in the 1980s. There is the current account surplus group including countries in Northern Europe, Japan and Switzerland and then the deficit group including the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia and several countries in Southern Europe. The divergence cannot be attributed to divergence in fiscal and monetary policy. Instead, there is some support for the thesis of Robert Aliber set out in another paper in this issue that capital flows between countries affect exchange rates, asset prices and the current account. The paper builds on two earlier papers in this journal by the same author, one showing how countries that have experienced a financial crisis tend to subsequently develop current account surpluses and the other showing how surpluses and deficits caused by capital flows affect the domestic real economy.

本文使用主成分分析来描述 18 个经济合作与发展组织样本国家从 1950 年到 2020 年经常账户失衡的演变。该分析仅使用统计方法显示了 1980 年代两组国家是如何形成的。北欧、日本、瑞士等国家为经常项目顺差组，美国、英国、澳大利亚等南欧国家为赤字组。这种分歧不能归因于财政和货币政策的分歧。相反，罗伯特·阿利伯在本期另一篇论文中提出的论点得到了一些支持，即国家之间的资本流动会影响汇率、资产价格和经常账户。