摘要：This paper aims to identify how much of the recent current account adjustment in Spain canbe explained by cyclical factors. For this purpose, we consider the cross-country regressionsin the IMF’s External Balance Assessment (EBA) methodology but allowing for country-specifi cslopes and intercepts. The good fi t of these regressions implies negligible residuals for mostcountries, and, as a result, the positive analysis of current account decompositions providesa more informative assessment of the external balance drivers. According to our fi ndings,around 60% of the 12 pp. adjustment of the Spanish external imbalance over the 2008-2015period can be explained by transitory factors such as the output gap, the oil balance, and thefi nancial cycle. The remaining 40% is explained by factors such as the cyclically-adjusted fi scalconsolidation, population aging, lower growth expectations, or competitiveness gains, whichcan all be considered as more permanent phenomena.
