Fiscal Expectations and Current Account Surplus of the Main OECD Countries

For the last fifteen years, the current balance of payments of OECD countries has been marked by deep disequi 1ibria and large scale variations. Thus, for most countries, the current account, the surplus of which amounted to 2% of GDP in 1973, went into deficit and reached 0.8% of GDP in 1985. Furthermore, the divergence in the direction of disequi 1ibria according to the country considered is of course, the most striking phenomenon of the mid-eighties. Indeed, there is a striking contrast between on the one hand, the United States and on the other hand, Germany and Japan. The former have a deficit in excess of 3% of their GNP whereas the latter have a surplus in excess of 4% of their GNP.