新的全球失衡：为何关注、为何是现在以及应该做什么？

April 2026 The new global imbalances: Why care,why now and what should be done? Beatrice Weder di Mauro and Jeromin Zettelmeyer1 Geneva Graduate Institute and CEPR; Bruegel and CEPR 1 INTRODUCTION Global imbalances – trade and current account deficits and surpluses, leading togrowing net claims and net liabilities between countries – have made a comeback.Since 2018, the sums of current accounts recorded in surplus and deficits countrieshave risen by about 25% and 35%, respectively, to their highest levels since 2012.The increase remains modest relative to their previous large expansion, betweenthe early and late 2000s, when deficits expanded by 50%, led by the United States,while surpluses rose by 145%, led by China.2 That episode led to much acrimony inthe 2000s. Was the US pulling in excess savings from the rest of the world, or was itbeing pushed into overconsumption by surplus economies? And it ended badly, witha global financial crisis and a debt crisis in Europe. The new episode is generatingsimilar acrimony between the US and China, and has become a focus of internationalattention. President Emmanuel Macron, for example, has made global imbalances themain priority of France’s G7 presidency in 2026.3 The lesson from history is that global imbalances often end in financial crises. That riskcannot be dismissed today. The stock of external liabilities of the central country in theglobal financial system is already high and projected to rise further. Meanwhile, assetmanagers hold increasingly concentrated exposures, equity valuations are stretchedand signs of investor nervousness are emerging, with greater efforts to hedge risk. Insuch an environment, the potential for abrupt repricing and spillovers is significant. Even when external imbalances do not trigger or magnify a financial crisis – or notyet – they are potentially worrying for a second reason: as a by-product of domesticproblems and a potential cause of political ones. To the extent that imbalancesreflect a large and/or rapidly rising trade imbalance, they can fuel protectionism andultimately a fragmentation of the global trading system. Japan experienced a tradeconflict with the United States in the 1980s. China came under intense pressure to revalue its currency prior to the Global Financial Crisis (GFC) and faced escalatingtariffs during the first administration of US President Donald Trump. On Trump’s 2April 2025 “Liberation Day”, when he said the US would impose high tariffs, the USadministration signalled a shift toward a more unilateral and confrontational tradestance. For both reasons, the cause of very large external imbalances needs to be understood,and steps should be taken to reduce them. How to do this is not self-evident. It dependson the size, trend and cause of imbalance. Furthermore, there is the risk that reducingtrade imbalances gives protectionists an excuse. Sometimes the imbalances need tobe tackled by addressing their underlying causes. Sometimes, the need is just to tacklethe protectionists. This Policy Insight lays out the policy issues raised by the return of global imbalances.It has three main aims: 1.to explain why global imbalances have gained a new salience in internationalpolicy debates;2.to summarise the main insights from recent economic research on thecauses and remedies of the current imbalances, focusing on the three largesttrading blocs: the US, the European Union and China; and3.to draw out policy conclusions on how the rest of the world should react toexternal imbalances in the US, Europe and China, should those imbalancespersist. To address the first two objectives, we draw heavily on the 2026 CEPR-Bruegel ParisReport onThe New Global Imbalances, edited by Hélène Rey and ourselves (Reyet al.,2026). The discussion of the third is based largely on our own analysis. We begin by reviewing the concepts and economic history underpinning today’sdiscussion of global imbalances. The structure of the remainder of the Policy Insightreflects its three objectives, followed by a conclusion. 2 GLOBAL IMBALANCE BASICS 2.1 Back to basics Despite their ominous label, global imbalances are not inherently detrimental. Theirnature and implications are best understood by revisiting the fundamental conceptsand accounting identities underpinning the balance of payments. CEPR POLICY INSIGHT No. 1481.Current account imbalances reflect domestic savings–investment gaps.A current account balance is the mirror image of the difference betweensavings from domestic sources and investment in the domestic economy(from any source – public or private, domestic or foreign). Deficits arisewhen investment exceeds savings; surpluses when a country saves morethan it invests. Imbalances are mostly a macroeconomic phenomenon.2.Such imbalances are not inherently bad. For fast-growing or catching-upeconomies, investing more than domestic saving – by importing capital –allows growth to be accelerated and future income to be increased.3