Analysis of External Imbalances in the Economy of Ukraine on the Basis of Determining an Acceptable Level of the Current Account of Balance of Payments

Abstract

The aim of the article is to determine the size of an acceptable level of the current balance and external imbalance for Ukraine with regard to the steady trade deficit having been observed for the last ten years. The assessment is based on several most common methods, namely: analysis of macro indicators, indicators of external sustainability, and the volume of foreign direct investment received. According to the calculations performed by all three methods, during the 2005-2016 the average acceptable level of the current account deficit made up about 2.5% of GDP, which is lower than in countries of Eastern Europe, however, is at the same level with Asian countries. The largest negative gap of the current account was observed right before the crises of 2008 and 2012-2013 when the gap exceeded 3.5% of GDP. Furthermore, it is important that the processes of correcting external imbalances were aligned with achieving the internal balance. The analysis based on a Swan diagram shows that in most cases the Ukrainian economy needs to correct either internal or external imbalances, which made it impossible to use the same instruments to remove them. Under these conditions the determining role of the state economic policy should be aimed at both searching for optimal variants of macroeconomic measures of the monetary and fiscal nature, and implementing the necessary structural reforms

Keywords

• acceptable level of the current balance
• external imbalances
• internal balance