TY  - UNPD
A1  - Goldbach, Stefan
A1  - Harms, Philipp
A1  - Jochem, Axel
A1  - Nitsch, Volker
A1  - Weichenrieder, Alfons J.
T1  - Retained earnings and foreign portfolio ownership: implications for the current account debate
N2  - In some countries, a sizable fraction of savings is derived from corporate savings. Although larger, traded corporations are often co-owned by foreign portfolio investors, current international accounting standards allocate all corporate savings to the host country. This paper suggests a framework to correct for this misleading attribution and applies this concept to Germany. For the years 2012 to 2020, our corrections retrospectively reduce German savings and consequently the German current account surplus by, on average, €11.5bn annually. This amounts to approximately five percent of Germany’s average official current account surplus (€226.6bn) across these years.
T3  - SAFE working paper - 389 
KW  - current account
KW  - balance of payments
KW  - corporate savings
KW  - retained earnings
KW  - foreign portfolio investment
KW  - Germany
Y1  - 2023
UR  - http://publikationen.ub.uni-frankfurt.de/frontdoor/index/index/docId/70368
UR  - https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:hebis:30:3-703682
UR  - https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4465838
PB  - SAFE
CY  - Frankfurt am Main
ER  -