Rather, I believe that understanding the influence of global factors on the U.S. current account deficit is essential for understanding the effects of the deficit and for devising policies to address it.
Of course, as always, the views I express today are not necessarily shared by my colleagues at the Federal Reserve.2 The U.S. Current Account Deficit: Two Perspectives We will find it helpful to consider, as background for the analysis of the U.S. current account deficit, two alternative ways of thinking about the phenomenon - one that relates the deficit to the patterns of U.S. trade and a second that focuses on saving, investment, and international financial flows.