THE UNITED-STATES TRADE AND BUDGET DEFICITS IN GLOBAL PERSPECTIVE - AN ESSAY IN GEOPOLITICAL-ECONOMY

The disturbances in the global economy induced by the US trade and budget deficits are widely recognised by economists, even if the precise causes and effects of these deficits remain a topic of debate. What is less widely understood is that the deficits are pregnant with geographical implications for the world economy and that the production of the deficits can be explained in part by the changing and asymmetrical location of the US in international economic and geopolitical relations. In section 2, competing accounts of the production of the US trade and budget deficits are considered. In section 3, the implications of the twin deficits for the US space-economy are considered. In section 4, the implications of the US deficits for the rest of the world, and for the less developed countries in particular, are examined. The regional implications of a debtors' surplus are discussed in section 5, which serves also as a conclusion. -from Authors