02195cas a2200265 a 4500 AALejournalIMF005312 230101c9999 xx r poo 0 0eng d 5.00 USD 9781451870565 1018-5941 BD-DhAAL BD-DhAAL Thomas, Alun. Equilibrium Non-Oil Current Account Assessments for Oil Producing Countries / Alun Thomas, Jun Kim, Aqib Aslam. Washington, D.C. : International Monetary Fund, 2008. 1 online resource (24 pages) IMF Working Papers <strong>Off-Campus Access:</strong> No User ID or Password Required <strong>On-Campus Access:</strong> No User ID or Password Required Electronic access restricted to authorized BRAC University faculty, staff and students This paper introduces a methodology for assessing external balance in countries with large stocks of non-renewable resources based on oil stock data, and applies it to selected oil producing countries. The methodology uses a stock approach (instead of the more traditional flow approach) to estimate the equilibrium non-oil current account consistent with optimal consumption smoothing. One of the benefits of the stock approach is that geological data for oil reserves can be used to estimate oil wealth; however, the methodology makes the estimated non-oil current account norm very sensitive to oil price projections. Based on an oil price about USD 70 per barrel prevailing in the summer of 2007, the baseline estimates indicate that the non-oil current accounts for most of the countries in the sample are broadly in equilibrium. By the same token, using oil price projections as of the summer of 2008 implies large disparities between the equilibrium non-oil current account position and the medium term forecast for all countries in the sample except for Malaysia. Mode of access: Internet Aslam, Aqib. Kim, Jun. IMF Working Papers; Working Paper ; No. 2008/198 Full text available on IMF http://elibrary.imf.org/view/journals/001/2008/198/001.2008.issue-198-en.xml IMF e-Library