Global imbalances in the XIX, XX and the XXI centuries

We establish a new stylized fact: while the current account and the trade balances are positively correlated during the second globalization (1990s-2010s), they were negatively correlated during the first globalization (1870s-1910s). We show that the reason behind is that the world interest rate is currently low relatively to the world growth rate due to a “global saving glut”, while this was not the case during the first globalization.