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In economics, a country's current account is one of the two components of its balance of payments, the other being the capital account (sometimes called the financial account). The current account consists of the balance of trade, net ''primary income'' or ''factor income'' (earnings on foreign investments minus payments made to foreign investors) and net cash transfers, that have taken place over a given period of time. The current account balance is one of two major measures of a country's foreign trade (the other being the net capital outflow). A current account surplus indicates that the value of a country's net foreign assets (i.e. assets less liabilities) grew over the period in question, and a current account deficit indicates that it shrank. Both government and private payments are included in the calculation. It is called the current account because goods and services are generally consumed in the current period.〔Ecological Economics: Principles And Applications; Herman E. Daly, Joshua Farley; Island Press, 2003〕〔(Current Account Deficits: Is There a Problem? ), Atish Ghosh, Uma Ramakrishnan, IMF, 2012-03-28.〕 ==Overview== A country's balance of trade is the net or difference between the country's exports of goods and services and its imports of goods and services, ignoring all financial transfers, investments and other components, over a given period of time. A country is said to have a trade surplus if its exports exceed its imports, and a trade deficit if its imports exceed its exports. Positive net sales abroad generally contributes to a ''current account surplus''; negative net sales abroad generally contributes to a ''current account deficit''. Because exports generate positive net sales, and because the trade balance is typically the largest component of the current account, a current account surplus is usually associated with positive net exports. In the net factor income or income account, income payments are outflows, and income receipts are inflows. Income are receipts from investments made abroad (note: investments are recorded in the capital account but income from investments is recorded in the current account) and money sent by individuals working abroad, known as remittances, to their families back home. If the income account is negative, the country is paying more than it is taking in interest, dividends, etc. The various subcategories in the income account are linked to specific respective subcategories in the capital account, as income is often composed of factor payments from the ownership of capital (assets) or the negative capital (debts) abroad. From the capital account, economists and central banks determine implied rates of return on the different types of capital. The United States, for example, gleans a substantially larger rate of return from foreign capital than foreigners do from owning United States capital. In the traditional accounting of balance of payments, the current account equals the change in net foreign assets. A current account deficit implies a paralleled reduction of the net foreign assets. : Current account = changes in net foreign assets. If an economy is running a current account deficit, it is absorbing (absorption = domestic consumption + investment + government spending) more than that it is producing. This can only happen if some other economies are lending their savings to it (in the form of debt to or direct/ portfolio investment in the economy) or the economy is running down its foreign assets such as official foreign currency reserve. On the other hand, if an economy is running a current account surplus it is absorbing less than that it is producing. This means it is saving. As the economy is open, this saving is being invested abroad and thus foreign assets are being created. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「current account」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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