Macroeconomics in 3D: Three Sectoral Balances for 195 Countries, 1980-2024

This dataset provides information on the three macroeconomic sectoral balances, covering 195 countries over 45 years.

Macroeconomic analysis often focuses on the 'twin deficits' - the government deficit and the current account deficit. This is an incomplete view which leaves out the private sector balance.

The three sectoral balances must sum up to zero, by accounting identity (UN System of National Accounts 2008):

(S – I) + (T – G) + (M – X) = 0

Economists using the two-dimensional view have famously missed the global financial crisis, while those using accounting models covering all three sectoral balances were able to predict it (Bezemer 2010, Galbraith 2012). However, data on private sector deficits/surpluses is not readily available. Only the public and current account balances are published regularly by the IMF's World Economic Outlook.

Beyond developed countries, looking at the private sector balance is critical for analyzing and crafting policies in developing countries. The frequently recommended policy of 'fiscal consolidation', i.e. reducing public deficits, is revealed in the sectoral balances to also reduce, ceteris paribus, the private sector surplus (or increase its deficit), slowing down or even reversing development and poverty reduction (Assa and Morgan 2025).

The dataset was calculated based on two publicly available series from the IMF World Economic Outlook (downloaded October 2025): General government net lending/borrowing (coded as GOV) and Current account balance (coded as CAB). From this we calculated the private sector balance as PRV = CAB - GOV. We converted CAB to ROW (ROW = -CAB), the rest of the world balance, and made sure that ROW, GOV and PRV add up to zero as required by the national accounting identity. All years containing IMF forecasts were removed.

References:

Assa, J., & Morgan, M. (2025). The General Relativity of Fiscal Space: Theory and Applications. Review of Political Economy, 1-35.

Bezemer, D. J. (2010). Understanding financial crisis through accounting models. Accounting, organizations and society, 35(7), 676-688.

Galbraith, J. K. (2012). Who are these economists, anyway?. In Contributions in Stock-flow Modeling: Essays in Honor of Wynne Godley (pp. 63-75). London: Palgrave Macmillan UK.

United Nations (2008). System of National Accounts 2008. https://unstats.un.org/unsd/nationalaccount/sna2008.asp

本数据集涵盖195个国家、跨度45年的三大宏观经济部门余额数据。

宏观经济分析常聚焦于“双赤字”——政府赤字与经常账户赤字，但这一视角并不完整，遗漏了私人部门余额。

根据联合国2008年国民账户体系（UN System of National Accounts 2008）的核算恒等式，三大部门余额之和必须为零：
(S – I) + (T – G) + (M – X) = 0

采用二维视角的经济学家曾错失全球金融危机，而运用涵盖三大部门余额的核算模型的学者则成功预判了此次危机（Bezemer 2010, Galbraith 2012）。然而，私人部门收支盈余/赤字的数据并不容易获取，国际货币基金组织（International Monetary Fund, IMF）的《世界经济展望》（World Economic Outlook, WEO）仅定期公布公共部门与经常账户余额数据。

除发达国家外，关注私人部门余额对于发展中国家的政策分析与制定至关重要。常被推荐的“财政整固”政策，即削减公共赤字，经部门余额分析可发现，在其他条件不变的情况下，该政策也会减少私人部门盈余（或扩大其赤字），进而放缓甚至逆转发展与减贫进程（Assa and Morgan 2025）。

本数据集基于国际货币基金组织《世界经济展望》的两套公开序列（2025年10月下载）计算得到：一般政府净借贷/净贷出（编码为GOV）与经常账户余额（编码为CAB）。据此，我们将私人部门余额计算为PRV = CAB - GOV。我们将CAB转换为世界其他地区余额（ROW = -CAB），并确保ROW、GOV与PRV满足国民核算恒等式求和为零的要求。所有包含IMF预测数据的年份均已剔除。

参考文献：
Assa, J., & Morgan, M. (2025). 财政空间的广义相对论：理论与应用. 《政治经济评论》(Review of Political Economy), 1-35.
Bezemer, D. J. (2010). 借助核算模型理解金融危机. 《会计、组织与社会》(Accounting, Organizations and Society), 35(7), 676-688.
Galbraith, J. K. (2012). 这些经济学家究竟是谁？. 载于《存量-流量模型研究：纪念温尼·戈德利文集》(Contributions in Stock-flow Modeling: Essays in Honor of Wynne Godley), 第63-75页. 伦敦：英国帕尔格雷夫·麦克米兰出版社(Palgrave Macmillan UK).
联合国(2008). 2008年国民账户体系. https://unstats.un.org/unsd/nationalaccount/sna2008.asp