{"id":632,"date":"2011-01-25T00:02:55","date_gmt":"2011-01-25T06:02:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/opengecko.com\/ib-economics\/understanding-the-balance-of-payments\/"},"modified":"2011-01-25T05:13:29","modified_gmt":"2011-01-25T11:13:29","slug":"understanding-the-balance-of-payments","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/opengecko.com\/geckoview\/economics\/understanding-the-balance-of-payments\/","title":{"rendered":"Understanding the Balance of Payments"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><font size=\"3\">This can be a difficult concept to understand (especially at IGCSE level, less so at IB level), mainly because we are trying to understand how an entire country manages its financial accounts of all transactions between itself and other countries. The real difficulty, i find, is that different nations take different approaches which means that there is no uniform &#8216;model&#8217; of what Balance of Payments should be structured. In some cases, different phrases are used for the same thing (always a source of frustration to students when learning something first time round). Text books and online articles (try this and <\/font><a href=\"http:\/\/www.economicshelp.org\/macroeconomics\/bop\/index.html\" target=\"_blank\"><font size=\"3\">here<\/font><\/a><font size=\"3\">) have plenty to say about it, but here are a few resources designed to help simplify understanding.<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font size=\"3\">Here is a skeleton outline of the B of P, which is perhaps oversimplified. A student in my class typed notes from my whiteboard scrawl (thanks Jonathan):<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font size=\"3\"><\/font><\/p>\n<p><font size=\"3\"><\/font><\/p>\n<p><font size=\"3\"><\/font><\/p>\n<p><font size=\"3\"><\/font><\/p>\n<p><font size=\"3\">This youtube video by <a href=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/user\/pajholden\"><strong>pajholden<\/strong><\/a>&#160;<\/font><font size=\"3\">helps understand the Current Account structure from a UK perspective:&#160; <a href=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=JKRBpJZ92QM\" target=\"_blank\">&#8216;balance of payments &#8211; structure of the current account<\/a> &#8216; <\/font><\/p>\n<p><font size=\"3\">Below, this simple interactive drag and drop exercise hosted at <a href=\"http:\/\/www.reffonomics.com\">www.reffonomics.com<\/a> is a useful reminder of how different &#8216;components&#8217; of the Balance of Payments can be classified. Click on the table \/ image below.<\/font><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.reffonomics.com\/TRB\/chapter26\/currentcapitalaccountsinteractive.swf\" target=\"_blank\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" style=\"background-image: none; border-right-width: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; display: block; float: none; border-top-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; margin-left: auto; border-left-width: 0px; margin-right: auto; padding-top: 0px\" title=\"image\" border=\"0\" alt=\"image\" src=\"https:\/\/opengecko.com\/geckoview\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/01\/image4.png\" width=\"353\" height=\"187\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><font size=\"3\"><\/font><\/p>\n<p><font size=\"3\">Below, there is another really helpful interactive exercise by Rafael Pampillon hosted at <\/font><a title=\"http:\/\/openmultimedia.ie.edu\" href=\"http:\/\/openmultimedia.ie.edu\"><font size=\"3\">http:\/\/openmultimedia.ie.edu<\/font><\/a><font size=\"3\"> to play around with the different components of the Balance of Payments, where they might be placed and how they might be applied. You are advised to read the guide attached to the .swf file (top right hand corner) but even if time does not allow for this, it is good to experiment as the feedback will help you realise the correct answers with a bit of trial and error). Click on the image below to access the page.<\/font><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/openmultimedia.ie.edu\/openproducts\/balanza_pagos_i\/balanza_pagos_i\/index.html\" target=\"_blank\"><font size=\"3\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" style=\"background-image: none; border-right-width: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; display: inline; border-top-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-left-width: 0px; padding-top: 0px\" title=\"image\" border=\"0\" alt=\"image\" src=\"https:\/\/opengecko.com\/geckoview\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/01\/image5.png\" width=\"550\" height=\"472\" \/><\/font><\/a><\/p>\n<p><font size=\"3\"><\/font><\/p>\n<p><font size=\"3\">Finally, here is a bit more detail from <a title=\"http:\/\/tutor2u.net\" href=\"http:\/\/tutor2u.net\">http:\/\/tutor2u.net<\/a> on the topic (better for IB level than IGCSE level):<\/font><\/p>\n<p><a title=\"http:\/\/tutor2u.net\/economics\/revision-notes\/as-macro-balance-of-payments.html\" href=\"http:\/\/tutor2u.net\/economics\/revision-notes\/as-macro-balance-of-payments.html\">http:\/\/tutor2u.net\/economics\/revision-notes\/as-macro-balance-of-payments.html<\/a><\/p>\n<p><font size=\"3\">&#160;<\/font><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This can be a difficult concept to understand (especially at IGCSE level, less so at IB level), mainly because we are trying to understand how an entire country manages its financial accounts of all transactions between itself and other countries. The real difficulty, i find, is that different nations take different approaches which means that&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,10,13],"tags":[105,195],"class_list":["post-632","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-economics","category-ib-economics","category-igcse-economics","tag-balance-of-payments","tag-international-economics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/opengecko.com\/geckoview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/632","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/opengecko.com\/geckoview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/opengecko.com\/geckoview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/opengecko.com\/geckoview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/opengecko.com\/geckoview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=632"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/opengecko.com\/geckoview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/632\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":634,"href":"https:\/\/opengecko.com\/geckoview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/632\/revisions\/634"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/opengecko.com\/geckoview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=632"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/opengecko.com\/geckoview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=632"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/opengecko.com\/geckoview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=632"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}