Sustainability of the current account deficits in Turkey was evaluated according to the macroeconomic fundamentals together with discussing the composition of current account deficit and the way of financing to have insights about the future path of current account balance. Problem about current account deficits were considered as structural since they were caused by foreign trade deficits largely as an outcome of dependence of production and exports on imported intermediate goods. Furthermore, there were negative developments about the way of financing in last years that share of debt instruments in financing has increased against Foreign Direct Investment. As a result, it has seen that Turkey would continue to have current account deficits in the next years and sustainability of these deficits has become increasingly difficult

It is well known that the GCC countries are heavily dependent on oil and hydrocarbon industries, but during the 2003-2008 period, economic diversification is proceeded; enhancing the role of the private sector, encouraging FDI, and laying the ground for competitive integration in the globalization process. The year 2003 is special for the economic integration within the GCC due to the introduction of the custom union and high growth. This paper analzes the trade flows of the GCC countries before and after the signature of the Custom Union agreement in 2003. Fixed effects panel models have been estimated using the LS and GMM methods. It has been found that the year 2003 is special for the GCC countries. The year 2003 indicates the turning points in the intra-GCC trade and also in the GCC trade with the rest of the world. The results show that the 2003 Custom Union agreement has not fostered the intra-GCC trade, except for the United Arab Emirates, and also that the order of top fifteen trade partners has changed significantly from the EU countries and the US to the Asian countries after 2003. Additionally, the exports and imports of the GCC countries are related to the wealth of partner countries, but not distance. These results have important

The objective of this paper is to examine the theoretical and empirical linkage between current account deficits and a broad set of macroeconomic variables in Turkey. This paper employs the Auto Regressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) model to specify the determinants of the current account in Turkey between 1987 and 2009. Results indicate that inflation affects the current account balance positively, whereas growth, openness, oil prices, and appreciation of the real exchange rate cause the current account balance to deteriorate.After any shock, it takes four quarters for the current account balance to return to its long-run equilibrium level.

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