To answer this question, you must obtain data from the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA), www.bea.gov, on the U.S. balance of payment (BOP) tables. Go to interactive tables to obtain annual data for 2008 (the default setting is for quarterly data). It may take you some time to become familiar with how to navigate the website. You need only refer to Table 1 on the BOP accounts. Using the BOP data, calculate the following for the United States:
(Answers will vary because of data revisions. The figures below are based on those given in the Table 5-3 [16-3]: release date Septermber 19, 2013.)
a. Trade balance (TB), net factor income from abroad (NFIA), net unilateral transfers (NUT), and current account (CA)
b. Financial account (FA)
c. Official settlements balance (OSB), referred to as “U.S. official reserve assets” and “Foreign official assets in the U.S.”
d. Nonreserve financial account (NRFA)
e. Balance of payments (BOP). Note that this may not equal zero because of statistical discrepancy. Verify that the discrepancy is the same as the one reported by the BEA.