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We examine the twin deficits and the direction of its movement for the case of Bolivia, a natural resource-dependent country, using the database of (Kehoe et al., 2019) from 1960 to 2019.

We combine a structural vector autoregression (SVAR) model with a dynamic stochastic general equilibrium (DSGE) model to understand the transmission mechanisms.

Our results suggest the existence of twin deficits in Bolivia; however, causality in the Mundell-Fleming sense does not hold. While fiscal policy shocks explain current account deficits, current account shocks have a stronger effect over fiscal deficit. In fact, only 23% of the variance of current account forecast errors is explained by fiscal policy shocks; in contrast, 45% of the variance of the fiscal deficit is explained by current account shocks.

The study is for a specific case, which is a limitation; however, other country samples can be included.

Based on the results of the work, policies can be recommended and designed to cushion the effects of external shocks.

According to the literature available for the Bolivian case, our work constitutes a significant contribution and, therefore, is original for this specific case.