Account Drop

Transactions between New Zealand and the rest of the world fall as blocks, each described from New Zealand's point of view and worth an amount in NZ dollars. Send each one into the right bin before it lands: press the bin's key, or tap its button under the game. A key always sends the lowest block.

• Core: the current account only. Four bins: trade in goods, trade in services, primary income and secondary income (keys 1–4). Each bin keeps a running total, and the header above them shows the current account balance.
• Advanced: the whole balance of payments. Six bins: the current, capital and financial account, each as a credit (+) or a debit (−) (keys 1–6). Each account's balance shows above its bins as you go, and the HUD shows the current account balance.

A right placement scores more the quicker you make it, plus a bonus for a streak. A wrong bin, or a block that lands, costs a life, and the message says where it should have gone and why: you start with 5. Every 6 blocks placed is a new level: the blocks fall faster, and from level 4 two fall at once. At the end you see what to look at again.

The balance of payments

The balance of payments records every transaction between a country's residents and the rest of the world over a period, in three accounts:

• The current account: trade in goods (exports and imports of physical things), trade in services (tourism, education, transport, finance, software and so on), primary income (wages, interest, profits and dividends earned abroad or paid to foreigners) and secondary income (transfers, where nothing is given in return: remittances, foreign aid and gifts).
• The capital account: capital transfers, such as debt forgiveness or a grant to pay for a building, and the buying and selling of non-produced, non-financial assets, such as land bought by a foreign embassy, brand names and domain names. (Selling a patent or other research results counts as trade in services, not the capital account: that's how the IMF's current rules, BPM6, record it, though some older textbooks still put patents in the capital account.)
• The financial account: investment. Direct investment gives a lasting say in a business (10% or more, such as building a factory or taking over a firm); portfolio investment is shares below that and bonds; other investment is loans and deposits; and reserve assets are the foreign currency and assets the Reserve Bank holds.

A credit (+) is a flow of money into New Zealand; a debit (−) is a flow out. For the financial account this game uses the convention school courses use: foreign investment into New Zealand (or a loan from abroad, or the Reserve Bank running down its reserves) is a credit; New Zealanders investing or lending abroad (or the Reserve Bank adding to its reserves) is a debit.

Watch for the pairs that are easy to mix up. Buying a factory or shares is investment (financial account), but the profits, dividends and interest it earns later are primary income (current account). Aid for day-to-day spending is secondary income, but a grant to pay for a building, or cancelling a debt, is a capital transfer. A foreign firm buying a farm is direct investment, but land bought by an embassy is in the capital account.

The current account balance is its credits minus its debits: a surplus when more money comes in than goes out, a deficit when less does (New Zealand usually runs a current account deficit). In the real accounts every transaction is recorded twice, so the whole balance of payments balances, apart from errors and omissions; each block here shows only the side that makes it a credit or a debit. The amounts are made up for the game.

Objective: classify international transactions into the current account (trade in goods and services, primary and secondary income), the capital account and the financial account (direct, portfolio and other investment, and reserve assets), as a credit or a debit, and explain a current account surplus or deficit (for example, Cambridge International AS Level Economics 9708, the balance of payments; IB Economics, the balance of payments; AP Macroeconomics, the balance of payments accounts).