Dampening Global Financial Shocks Can Macroprudential Regulation Help More Than Capital Controls

We show that macroprudential regulation can considerably dampen the impact of global financial shocks on emerging markets. More specifically, a tighter level of regulation reduces the sensitivity of GDP growth to VIX movements and capital flow shocks. A broad set of macroprudential tools contribute to this result, including measures targeting bank capital and liquidity, foreign currency mismatches, and risky forms of credit. We also find that tighter macroprudential regulation allows monetary policy to respond more countercyclically to global financial shocks. This could be an important channel through which macroprudential regulation enhances macroeconomic stability. These findings on the benefits of macroprudential regulation are particularly notable since we do not find evidence that stricter capital controls provide similar gains.

Recent events, such as capital flow reversals and banking sector crises, have shaken faith in the widely held belief in the benefits of greater financial integration and financial deepening, which are typical in advanced economies. This book shows that emerging economies have often weathered the storm best despite the supposed burden of ‘weak institutions’. It demonstrates that a better policy framework requires reliable indicators of vulnerability to financial instability, as well as improved policy tools and automatic stabilizers that anticipate and limit the vulnerabilities to financial crises.

International capital flows can create significant financial instability in emerging economies because of pecuniary externalities associated with exchange rate movements. Does this make it optimal to impose capital controls or should policymakers rely on domestic macroprudential regulation? This paper presents a tractable model to show that it is desirable to employ both types of instruments: Macroprudential regulation reduces overborrowing, while capital controls increase the aggregate net worth of the economy as a whole by also stimulating savings. The two policy measures should be set higher the greater an economy's debt burden and the higher domestic inequality. In our baseline calibration based on the East Asian crisis countries, we find optimal capital controls and macroprudential regulation in the magnitude of 2 percent. In advanced countries where the risk of sharp exchange rate depreciations is more limited, the role for capital controls subsides. However, macroprudential regulation remains essential to mitigate booms and busts in asset prices.

We show that “preemptive” capital flow management measures (CFM) can reduce emerging markets and developing countries’ (EMDE) external finance premia during risk-off shocks, especially for vulnerable countries. Using a panel dataset of 56 EMDEs during 1996–2020 at monthly frequency, we document that countries with preemptive policies in place during the five year window before risk-off shocks experienced relatively lower external finance premia and exchange rate volatility during the shock compared to countries which did not have such preemptive policies in place. We use the episodes of Taper Tantrum and COVID-19 as risk-off shocks. Our identification relies on a difference-in-differences methodology with country fixed effects where preemptive policies are ex-ante by construction and cannot be put in place as a response to the shock ex-post. We control the effects of other policies, such as monetary policy, foreign exchange interventions (FXI), easing of inflow CFMs and tightening of outflow CFMs that are used in response to the risk-off shocks. By reducing the impact of risk-off shocks on countries’ funding costs and exchange rate volatility, preemptive policies enable countries’ continued access to international capital markets during troubled times.

The countercyclical capital buffer (CCB) was proposed by the Basel committee to increase the resilience of the banking sector to negative shocks. The interactions between banking sector losses and the real economy highlight the importance of building a capital buffer in periods when systemic risks are rising. Basel III introduces a framework for a time-varying capital buffer on top of the minimum capital requirement and another time-invariant buffer (the conservation buffer). The CCB aims to make banks more resilient against imbalances in credit markets and thereby enhance medium-term prospects of the economy—in good times when system-wide risks are growing, the regulators could impose the CCB which would help the banks to withstand losses in bad times.

Capital flows can deliver substantial benefits for countries, but also have the potential to contribute to a buildup of systemic financial risk. Benefits, such as enhanced investment and consumption smoothing, tend to be greater for countries whose financial and institutional development enables them to intermediate capital flows safely. Post-crisis reforms, including the development of macroprudential policies (MPPs), are helping to strengthen the resilience of financial systems including to shocks from capital flows. The Basel III process has improved the quality and level of capital, reduced leverage, and increased liquid asset holdings in financial systems. Drawing on and complementing such international reforms at the national level, robust macroprudential policy frameworks focused on mitigating systemic risk can improve the capacity of a financial system to safely intermediate cross-border flows. Macroprudential frameworks can play an important role over the capital flow cycle, and help members harness the benefits of capital flows. Introducing macroprudential measures (MPMs) preemptively can increase the resilience of the financial system to aggregate shocks, including those arising from capital inflows, and can contain the build-up of systemic vulnerabilities over time, even when such measures are not designed to limit capital flows. While the risks from capital outflows should be handled primarily by macroeconomic policies, a relaxation of MPMs may assist, as long as buffers are in place, in countering financial stresses from outflows. Capital flow liberalization should be supported by broad efforts to strengthen prudential regulation and supervision, including macroprudential policy frameworks. The Fund has two frameworks to help ensure that its advice on MPPs and policies related to capital flows is consistent and tailored to country circumstances. The frameworks (the Macroprudential framework and the Institutional View on capital flows) are consistent in terms of key principles, including avoiding using MPMs and capital flow management measures (CFMs) as a substitute for necessary macroeconomic adjustment. The appropriate classification of measures is important to ensure targeted advice consistent with the two frameworks. The conceptual framework for the assessment of measures laid out in this paper will assist staff in properly identifying MPMs and measures that are designed to limit capital flows and to reduce systemic financial risk stemming from such flows (CFM/MPMs), and thereby ensure the appropriate application of the Fund’s frameworks, so that staff policy advice is consistent and well targeted. The Fund will continue to develop and share expertise in using MPMs, and integrate these findings into its surveillance and technical assistance, which should contribute to building international understanding and experience on these issues.

The resumption of capital flows to emerging market economies since mid 2009 has posed two sets of interrelated challenges for policymakers: (i) to prevent capital flows from exacerbating overheating pressures and consequent inflation, and (ii) to minimize the risk that prolonged periods of easy financing conditions will undermine financial stability. While conventional monetary policy maintains its role in counteracting the former, there are doubts that it is sufficient to guard against the risks of financial instability. In this context, there have been increased calls for the development of macroprudential measures, with an explicit focus on systemwide financial risks. Against this background, this paper analyses the interplay between monetary policy and macroprudential regulations in an open economy DSGE model with nominal and real frictions. The key result is that macroprudential measures can usefully complement monetary policy. Even under the "optimal policy," which calls for a rather aggressive monetary policy reaction to inflation, introducing macroprudential measures is found to be welfare improving. Broad macroprudential measures are shown to be more effective than those that discriminate against foreign liabilities (prudential capital controls). However, these measures are not a substitute for an appropriate moneraty policy reaction. Moreover, macroprudential measures are less useful in helping economic stability under a technology shock.