Should Capital Flows Be Regulated

The book examines the rapid growth and dramatic changes in capital flows globally and to emerging markets. In the context of relevant economic theory, it analyses benefits and costs of large and volatile capital flows to developing countries; the latter includes damaging currency crises as the Mexican and East Asian economies. The book makes innovative proposals on how best national governments - and especially - international organisations can avoid such crises.

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.

Essay from the year 2010 in the subject Economics - Monetary theory and policy, grade: 1,3, Berlin School of Economics and Law, course: International Trade and Monetary Economics, language: English, abstract: “Loose funds may sweep round the world disorganizing all steady business. Nothing is more certain than that the movement of capital funds must be regulated” Keynes, J.M. Already Keynes warned against a free movement of capital. Those warnings were taken seriously by the international community and the IMF allowed in its articles the use of capital controls. The attitude towards those controls changed remarkably during the 1980`s when a general trend towards deregulation occurred. This trend peaked in an attempt to include the purpose of liberalizing capital movements in the Articles of Agreements of the IMF. Coinciding with the Asian Crisis, parts of the academic profession heavily opposed this idea and eventually, some of the fund`s representatives revised their general opposition against capital controls. Nonetheless, in big parts of the academic profession, capital controls carry a negative smack and the ultimate goal of free capital flows is promoted. With the financial crisis, however, capital controls came into vogue again. Recently, Brazil introduced a tax on foreign portfolio investment. Also at the G20 level, ways on how to regulate international capital flows are discussed. Whether this should be seen as a desirable development or not, boils down to the question if capital controls are a useful instrument of economic policy? In general capital controls are any kind of policy that limits or redirects capital account transactions. So, the above mentioned question can be answered by looking at the situation of a fully liberalized capital account with its associated cost and benefits and see if state intervention in form of capital controls would be able to improve the situation. This discussion shall first rest on theoretical considerations and outline possible benefits of free capital flows. Thereafter, an important assumption, namely the Efficient Market Theorem, which allows for the prediction of those benefits, will be discussed. Subsequently, by dropping the EMT and introducing Keynesian uncertainty an alternative scenario is drawn and the effect of capital controls within this framework is examined. After this, some of the empirical research regarding the benefits of free capital flows will be examined and some of the areas where capital controls can play a beneficial role are introduced to the reader. Finally, the insights gained in the course of this paper will be summarized and an answer to the stated question will be given.

International financial relations have become increasingly important for the development of global and national economies. At present these relations are primarily governed by market forces, with little regulatory interference at the international level. In the light of numerous financial crises, this abstinence must be seriously questioned. Starting with an analysis of the regulatory problems at the international level, with only minimal powers entrusted to international organisations, this book develops various possibilities for reform. On the basis of an historical analysis, the book first adopts a comparative approach to national attempts to regulate international financial markets, then outlines the potential of relevant institutions and finally develops a policy perspective. It seeks to provide a framework for analysing options for the regulation of international financial markets from a public international law and comparative law perspective.

This paper examines whether cross-border capital flows can be regulated by imposing capital account restrictions (CARs) in both source and recipient countries, as was originally advocated by John Maynard Keynes and Harry Dexter White. To this end, we use data on bilateral cross-border bank flows from 31 source to 76 recipient (advanced and emerging market) countries over 1995–2012, and combine this information with a new and comprehensive dataset on various outflow and inflow related capital controls and prudential measures in these countries. Our findings suggest that CARs at either end can significantly influence the volume of cross-border bank flows, with restrictions at both ends associated with a larger reduction in flows. We also find evidence of cross-border spillovers whereby inflow restrictions imposed by countries are associated with larger flows to other countries. These findings suggest a useful scope for policy coordination between source and recipient countries, as well as among recipient countries, to better manage potentially disruptive flows.

The crisis is prompting a reconsideration of capital flows and the policies that affect them. A breakdown in the domestic stability of a large country can spill over into stress in other countries and even to the global system as a whole. The activities of global institutions and markets—some regulated and some not—can bear on the riskiness of flows. Thus, national policies affecting capital flows can transmit multilaterally. This transmission has not been fully appreciated by national policymakers. Further, they may not have incentives to take full account of the cross-border effects of their policies. Looking ahead, the upward trend in the volume of capital flows can be expected to continue, making it ever more important to address the associated cross-border risks. This paper aims to draw greater attention to the multilateral aspects of policies affecting capital flows. Previous work by the Fund has focused on the policies of recipient countries, mainly emerging market economies (EMEs), and addressed the circumstances in which capital flow management measures (CFMs) would be appropriate. This paper provides a complementary assessment of regulatory and supervisory policies of advanced economies, as well as large advanced economy monetary policy. Moreover, it addresses the multilateral transmission of CFMs.