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The Obsolescence of Capital Controls?: Economic Management in an Age of Global Markets

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 June 2011

John B. Goodman
Affiliation:
Associate Professor at Harvard Business School
Louis W. Pauly
Affiliation:
Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of Toronto
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Extract

Between the late 1970s and the early 1990s, after decades of trying to limit short-term international capital movements, advanced industrial states moved decisively in the direction of decontrol. What has driven this remarkable policy convergence? The answer lies not in ideological change or shifts in relative political power, but in the prior development of international financial markets and in the increasing globalization of business. In a policy environment fundamentally reshaped by these factors, financial institutions and multinational firms were able to threaten or implement strategies of evasion and exit. Thus, the usefulness of controls declined as their effective costs rose sharply. In this light, the cases of Japan, Germany, Italy, and France are examined. The analysis points to the tightening link between short-term capital movements and foreign direct investment, issues that have long been treated as conceptually distinct. It also underlines the intricate connection between national policies governing capital movements and those aimed at managing international financial markets.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Trustees of Princeton University 1993

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References

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20 The link between controls on short-and long-term flows depends upon the mobility of savings and investment. For any country, aggregate savings and investment must ultimately be equal. Imposing capital controls has the effect of reducing savings and therefore investment. The extent to which investment declines depends upon the mobility of production. If production is mobile, a drop in savings will lead to a parallel decline in investment. If production is immobile, then companies will pay higher interest rates to attract available savings. Investment will decline, but by a lesser amount. On the mobility of savings and investment, see Feldstein, Martin and Horioka, Charles, “Domestic Savings and International Capital Flows,” Economic Journal 90 (June 1980)Google Scholar; Feldstein, Martin, “Domestic Savings and International Capital Movements in the Long Run and the Short Run,” European Economic Review 21 (1983)Google Scholar; Bayoumi, Tamim, “Savings-Investment Correlations: Immobile Capital, Government Policy, or Endogenous Behavior,” IMF Staff Papers 37 (July 1990)Google Scholar; and IMF staff, “Determinants and Systemic Consequences of International Capital Flows,” IMF Occasional Paper Series 77 (March 1991).Google Scholar

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31 We are indebted to Louis Wells for clarification on this point.

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62 Interviews with French government officials, Paris, June 1988. See also holtz, Wayne Sand and Zysman, John, “1992: Recasting the European Bargain,” World Politics 42 (October 1989).Google Scholar The government's subsequent assessment of the position of French financial firms is reported by Pierre Achard, “Le marché unique de 1992: perspectives pour les banques, les assurances, et le système financier français” (Report of the Ministries of Economy, Finance, and Privatization, December 1987).

63 Cited in Euromoney, September 1987, 143.

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84 Undertaken by a larger body, the study was released as Group of Ten, International Foreign Exchange Markets: A Report to the Ministers and Governors by the Group of Deputies (n.p., April 1993).

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