Capital Flows | IMF Blog

Drifting Apart: Income Convergence in the Euro Area

A souvenir shop in Lisbon, Portugal: Income convergence in the euro area has slowed (Photo: Rafael Marchante/REUTERS/Newscom)

By Jeffrey Franks and Hanni Schölermann

September 13, 2017

Versions in Español (Spanish), 語 (Japanese)

The experience of recent decades has challenged the prediction that the single currency would help differences in income levels across euro area countries narrow over time. This income convergence among the founding countries of the euro has not happened, prompting a need for further economic reforms. While newer members of the euro have converged, even this trend has stalled since the crisis.

Continue reading “Drifting Apart: Income Convergence in the Euro Area” »

By IMFBlog| September 13th, 2017|Advanced Economies, banking, capital flows, currency, Economic research, exchange rates, Government, growth, inclusive growth, Investment, monetary policy, productivity|

All Hands on Deck: Confronting the Challenges of Capital Flows

By Atish R. Ghosh, Jonathan D. Ostry, and Mahvash S. Qureshi

August 2, 2017

Versions in Español (Spanish)

Exchange rates board, Australian Securities Exchange: Emerging economies have several tools to manage capital flows. The most common are foreign exchange intervention and monetary policy (photo: wx-bradwang/iStock by Getty Images)

The global financial crisis and its aftermath saw boom-bust cycles in capital flows of unprecedented magnitude. Traditionally, emerging market economies were counselled not to impede capital flows. In recent years, however, there has been growing recognition that emerging market economies may benefit from more proactive management to avoid crisis when flows eventually recede. But do they adopt such a proactive approach in practice?

Continue reading “All Hands on Deck: Confronting the Challenges of Capital Flows” »

By IMFBlog| August 2nd, 2017|Advanced Economies, capital flows, capital markets, Economic research, Emerging Markets, Fiscal policy, Global Governance, Government, growth, inclusive growth, International Monetary Fund, Investment, labor markets, trade|

The Economics of Trust

By IMFBlog

May 10, 2017

Trust in other people—the glue that holds society together—is increasingly in short supply in the United States and Europe, and inequality may be the culprit.

In surveys over the past 40 years, the share of Americans who say that most people can be trusted has fallen to 33 percent from about 50 percent. The erosion of trust coincides with widening disparities in incomes. Continue reading “The Economics of Trust” »

By IMFBlog| May 10th, 2017|Advanced Economies, capital flows, capital markets, Economic research, Europe, inclusive growth, Inequality, jobs, labor markets, Politics, U.S., wages|

Revisiting the Paradox of Capital: The Reversal of Uphill Flows

By Emine Boz, Luis Cubeddu, and Maurice Obstfeld

Versions in عربي (Arabic), 中文 (Chinese), Français (French), Русский (Russian), and Español (Spanish)

Basic economic theory tells us that capital should flow from slow-growing rich countries to faster-growing poor ones in search of higher returns. A decade ago, our former Research Department colleagues Eswar Prasad, Raghuram Rajan, and Arvind Subramanian examined why the reverse had been true—capital generally flowed “uphill” from poorer to richer countries. Building on the seminal work of Robert Lucas, they argued that certain characteristics of poorer countries, such as weaker institutions and lower levels of education, may reduce the risk-adjusted returns to investing there. Continue reading “Revisiting the Paradox of Capital: The Reversal of Uphill Flows” »

By IMFBlog| March 7th, 2017|Advanced Economies, capital markets, developing countries, Economic outlook, Economic research, Emerging Markets, exchange rates, IMF, Investment, U.S.|

Rethinking Policy at the IMF

By iMFdirect

The global financial crisis led to a broad rethink of macroeconomic and financial policies in the global academic and policy community. Eight months into the job as IMF Chief Economist, Maury Obstfeld reflects on the IMF’s role in this rethinking and in furthering economic and financial stability.

Continue reading “Rethinking Policy at the IMF” »

By IMFBlog| June 6th, 2016|Economic research, Financial Crisis, Fiscal policy, IMF, International Monetary Fund, Uncategorized|

A New Look at the Benefits and Costs of Bank Capital

By Jihad Dagher, Giovanni Dell’Ariccia, Luc Laeven, Lev Ratnovski, and Hui Tong

The appropriate level of bank capital and, more generally, a bank’s capacity to absorb losses, has been a contentious subject of discussion since the financial crisis. Larger buffers give bankers “skin in the game” helping to prevent excessive risk taking and absorb losses during crises. But, some argue, they might increase the cost of financial intermediation and slow economic growth.

Continue reading “A New Look at the Benefits and Costs of Bank Capital” »

By IMFBlog| March 3rd, 2016|Finance, Financial Crisis, International Monetary Fund, U.S.|

Are Capital Flows Expansionary or Contractionary? It Depends What Kind

By Olivier Blanchard, Jonathan D. Ostry, Atish R. Ghosh, and Marcos Chamon

(Version in Español)

With the expected move by the Federal Reserve to raise interest rates before the end of the year, many are asking about the effects on emerging market countries. Will outflows increase, and how will this affect economic activity in emerging markets? To answer that, we need to know if capital inflows are in general expansionary or contractionary.

One would think that the question was settled long ago. But, in fact, it is not. It is a case where theory suggests one thing and practice another. The workhorse model of international macro (the Mundell-Fleming model), for example, suggests that, for a given monetary policy rate, inflows lead to an appreciation, and thus to a contraction in net exports—and a decrease in output. Only if the policy rate is decreased sufficiently can capital inflows be expansionary. Symmetrically, using a model along these lines, Paul Krugman argued in his 2013 Mundell-Fleming lecture that capital outflows are expansionary.

Continue reading “Are Capital Flows Expansionary or Contractionary? It Depends What Kind” »

By IMFBlog| December 7th, 2015|Economic outlook, Economic research, Emerging Markets, growth, International Monetary Fund|

Openness and Inequality: Distributional Impacts of Capital Account Liberalization

By Davide Furceri and Prakash Loungani

(Version in Español)

It is well accepted that trade generates winners and losers. The past few decades have seen increases not just in trade in goods and services but trade in assets, as countries relax restrictions on the ability of capital to flow across national boundaries. Surprisingly, while the impact of trade in goods and services on inequality has been extensively studied, little attention has been paid to the distributional impacts of opening up capital markets. Our paper fills this gap.

Continue reading “Openness and Inequality: Distributional Impacts of Capital Account Liberalization” »

By IMFBlog| November 24th, 2015|Economic outlook, Economic research, International Monetary Fund|

Financial Stability Committees: Learning from the Experts

By Jorge Roldos and Alejandro Werner

(Versions in Español and Português)

Macroeconomists and financial sector experts need to talk to each other. Such communication is important to help identify and measure systemic risks as well as to coordinate and/or conduct macroprudential policies—rules that reduce instability across the financial system.

The creation of financial stability committees, including in Latin America, have been a forum for precisely this—working together to share information about evolving risks, develop monitoring and mitigating tools, and to define the decision-making authority, accountability, and communication to the general public. But institutional design and governance of these councils differ across countries.

Continue reading “Financial Stability Committees: Learning from the Experts” »

By IMFBlog| June 16th, 2015|Economic Crisis, Economic outlook, Economic research, Emerging Markets, Español, Financial Crisis, Fiscal policy, Government, growth, IMF, International Monetary Fund, Public debt|

Ten Take Aways from the "Rethinking Macro Policy: Progress or Confusion?"

By Olivier Blanchard

On April 15-16, the IMF organized the third conference on "Rethinking Macro Policy."

Here are my personal take aways.

1. What will be the "new normal"?

I had asked the panelists to concentrate not on current policy challenges, but on challenges in the "new normal." I had implicitly assumed that this new normal would be very much like the old normal, one of decent growth and positive equilibrium interest rates. The assumption was challenged at the conference.

On the one hand, Ken Rogoff argued that what we were in the adjustment phase of the “debt supercycle.” Such financial cycles, he argued, end up with debt overhang, which in turn slows down the recovery and requires low interest rates for some time to maintain sufficient demand. Under that view, while it may take a while for the overhang to go away, more so in the Euro zone than in the United States, we should eventually return to something like the old normal.

Continue reading “Ten Take Aways from the "Rethinking Macro Policy: Progress or Confusion?"” »

By IMFBlog| May 1st, 2015|Advanced Economies, Asia, Economic Crisis, Economic outlook, Emerging Markets, Europe, Financial Crisis, Fiscal policy, Globalization, growth, IMF, International Monetary Fund, Multilateral Cooperation, Politics, Reform, Uncategorized|

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