Publication: Are Capital Flows Fickle? Increasingly? And Does the Answer Still Depend on Type?
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2018-02-22
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2018-04-10
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According to conventional wisdom, capital flows are fickle. Focusing on emerging markets, we ask whether this conventional wisdom still holds in our contemporary world. Our results show that, despite recent structural and regulatory changes, much of it survives. Foreign direct investment (FDI) inflows are more stable than non-FDI inflows. Within non-FDI inflows, portfolio debt and bank-intermediated flows remain the most volatile. Whereas FDI inflows are driven mainly by pull factors, portfolio debt and equity are driven mainly by push factors; bank-intermediated flows are driven a combination of push and pull factors. Capital outflows from emerging markets behave differently, however. FDI outflows from emerging markets have grown and become significantly more volatile. There is similarly an increase in the volatility of bank-intermediated capital outflows from emerging markets. Our findings underscore that outflows from emerging markets, both FDI and bank-related flows, have come to play a growing role and warrant greater attention from analysts and policymakers.
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Publication Are Capital Flows Fickle? Increasingly? And Does the Answer Still Depend on Type?(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2017-02)According to conventional wisdom, capital flows are fickle. Focusing on emerging markets, this paper asks whether this conventional wisdom still holds in the contemporary world. The results show that, despite recent structural and regulatory changes, much of it survives. FDI inflows are more stable than non-FDI inflows. Within non-FDI inflows, portfolio debt and bank-intermediated flows remain the most volatile. While FDI inflows are driven mainly by pull factors, portfolio debt and equity are driven mainly by push factors; and bank-intermediated flows are driven by a combination of push and pull factors. But capital outflows from emerging markets behave differently. FDI outflows from emerging markets have grown and become significantly more volatile. There is similarly an increase in the volatility of bank-intermediated capital outflows from emerging markets. The findings underscore that outflows from emerging markets, both FDI and bank-related flows, have come to play a growing role and warrant greater attention from analysts and policy makers.Publication Capital Flow Measures(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2018-04)This paper analyzes the use of capital flow measures in emerging markets. Drawing on a specially compiled new database of capital flow measures, it establishes that policy makers in emerging market economies do not use capital flow measures as an active tool at business cycle frequency. While there is a general trend toward the liberalization of capital accounts, the use of capital flow measures as a countercyclical policy tool is rather sporadic. Instead, countries show a distinct preference for using monetary policy, exchange rate adjustments, macro prudential measures, and adjustments in external reserves to modulate the impacts of domestic business cycles, international liquidity cycles, and shocks to capital flows. Regulation of different kinds of capital flows -- resident and nonresident flows; inflows and outflows; and foreign direct investment, portfolio, and banking sector flows -- is changed infrequently and is acyclical to domestic business and external liquidity cycles.Publication From Tapering to Tightening : The Impact of the Fed's Exit on India(World Bank Group, Washington, DC, 2014-10)The "tapering talk" starting on May 22, 2013, when Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke first spoke of the possibility of the U.S. central bank reducing its security purchases, had a sharp negative impact on emerging markets. India was among those hardest hit. The rupee depreciated by 18 percent at one point, causing concerns that the country was heading toward a financial crisis. This paper contends that India was adversely impacted because it had received large capital flows in prior years and had large and liquid financial markets that were a convenient target for investors seeking to rebalance away from emerging markets. In addition, India's macroeconomic conditions had weakened in prior years, which rendered the economy vulnerable to capital outflows and limited the policy room for maneuver. The paper finds that the measures adopted to handle the impact of the tapering talk were not effective in stabilizing the financial markets and restoring confidence, implying that there may not be any easy choices when a country is caught in the midst of rebalancing of global portfolios. The authors suggest putting in place a medium-term policy framework that limits vulnerabilities in advance, while maximizing the policy space for responding to shocks. Elements of such a framework include a sound fiscal balance, sustainable current account deficit, and environment conducive to investment. In addition, India should continue to encourage relatively stable longer-term flows and discourage volatile short-term flows, hold a larger stock of reserves, avoid excessive appreciation of the exchange rate through interventions with the use of reserves and macroprudential policy, and prepare the banks and firms to handle greater exchange rate volatility.Publication Managing Sudden Stops(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2016-04)The recent reversal of capital flows to emerging markets has pointed up the continuing relevance of the sudden stop problem. This paper analyzes the sudden stops in capital flows to emerging markets since 1991. 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A more important determinant of the differential impact was the size of the country's financial market: countries with larger markets experienced more pressure on the exchange rate, foreign reserves, and equity prices. This is interpreted as showing that investors are better able to rebalance their portfolios when the target country has a relatively large and liquid financial market.
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