How effective are capital account restrictions? We provide new answers based on a novel panel data set of capital controls, disaggregated by asset class and by inflows/outflows, covering 74 countries ...during 1995-2005. We find the estimated effects of capital controls to vary markedly across the types of capital controls, both by asset categories, by the direction of flows, and across countries' income levels. In particular, both debt and equity controls can substantially reduce outflows, with little effect on capital inflows, but only high-income countries appear able to effectively impose debt (outflow) controls. The results imply that capital controls can affect both the volume and the composition of capital flows.
We use randomized grants to generate shocks to capital stock for a set of Sri Lankan microenterprises. We find the average real return to capital in these enterprises is 4.6%-5.3% per year), ...substantially higher than market interest rates. We then examine the heterogeneity of treatment effects. Returns are found to vary with entrepreneurial ability and with household wealth, but not to vary with measures of risk aversion or uncertainty. Treatment impacts are also significantly larger for enterprises owned by males; indeed, we find no positive return in enterprises owned by females.
The April 2011 issue of the Regional Economic Outlook: Asia and Pacific focuses on the policy challenges of managing the next phase of growth after Asia's recovery from the global crisis. The ...analytical chapters discuss how capital flows to the region may affect the monetary policy transmission mechanism and the role of macroprudential measures in this context, the implications of the Asian supply chain for rebalancing growth across the region, and the policy challenges for Asian low-income and Pacific Island countries. Economic recovery in Asia as a whole has been rapid (8.3 percent in 2010) and fueled by both exports and domestic demand. Looking ahead, growth is expected to continue at a more moderate but also more sustainable pace in 2011 and 2012, led by China and India. Meanwhile, new risks to the outlook have emerged. The full human cost and impact on infrastructure of the mid-March earthquake and tsunami in Japan remain to be determined. The steady response of the Japanese government and people has helped to contain the effects of the disaster on production, but a risk remains of prolonged disruptions in production that could spill over to other Asian economies in the regional supply chain. Moreover, tensions in the Middle East and North Africa and related risk of further oil price spikes could disrupt global growth and affect Asian exports. Finally, pockets of overheating have emerged in Asia, as core inflation and credit growth have accelerated in several Asian economies. The need to tighten macroeconomic policy stances has become more pressing than it was six months ago.
The textbook neoclassical growth model predicts that countries with faster productivity growth should invest more and attract more foreign capital. We show that the allocation of capital flows across ...developing countries is the opposite of this prediction: capital does not flow more to countries that invest and grow more. We call this puzzle the "allocation puzzle". Using a wedge analysis, we find that the pattern of capital flows is driven by national saving: the allocation puzzle is a saving puzzle. Further disaggregation of capital flows reveals that the allocation puzzle is also related to the pattern of accumulation of international reserves. The solution to the "allocation puzzle", thus, lies at the nexus between growth, saving, and international reserve accumulation. We conclude with a discussion of some possible avenues for research.
In the postwar era, developed economies have experienced two substantial trends in the net capital share of aggregate income: a rise during the last several decades, which is well known, and a fall ...of comparable magnitude that continued until the 1970s, which is less well known. Overall, the net capital share has increased since 1948, but once disaggregated this increase turns out to come entirely from the housing sector: the contribution to net capital income from all other sectors has been zero or slightly negative, as the fall and rise have offset each other. Several influential accounts of the recent rise emphasize the role of increased capital accumulation, but this view is at odds with theory and evidence: it requires empirically improbable elasticities of substitution, and it presumes a correlation between the capital-income ratio and capital share that is not visible in the data. A more limited narrative that stresses scarcity and the increased cost of housing better fits the data.These results are clarified using a new, multisector model of factor shares.
The recent economic and financial developments and trends in Asia and the Pacific are examined in this latest REO, including issues related to Asia's trade performance, notably in the high-tech ...sector, and the February-March bout of turbulence in the region's financial markets. The near-term outlook, key risks, and their related policy challenges are analyzed throughout, as well as in special chapters that look more closely at the evolving nature of capital inflows, housing market developments, and the impact of commodity price booms on lower-income economies.
The neoclassical theory of investment has mainly been tested with physical investment, but we show that it also helps explain intangible investment. At the firm level, Tobin’s q explains physical and ...intangible investment roughly equally well, and it explains total investment even better. Compared with physical capital, intangible capital adjusts more slowly to changes in investment opportunities. The classic q theory performs better in firms and years with more intangible capital: Total and even physical investment are better explained by Tobin’s q and are less sensitive to cash flow. At the macro level, Tobin’s q explains intangible investment many times better than physical investment. We propose a simple, new Tobin’s q proxy that accounts for intangible capital, and we show that it is a superior proxy for both physical and intangible investment opportunities.
Investment-to-GDP ratios across the Caribbean tend to be relatively high. In many countries, these ratios have been trending higher since the mid-1990s, largely reflecting public investment and ...foreign direct investment. Private domestic investors have been less prominent. This may be one reason why such high investment has delivered Caribbean growth rates below the middle-income average. This paper seeks to understand how higher private investment may be encouraged. Using new data, it concludes that: the multiplier effects of public investment and FDI on private domestic investment are weak; and private domestic investment (PDI) is sensitive to the cost of capital. Public policy designed to raise PDI should focus on creating conditions for a lower cost of capital. The focus should be on removing barriers to lower real interest rates, rather than the further extension of costly tax concessions.
International capital flows from rich to poor countries can be regarded as either too low (the Lucas paradox in a one-sector model) or too high (when compared with the logic of factor price ...equalization in a two-sector model). To resolve the paradoxes, we introduce a non-neoclassical model which features financial contracts and firm heterogeneity. In our model, free patterns of gross capital flow emerge as a function of the quality of the financial system and the level of protection for property rights(i.e., the risk of expropriation. A poor country with an inefficient financial system but a low expropriation risk may simultaneously experience an outflow of financial capital but an inflow of foreign direct investment (FDI), resulting in a small net flow.
Back in the early 1990s, economists and policy makers had high expectations about the prospects for domestic capital market development in emerging economies, particularly in Latin America. ...Unfortunately, they are now faced with disheartening results. Stock and bond markets remain illiquid and segmented. Debt is concentrated at the short end of the maturity spectrum and denominated in foreign currency, exposing countries to maturity and currency risk. Capital markets in Latin America look particularly underdeveloped when considering the many efforts undertaken to improve the macroeconomic environment and to reform the institutions believed to foster capital market development. The disappointing performance has made conventional policy recommendations questionable, at best. Emerging Capital Markets and Globalization analyzes where we stand and where we are heading on capital market development. First, it takes stock of the state and evolution of Latin American capital markets and related reforms over time and relative to other countries. Second, it analyzes the factors related to the development of capital markets, with particular interest on measuring the impact of reforms. And third, in light of this analysis, it discusses the prospects for capital market development in Latin America and emerging economies and the implications for the reform agenda.
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