Third round table discussion of the Geneva Circle on Global Economic Governance Exchange-rate and capital-account management for developing countries Background note by Detlef Kotte The hazards of global finance remain a threat for financial stability and stable trading conditions in developing countries, especially emerging-market economies, even if many of them have taken a more prudent attitude with regard to capital inflows than in the 1980s and 1990s. After the surge in capital flows to these countries that had begun in 2003 had come to a temporary halt, a new wave of capital inflows to emerging markets set in after the global financial crisis. There are now increasing concerns that low interest rates in the industrialized countries could lead to a new boom-bust cycle for emerging markets with attendant negative consequences for their economic development (see, for example, Akyüz 2011). In this context the debate about adequate policies to reduce the vulnerability of developing and emerging economies to external shocks emanating from international financial markets has again intensified. One area of policy considered, and increasingly practiced in emerging-market economies, is the use of capital controls, or more generally, capital account management. 1 While in the past the debate was more on the justification and possible effects of controls over outflows in crisis situations, the more recent debate has primarily focused on controls over capital inflows to avoid undesired effects on the exchange rate and to prevent financial crises. Another, but closely related, area of discussion is that about necessary of reforms of the international reserve system and exchange-rate arrangements. A number of emerging countries have responded to undesired capital inflows with intervention in the foreign-exchange market, but such intervention has not always fully succeeded in avoiding repercussions of undesired capital inflows on exchange rates and domestic financial systems. In light of these experiences and the problems that the “corner solutions” of fully flexible or fixed currency have created for external trade relations and financial and macroeconomic stability, exchange-rate management has come to be reconsidered at the national, regional and global levels. 1 For a recent comprehensive review, see Gallagher, Griffith-Jones and Ocampo 2012. 1 Page |2 1. Finance-led globalization and financial instability in developing countries – where do we stand? a. What are the risks of finance-led globalization for developing country trade and their development objectives? It is widely accepted that the expansion of capital flows to developing and emerging economies that has followed widespread financial liberalization and capital-account deregulation has not led to the increase of fixed capital formation in developing countries hoped for. Rather, it has increased the vulnerability of these economies to speculative financial transactions. International financial speculation has frequently led to exchange rate movements that are unrelated or even counter to movements in economic fundamentals, with overshooting upwards in boom phases and downwards in crisis situations. This generates additional uncertainty for firms, so that they tend to invest less in real productive capacity, with negative repercussions on growth, employment and structural change. Exchange rate movements that do not reflect inflation differentials or current-account positions also undermine the international trading system because they distort the competitive positions of producers from different countries in international markets and give rise to protectionist pressures. The loss of competitiveness in international markets for domestic firms tends to cause trade deficits and premature deindustrialization. Moreover, private capital flows to developing countries behave in a highly pro-cyclical manner, tend to feed speculative bubbles in domestic markets for financial assets and real estate, and favour excessive credit creation. While the conduct of monetary policy and the level of interest rates in the receiving countries is an important determining factor for capital inflows, the latter also depend to a large extent on financial developments and policy decisions outside these countries. Relatively small changes in interest rates, especially on dollar-denominated assets, can thus lead to considerable shifts of private capital flows to emerging markets. b. How have developing countries dealt with these risks? In the 1980s and 1990s financial and capital-account liberalization were often undertaken with the objective of attracting external capital flows, in the hope that these would spur investment and growth. Authorities in many developing countries welcomed the rise in external capital flows, taking them for a sign of strength of their economies. However, with the experience of financial crises in many countries, the recognition grew that the cost of surges of capital inflows might outweigh the benefits that such inflows could generate for the domestic economy. As a consequence, governments of many emerging economies have become increasingly prudent and tried to protect their economies against the vagaries of international capital markets. They have done so by resorting to some form of control over capital flows and/or by intervening in the foreign exchange market to prevent a revaluation of their currencies as a result of surges of capital inflows. Capital account management aimed at reducing the attractiveness to capital flows to the recipient countries has relied on instruments ranging from outright bans or minimum-stay requirements to tax-based instruments designed to offset interest rate differentials, such as mandatory reserve requirements or taxes on fixed income and portfolio equity flows, on Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung Geneva Office Chemin du Point-du-Jour, 6bis 1202 Geneva · Switzerland Tel: +41 22 733 34 50 Fax: +41 22 733 35 45 Mail: info@fes-geneva.org Homepage: www.fes-geneva.org Page |3 purchases of government bonds by foreigners, or interest income and capital gains on domestic assets by foreigners. Currency market intervention has become a frequent measure to avoid negative repercussions of undesired capital inflows on the exchange rate and, thus on the international competitiveness of domestic producers and the trade balance. It has also served to accumulate large amounts of foreign exchange reserves as a cushion against a possible reversal of capital inflows. c. What role are playing the international organizations ? Although the IMF’s main task is to ensure the stability of the international monetary and financial system, it did little to either prevent destabilizing capital flows by appropriate international arrangements or by helping countries to introduce protective measures at the national level. Since the early 1980s the international financially institutions strongly advocated capital-account liberalization in tandem with trade liberalization and used its influence on policymaking in developing countries to advance this agenda. Although the Articles of Agreement explicitly acknowledge the right of member States to exercise capital controls as are necessary to regulate international capital movements (Art.VI), the discussion of such controls was almost a taboo. The situation changed somewhat after the Asian financial crisis, when the IMF acknowledged that temporary controls on outflows may be acceptable in severe crisis situations, and the 2008 global financial crisis prompted some further rethinking on the issue in the IMF. In 2011 the IMF recognized that capital account regulations can be useful in certain situations to mitigate financial instability and suggested a possible policy framework for discussion (IMF 2011a,b). However, it still considers such regulations as measures to be deployed temporarily in emergency situations rather than as a device of “normal counter-cyclical packages” to ensure greater stability (Ocampo 2012:18). Moreover, some observers view the recent initiatives in the IMF critically, interpreting them as an attempt by the IMF to gain more influence over the conditions under which capital controls can be used, thereby imposing undesirable restrictions on national autonomy in capital account management (Griffith-Jones and Gallagher 2011; Nogueira-Batista 2012). Despite the fact that undesired capital flows, through their impact on exchange rates, can impede external trade, legal restrictions on capital controls are already part of the WTO General Agreement of Trade in Services (GATS), under which a country that has granted market access in financial services is bound to fully liberalize its capital account. 2 d. Are capital inflows to developing countries necessary to fill a “savings gap”? Over many years, the international financial organizations and many influential economists promoted financial liberalization markets and capital-account deregulation based on the belief that such liberalization would enhance the allocation of capital around the world and accelerate development by helping developing countries to close an alleged “savings gap”, i.e. a shortfall of domestic saving in relation to domestic investment. According to the “savings gap”-theory developing economies are constrained because low domestic savings do not allow for a rate of investment that is sufficiently high to accelerate growth. The macroeconomic savings-investment Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung Geneva Office Chemin du Point-du-Jour, 6bis 1202 Geneva · Switzerland Tel: +41 22 733 34 50 Fax: +41 22 733 35 45 Mail: info@fes-geneva.org Homepage: www.fes-geneva.org Page |4 identity is, thus, interpreted in the sense that higher investment follows from higher savings, and when domestic savings cannot be raised due to low mass incomes, “external savings”, i.e. capital inflows, are considered to be the way out. In another view, however, the functional relationship between these two macroeconomic variables, is just the other way around: higher savings are the result of, not the precondition for, higher investment. While an individual firm may indeed finance part or all of its investment out of savings (i.e. retained earnings), at the level of the economy as a whole investment in real productive capacity can be financed by credit from the domestic banking system and this credit can be generated without prior savings. What matters is therefore the capacity of the financial system to generate the credit needed to finance additional investment. Resort to external financing is necessary only to the extent that domestic investment requires the import of capital goods that cannot be financed from export earnings. But foreign capital flows have mostly been unrelated to such imports, and some of the countries with the highest rates of investment over the past decades have actually been net exporters of capital. From this perspective, there is no rationale for across-the-board capital-account liberalization inviting additional capital inflows. 2. Capital account management as a protection against financial destabilization a. What are the objectives of capital controls and how effective are they ? The main rationale behind capital account regulations is to make monetary policy more independent, reduce real exchange rate pressures, alter the composition of capital flows towards longer-term flows, and mitigate destabilizing effects from international capital markets for the domestic financial system. In emerging economies with a fully liberalized capital account monetary policy autonomy is constrained in two ways. On the one hand, a tightening of monetary policy associated with higher domestic interest rates attracts short-term capital inflows (the so-called “carry trade”). On the other hand, governments of countries that have come to depend on private capital inflows to finance a current-account deficit are constrained in loosening monetary policy when this would be required to stabilize the domestic economy, because the associated reduction of domestic interest rates leads to a reversal of capital flows. Moreover, measures to discourage speculative inflows or to prevent negative effects of such flows were also taken with a view to avoid that monetary policy decisions in other countries, in particular the reserve currency countries, or changes in “sentiment” or “risk appetite” among actors in international financial markets have negative repercussions on the domestic economy. It has been widely recognized, including by the IMF in recent years, that capital account regulations used in emerging-market economies over the past 15 years have been fairly effective, especially controls over inflows (Ostry et al. 2010; IMF 2011a; Magud et al. 2011). Indeed, several of the developing countries that have been among the most successful in catching up, such as South Korea, Taiwan, India and China have used highly articulated regimes of capital account regulations (Epstein 2012; Chang and Grabel 2004). 2 For a discussion of this issue, see Gallagher (2012) and Raghavan (2011). Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung Geneva Office Chemin du Point-du-Jour, 6bis 1202 Geneva · Switzerland Tel: +41 22 733 34 50 Fax: +41 22 733 35 45 Mail: info@fes-geneva.org Homepage: www.fes-geneva.org Page |5 b. Where are the limits for the use of capital controls ? Apart from legal restrictions for countries that have signed liberalized trade in financial services under GATS, the ability of developing countries to deploy capital controls has increasingly been restricted by bilateral of plurilateral free trade agreements and bilateral investment agreements, particularly those signed with the United States (Gallagher 2011). Substantively, the limits for the use of capital controls are usually seen in the difficulty to distinguish between desirable und undesirable capital inflows and the possibility of international investors to circumvent such controls by linking capital account transactions with current account transactions. It is also argued that such controls are difficult to implement and that developing countries often lack the required administrative and control capacity. Moreover, reliance on capital controls leaves the burden of dealing with the symptoms of financial speculation entirely on the receiving countries, although it is an international phenomenon and strongly influenced by monetary policies in other countries. The introduction of capital controls in one country might also divert speculation towards other countries, making the task of the latter more difficult. c. What are the possibilities for international cooperation in capital account management? It has therefore been suggested that capital account management requires international cooperation between countries that are destinations of such flows and those countries from where they originate. An international financial transaction tax, levied by all countries on capital outflows could alleviate the task of individual governments to prevent destabilizing effects for their economies from international financial markets. It would raise the cost of speculative international financial transactions much more than the cost of long-term lending and financial investment. The idea of coupling capital account management in receiving countries with action in developed countries from where speculative flows originate is a logical consequence of the international nature of these flows. It is especially obvious at present as incentives to engage in carry trade are particularly strong given the expansionary monetary policy stance and low interest rates in the United States and many European countries. These developed countries should themselves be interested in preventing excessive risk taking by domestic investors in foreign markets and reducing the possibility of negative repercussions from financial crises in the emerging markets on their own economy (Griffith-Jones and Gallagher 2012). The introduction of safeguards in multilateral trade treaties allowing the deployment of prudential regulation would also serve greater financial and exchange stability in all countries. The international financial organizations, especially the IMF in its surveillance function, could go further than just tolerating capital account regulations and encourage countries to strengthen their administrative capacity for the management of international capital flows and advise on their effective deployment in a way that suits their country-specific requirements. It has also been suggested to establish an international regime for the regulation of capital controls, because such measures can be used not only for the purpose of correcting a market failure and avoid currency overvaluation, but also to artificially sustain currency undervaluation, Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung Geneva Office Chemin du Point-du-Jour, 6bis 1202 Geneva · Switzerland Tel: +41 22 733 34 50 Fax: +41 22 733 35 45 Mail: info@fes-geneva.org Homepage: www.fes-geneva.org Page |6 i.e. for mercantilist purposes (Subramanian 2012). d. Can capital controls address the cause of financial instability ? Overall, capital controls deal with the symptoms of erratic private capital transactions in the receiving countries rather than tackling their causes, which are mainly to be found in interest differentials among countries. These are typically the result of diverging rates of inflation that are not compensated or neutralized by exchange-rate adjustments. Moreover, when exchange rates are not adjusted in line with such differentials, speculation becomes self-sustained: an initial surge of capital inflows triggered by a positive interest rate differential tends to cause an appreciation of the nominal exchange rate (although a depreciation would be required to reflect the inflation differential) thereby attracting additional speculative inflows as gains can be had not only from the interest differential but also from further exchange rate appreciation. Against this background an increasing number of countries have chosen to protect their economies against negative influences from international financial markets by managing their exchange-rates. On the one hand, they have intervened in the foreign exchange market to counter appreciation pressure resulting from capital inflows exceeding the need for currentaccount financing. On the other hand, they have accumulated foreign exchange reserves as a “self-insurance” against possible undesired currency depreciation that may result from a sudden stop or reversal of capital flows in the future. In this way, governments also aimed at avoiding the need to have to turn to the IMF for support in crisis situations. 3. Reform of the exchange-rate system for greater stability in international trade and financial relations a. What are the limits of currency-market intervention and reserve accumulation? The changed approach to exchange-rate management after the Asian financial crisis in the late 1990s has served not only as an instrument of financial policy inasmuch as it may reduce exchange rate speculation, but also as a measure of trade policy as it helps to protect the international competitiveness of domestic producers. However, countering undesired capital inflows with currency market intervention and reserve accumulation is considered to be more costly than capital controls because in most cases because the returns on the private capital inflows that make the intervention necessary are higher than the interest rate earned from the central bank’s investment of the reserves. More importantly, currency market intervention of a single country is a viable instrument to counter upward pressure on the exchange rate, whereas its scope to counter downward pressure on the exchange rate is circumscribed by the – always – limited amount of foreign exchange reserves accumulated in the past. b. What is the rationale for a reform of the exchange-rate system? It has therefore been suggested that a better way for tackling the problem of destabilizing capital flows to emerging economies, and international financial instability more generally, is a reform of the international currency system. While the reform debate gained some momentum after Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung Geneva Office Chemin du Point-du-Jour, 6bis 1202 Geneva · Switzerland Tel: +41 22 733 34 50 Fax: +41 22 733 35 45 Mail: info@fes-geneva.org Homepage: www.fes-geneva.org Page |7 the global financial crisis, it has mainly focused on the issue of how the dollar could be replaced as the main international reserve currency (see, e.g., UNPGA 2009; Akyüz 2009). In the current agenda of the IMF for strengthening the international monetary system, exchange rate reform is not even mentioned among the “reform paths”, although exchange rate misalignments and volatility of capital flows and currencies are recognized as major shortcomings of the present system (IMF 2011b). However, UNCTAD (2009) has suggested that an appropriate reform of the international exchange rate system would go a long way in avoiding these shortcomings. Such a reform would have to depart from the recognition that overvaluation of one currency always implies undervaluation of one or more other currencies, and that the exchange rate always depends on policies in more than one country. A rational exchange-rate system would therefore oblige central banks of all countries to intervene in a symmetric way to ensure a stable pattern of exchange rates that reduces incentives for currency speculation and ensures fair trading conditions. c. How could a rule-based system for exchange-rate management achieve greater financial stability? In a highly integrated world economy a multilaterally agreed framework for exchange-rate management is as important for a well-functioning international trading system as multilaterally agreed trade rules. Against this background, UNCTAD (2009) has proposed to base the international exchange-rate system on the principle of stable real exchange rates, under which nominal exchange rates are systematically adjusted according to inflation or interest rate differentials. Higher inflation and concomitantly higher interest rates would be compensated by a devaluation of the nominal exchange rate, thereby reducing or eliminating possible gains from carry trade. Financial instability generated by speculative capital flows would thus be tackled at its source, and monetary factors would not impede international trade. The system would also prevent exchange rate manipulation for mercantilist purposes and beggar-thy-neighbour policies. By definition, such a system implies symmetric intervention obligations, so that countries whose currencies come under depreciation pressure would quasi-automatically be supported by other countries in the system whose currencies would appreciate correspondingly. This means that the need to hold foreign exchange reserves would be considerably reduced; such reserves would only be needed to compensate for volatility of export earnings but no longer to defend the exchange rate. d. What is the “right” exchange rate − and is it the same for developed and developing countries? While the indicators for adjustment of the nominal exchange rate in such a system are straightforward (the differential in central banks’ policy interest rates, for instance) the determination of the initial pattern of nominal exchange rates is likely to pose greater problems. In principle, the “right exchange” rate would be the one that is consistent with a balanced current account. However, in countries that are dependent on exports of raw materials primary commodities the right exchange rate may the one that leads to balanced trade in manufactures Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung Geneva Office Chemin du Point-du-Jour, 6bis 1202 Geneva · Switzerland Tel: +41 22 733 34 50 Fax: +41 22 733 35 45 Mail: info@fes-geneva.org Homepage: www.fes-geneva.org Page |8 (Bresser Perreira). Moreover, many poorer developing countries may only be in a position to accelerate their economic development and industrialization process when the system allows them to maintain a slightly undervalued exchange rate. 4. Towards an optimal policy mix to avoid destabilizing effects of international finance a. How can developing countries best enlarge their macroeconomic policy space? Capital account regulation can contribute to enlarging monetary policy space in developing countries, especially when it can be adjusted speedily to close loopholes and to cover financial innovations. Moreover, since private capital flows to developing countries are highly procyclical, capital controls are likely to be most effective when they can be deployed flexibly in response to changing financial and macroeconomic conditions over time. In a regime that allows for the counter-cyclical application of capital controls, controls over inflows would typically be used during boom periods to avoid currency appreciation, while outflow controls would gain importance during crisis periods to limit the impact of net capital outflows and capital flight. Developing countries may therefore be well advised to strengthen their administrative capacity to introduce such measures when they become necessary in light of unfavourable financial developments. In addition, as long as a new multilaterally agreed international exchange rate system with rules for symmetric currency market intervention is not in place, intervention may also remain necessary to correct currency market failures. But sterilization of large-scale currency market intervention is often difficult in developing countries because the domestic market for government paper that is suitable for this purpose is relatively small. Hence, creative ways of sterilization may need to be explored. In this regard, countries may be benefit from the experience of several emerging Asian economies (Kawai, Lamberte and Takagi 2012). Macroeconomic policy space also depends on international monetary and financial arrangements as well as the trade regime. Designing multilateral trade rules in a way that they allow the application of capital account management techniques would not only protect policy autonomy but also promote greater stability in international trade relations. Moreover, developing countries should consider carefully the conclusion of regional trade and investment agreements that constrain their macroeconomic and financial policy space more than multilateral trade rules. b. What role for an incomes policy in developing countries ? While regaining a greater degree of autonomy in monetary policy is important, the task of controlling inflation may also be pursued with other instruments. An incomes policy aimed at avoiding that inflationary pressure that results from excessive wage increases would alleviate the burden on monetary policy, reducing the likelihood that interest rate increases lead to surges of capital inflows. Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung Geneva Office Chemin du Point-du-Jour, 6bis 1202 Geneva · Switzerland Tel: +41 22 733 34 50 Fax: +41 22 733 35 45 Mail: info@fes-geneva.org Homepage: www.fes-geneva.org Page |9 c. What can the Geneva-based organizations contribute ? WTO, in its efforts to create an international trading environment, has so far paid relatively little attention to the repercussions on trade that result from international financial instability and exchange rate misalignments, especially for developing and emerging economies. However, these repercussions can lead to distortions in international trade relations that can be as harmful as trade protection and jeopardize potential benefits that member States may have from trade liberalization. In the face of finance-led globalization the design of international trade rules may therefore have to pay greater attention to achieving better coherence between the international trading and financial systems and to enable developing and emerging economies to deploy measures that protect their position in international trade. Regarding UNCTAD and the International Labour Organization it will be important to continue their analytical work on the impact of financial instability for sustained growth and employment creation, including in the context of the G-20’s Mutual Assessment Process. They also may further strengthen their advocacy for international arrangements that reduce financial instability and allow developing and emerging economies to accelerate structural change and the creation of remunerative employment opportunities for their fast growing labour force. Similarly, UNRISD may contribute to the international debate about appropriate policies that enhance social development by taking up issues related to the implications of an adverse international financial environment for the living conditions of large parts of the population in developing countries. References: Akyüz Y (2009). “Policy Responses to the Global Financial Crisis: Key Issues for Developing Countries”. South Centre Research Paper 24, May. Akyüz Y (2011). “Capital Flows to Developing Countries in a Historical Perspective: Will the Current Boom End with a Bust?” South Centre Research Paper 37, Geneva, March. Bresser-Pereira LC (2010). “Exchange rate war and Dutch disease“. 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Report of the Commission of Experts of the President of the United Nations General Assembly on Reforms of the International and Financial System. Available at http://www.un.org/ga/president/63/commission/financial_commission.shtml . Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung Geneva Office Chemin du Point-du-Jour, 6bis 1202 Geneva · Switzerland Tel: +41 22 733 34 50 Fax: +41 22 733 35 45 Mail: info@fes-geneva.org Homepage: www.fes-geneva.org
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