Financial globalisation has not generated increased investment or higher growth in emerging markets. Countries that have grown most rapidly have been those that rely least on capital inflows. Nor has financial globalisation led to better smoothing of consumption or reduced volatility. If you want to make an evidence-based case for financial globalisation today, you are forced to resort to indirect and speculative arguments.
It is time for a new model of financial globalisation, one that recognises that more is not necessarily better. As long as the world economy remains politically divided among different sovereign and regulatory authorities, global finance is condemned to suffer deformations far worse than those of domestic finance. Depending on context, the appropriate role of policy will be as often to stem the tide of capital flows as to encourage them. Policymakers who view their challenges exclusively from the latter perspective will get it badly wrong.
Easterly responds;
To say that there are crises because of international capital flows is not very meaningful; it is like saying there are recessions because of GDP. Dani and Arvind do not adequately address two big issues on capital flows:
(1) what are the benefits of capital flows? Usually, a voluntary movement of capital signifies a reallocation from a low-return investment to a high-return investment. This raises the rate of return to investment overall, which is usually considered to be a good thing.
(2) To what extent are international capital flow crises the symptom or the disease? They are oftentimes the symptom, so trying to control them to treat macroeconomic imbalances is like treating fevers with ice-baths. Better to confront the underlying imbalances, as Dani and Arvind sensibly recommend in the second half of their column.
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