Capital market liberalization and globalization connect global financial markets to allow an ocean of money to flow through them.

Becky Berkman

2018-06-17 10:35:00 Sun ET

In the past decades, capital market liberalization and globalization have combined to connect global financial markets to allow an ocean of money to flow through them. In emerging-economies, the gross foreign financial position can be as large as annual GDP. In rich economies, the ratio can rise even more. Given the sheer size of cross-border capital flows, these co-movements can have enormous effects on local economic conditions. 

The capital flows across borders is good since financial openness allows investors in rich countries to seek out large returns in capital-scarce emerging-economies. Yet, capital flows may not always follow this peculiar pattern. Money can often flow in the other direction. Less mature emerging-economies often save to safeguard against fickle global financial markets and hence amass large quantities of foreign-exchange reserves. This global savings-glut suggests that an ocean of money can swamp individual economies. The U.S. Federal Reserve determines the turn of the tide. American monetary policy shapes the global appetite for risk because of the dollar's exorbitant privilege in global finance. When the Fed changes course, asset prices, returns, and market volatilities move in its wake, with all sorts of inadvertent consequences for other countries.

Most economies face a fundamental dilemma: these economies can choose open capital markets to attract the foreign investment that emerging markets need to reinvigorate their economic climate, but only if these economies can accept losing domestic control over the global business cycle. For many emerging-economies, this inexorable trade-off seems to be a fair price to pay in global finance. However, when the Fed eventually raises its interest rate, the trade-off will then tilt toward a capital exodus from emerging-economies back to America. When push comes to shove, the law of inadvertent consequences counsels caution.

 


If any of our AYA Analytica financial health memos (FHM), blog posts, ebooks, newsletters, and notifications etc, or any other form of online content curation, involves potential copyright concerns, please feel free to contact us at service@ayafintech.network so that we can remove relevant content in response to any such request within a reasonable time frame.

Blog+More

Chicago financial economist Raghuram Rajan views communities as the third pillar of liberal democracy.

Jonah Whanau

2019-02-25 12:41:00 Monday ET

Chicago financial economist Raghuram Rajan views communities as the third pillar of liberal democracy.

Chicago financial economist Raghuram Rajan views communities as the third pillar of liberal democracy in addition to open markets and states. Rajan suggests

+See More

Tech companies seek to serve as quasi-financial intermediaries.

Amy Hamilton

2019-03-03 10:39:00 Sunday ET

Tech companies seek to serve as quasi-financial intermediaries.

Tech companies seek to serve as quasi-financial intermediaries. Retail traders can list items for sale on eBay and then acquire these items economically on

+See More

William Easterly critiques several economic development policies and then indicates that bottom-up solutions often result in macro policy success in spite of nation states.

John Fourier

2023-05-07 10:27:00 Sunday ET

William Easterly critiques several economic development policies and then indicates that bottom-up solutions often result in macro policy success in spite of nation states.

William Easterly critiques several economic development policies and then indicates that bottom-up solutions often result in macro policy success in spite o

+See More

U.S. tech titans increasingly hire PhD economists to help solve business problems.

Monica McNeil

2019-03-19 12:35:00 Tuesday ET

U.S. tech titans increasingly hire PhD economists to help solve business problems.

U.S. tech titans increasingly hire PhD economists to help solve business problems. These key tech titans include Facebook, Amazon, Microsoft, Google, Apple,

+See More

Michael Bloomberg criticizes that the Trump administration's tax reform is a trillion dollar blunder.

Fiona Sydney

2017-12-09 08:37:00 Saturday ET

Michael Bloomberg criticizes that the Trump administration's tax reform is a trillion dollar blunder.

Michael Bloomberg, former NYC mayor and media entrepreneur, criticizes that the Trump administration's tax reform is a trillion dollar blunder because i

+See More

Former IMF chief economist Kenneth Rogoff advocates that artificial intelligence helps augment productivity growth in the next decade.

James Campbell

2018-04-23 07:43:00 Monday ET

Former IMF chief economist Kenneth Rogoff advocates that artificial intelligence helps augment productivity growth in the next decade.

Harvard professor and former IMF chief economist Kenneth Rogoff advocates that artificial intelligence helps augment human productivity growth in the next d

+See More