The return of capital controls

In today’s FT (reg. required), Illene Grabel and Ha-joon Chang celebrate the return of (limited) capital controls — and the IMF’s willingness to acknowledge their value in certain cases. Was it really just over a decade ago that the International Monetary Fund and investors howled when Malaysia imposed capital controls in response to the Asian ...

By , a professor at Indiana University’s Hamilton Lugar School of Global and International Studies.

In today's FT (reg. required), Illene Grabel and Ha-joon Chang celebrate the return of (limited) capital controls -- and the IMF's willingness to acknowledge their value in certain cases.

In today’s FT (reg. required), Illene Grabel and Ha-joon Chang celebrate the return of (limited) capital controls — and the IMF’s willingness to acknowledge their value in certain cases.

Was it really just over a decade ago that the International Monetary Fund and investors howled when Malaysia imposed capital controls in response to the Asian financial crisis? We ask because suddenly those times seem so distant. Today, the IMF is not just sitting on its hands as country after country resurrects capital controls, but is actually going so far as to promote their use. What about the investors whose freedoms are eclipsed by the new controls? Well, their enthusiasm for foreign lending and investing has not been damped in the least. So what is going on here? In our view, nothing short of the most significant transformation in global financial management of the past 30 years. 

David Bosco is a professor at Indiana University’s Hamilton Lugar School of Global and International Studies. He is the author of The Poseidon Project: The Struggle to Govern the World’s Oceans. Twitter: @multilateralist

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