Triple Crisis blogger Kevin Gallagher published the following opinion article in Economic and Political Weekly on the IMF’s new stance on capital controls, developing countries’ reactions, and how the IMF might devote more effort to the issue of managing global capital flows.
Continuing with its rethink on capital controls, the International Monetary Fund has now formally suggested that there may be situations when developing countries can gain from placing regulations on the inward low of foreign capital. However, the new “advice” comes with so many conditions and guidelines that the developing countries have rejected the recommendations and sent the IMF back to the drawing board. Rather than telling developing countries what to do and when, the IMF should perhaps focus more on helping governments enforce capital controls and it should stress the need for the global coordination of those controls.