The Complexity of Global Capital Flows: Evidence from G20 Countries

With the high volatility of capital flow and the imbalance of capital flow between emerging and advanced economies, the complexity of capital flow management is always attractive to researchers and policymakers. This study explores how capital flows in G20 countries are significantly impacted by pull and push factors by using regressions, dynamic system GMM, and Panel-VAR models. The results show that international capital flows are significantly associated with domestic financial development, which is measured by stock-market liquidity and domestic credit. Moreover, international capital flows are affected by push factors, such as the growth of the world economy and fluctuations of the crude oil price. This study controls for real interest rate, foreign currency, and capital restriction because the government and macroprudential policies are critical influences on stabilizing capital flows.

Institutional Quality and International Capital Flows to the Emerging Economies

The international capital flows and the factors influencing them are imperative in this era of globalization and financial liberalization. This paper empirically examines the role of institutional quality in enticing foreign capital flows in emerging market economies (EMEs). A panel data set for the period 1995-2018 is used for the 24 major EMEs including Argentina, Bangladesh, Brazil, Chile, China, Czech Republic, Greece, Hungary, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Mexico, Pakistan, Peru, Philippines, Poland, Qatar, Romania, Russia, South Africa, Thailand, Turkey, Ukraine, and Venezuela. The system GMM estimation technique of dynamic panel data handling developed by Arellano-Bover (1995) and Blundell-Bond (1998) is employed for the estimation. The empirical results reveal that the FDI inflows are positively and significantly affected by the institutional quality, but the portfolio equity capital inflows are not influenced by any indicator of institutional performance. In other words, the Lucas paradox is explained by the institutional quality only in the case of FDI inflows. The study accomplishes that the policy aiming at attracting FDI flows by improving institutional infrastructure is expedient for the emerging economies.

International Capital Flows and Speculation

In response to questions about the relative importance of different types of capital flow for international competitiveness, we develop a structural vector auto-regressive model of the real exchange rate and international capital flows. We reveal that innovations to speculative sentiment cause changes in competitiveness. We report that speculation replaces the effect of equity, bond and most of the interest rate effect. The results show that international speculative sentiment is an important contributor to exchange rate and that monetary and regulatory authorities should find ways of measuring and understanding banking and financial flows.

International Capital Flows

International capital flows have challenged economists’ models for decades. They exhibit a number of patterns that standard economic theories have struggled to explain. Over time, global capital flows go through boom and bust cycles, sudden stops, and unprecedented bonanzas. Determinants of capital flows include “pull factors,” recipient countries’ economic and structural characteristics, and “push factors” or “global factors,” which mostly depend on the global financial cycle and U.S. monetary policy. The relative importance of global factors has increased since the early 2000s. The rise in international capital flows that has accompanied the wave of globalization in the early 21st century has helped to deliver crucial capital resources that facilitated development of many economies and helped transmit technologies across borders. On the flip side, international capital flows also increased transmission of financial shocks and policy changes across countries, most prominently experienced during the global financial crisis of 2008–2009. On balance, is it beneficial for small open economies to allow for free capital flows? Mainstream economists’ and policymakers’ answer to this question has evolved from an unequivocal “yes” to a much more nuanced view.