This book analyzes the process of international financial integration and the structural forces driving private capital to developing countries. Against this background, it details the potential benefits of integration and the implications of fast-moving global capital flows for emerging economics. Examining the experience of countries that have attracted substantial private capital flows, the book provides invaluable guidance as to what works and what doesn't during the transition to financial integration. It will be of compelling interest to policymakers and also to international investors and bankers, financial analysts, and researchers.
This edition of the OECD Sovereign Borrowing Outlook reviews developments in response to the COVID-19 pandemic for government borrowing needs, funding conditions and funding strategies in the OECD area.
Since 1989, private capital flows to a select group of developing countries have increased sharply, but developments in 1994 have caused concern about the sustainability of those flows. Several highly indebted developing countries that are implementing reform are concerned that a generalized reversal - similar to episodes of capital flight in the early 1980s - might disrupt their economies and threaten economic reform. Because the surge in private capital flows coincided with a period of low international interest rates and intensive policy reform in developing countries, debate has been active about whether the surge is driven mainly by domestic (pull) or external (push) factors. Under the pull hypothesis, successful domestic policies are the key to ensuring sustainable capital inflows; under the push hypothesis, an increase in international interest rates would cause a reversal of those flows (back to the industrial world). Using a partial adjustment model in which both domestic and external variables are defined, the authors explain why private capital flows to some developing countries but not to others (using panel data for 1986-93 for 22 countries). They argue that a generalized reversal is unlikely in countries that maintain a fundamentally sound macroeconomic environment. In fact, their empirical results show that domestic factors such as domestic savings and investment ratios significantly affected the recent surge in capital inflows. Further, they suggest that countries that have not received significant foreign capital - including countries in sub-Saharan Africa - could begin to if they implemented structural reforms that allow them to export, save, and invest at higher rates. Reducing their foreign debt (which might call for a continuation of recent debt reduction operations) could also help attract foreign private investors.
This paper assesses empirically the key drivers of private capital flows to a large sample of emerging market economies in the last decade. It analyzes the effect of the global financial cycle, measured by the VIX, on capital flows and investigates the role of fundamentals and country characteristics in mitigating or amplifying its effect. Using interaction models, we find the effect of the VIX to be non-linear. For low levels of the VIX, capital flows are driven by fundamental factors. During periods of stress, the VIX becomes the dominant driver of capital flows while other determinants, with the exception of interest rate differentials, lose statistical significance. Our results also suggest that the effect of global financial conditions on gross private capital flows increases with the host country’s level of financial sector development. Finally, our results imply that countries cannot fully insulate themselves from global financial shocks, unless creating a fragmented global financial system.
The Covid-19 pandemic has aggravated the tension between large development needs in infrastructure and scarce public resources. To alleviate this tension and promote a strong and job-rich recovery from the crisis, Africa needs to mobilize more financing from and to the private sector.
Ten years on from the global financial crisis, economies around the world have become dependent on debt for their growth. This has encouraged unprecedented global indebtedness, particularly in emerging markets and developing countries which have little control over global trends. The challenge for the governments of increasingly vulnerable economies is finding room to manoeuvre to manage debt sustainably, while ensuring growth-inducing expenditure to enhance development. In this report, it is argued that, within the global financial system, developing countries have a limited number of choices, and proposals for regional and inter-regional monetary and financial cooperation and reliance on directed development banking are set out as a place to start.
