Discussions about international capital movements raise extremely important and controversial questions. Why should countries open up their capital accounts, especially considering that unrestricted international capital movement is a relatively new phenomenon? For example, many OECD countries...

Management of capital inflows has unexpectedly become a major challenge in transition economies. These countries were expected to have an insatiable demand for foreign capital, and an excess demand for capital inflows was, therefore, predicted by most observers. Foreign investors are also known...

This note discusses capital controls using insights from the trade policy literature. It highlights some key issues that have been neglected in the current international debate on capital controls. Capital is tradable in the same way as many goods and services are. As a result, much of the...

This study argues that trade policies regarding financial services are an important—but often neglected—determinant of capital flows and financial sector stability. Financial services trade liberalisation which promotes the use of a broad spectrum of financial instruments and allows the...

“Trade Policy Reviews” analyse the trade policies and practices of each member of the WTO. The reviews consist of three parts: an independent report by the WTO Secretariat, a report by the government, and the concluding remarks by the Chair of the WTO’s Trade Policy Review Body. The...