During the past five years or so, most East Asian economies including the Philippines experienced a rising level of foreign exchange reserves and rapidly appreciating currencies both in nominal and real terms. One cause has been the resurgence of capital flows, which makes the issue of how to...

Two waves of large capital inflows to emerging markets in the past 20 years appear to present a paradox: inflows can provide opportunities for faster growth and technology transfer, but they can also feed overheating pressures and unleash forces that push recipients into crisis. This paper...

Sudden capital outflows were at the heart of the 1997-98 Asian crisis. Ten years later, capital flows are back on the policy agenda, but in a very different context. The countries of East Asia are now getting more inflows than they can effectively absorb and the upward pressure on exchange rates...

The resurgence of private capital inflows into Asia in recent years has raised the question of whether the region is susceptible to yet another financial crisis. While a sudden large-scale reversal of capital flows is not likely to result in a liquidity crunch or balance of payments crisis, the...

The Republic of Korea has recently experienced: (i) large capital inflows, in particular a surge in portfolio inflows, and (ii) an appreciation of asset prices, including stock prices, land prices, and nominal and real exchange rates. We first document the recent trend in capital inflows and...

This paper describes Indonesia's experiences in managing foreign capital flows after the 1997 financial crisis. It highlights several differences in types and magnitude of capital flows from the pre-crisis period and reviews the determinants of capital flows including government policy and...

The level of capital flows to developing countries had increased dramatically over the decade prior to the 1997 Asian financial crisis. In terms of composition, private capital flows dominated official flows beginning in 1992. The surge in private capital flows to emerging market economies was a...

During the past five years or so, most East Asian economies including the Philippines experienced a rising level of foreign exchange reserves and rapidly appreciating currencies both in nominal and real terms. One cause has been the resurgence of capital flows, which makes the issue of how to...

We examine episodes of large gross FDI inflows - surges - at the sectoral level between 1994 and 2009 for 95 emerging-market and industrial countries. We find that surges in the primary and manufacturing sectors are less cyclical and associated with lower macroeconomic volatility than surges in...

During episodes of increased global risk aversion, or risk-off episodes, safe haven currencies such as the Swiss franc tend to appreciate. The immediate impact of a risk-off shock is an increase in net private inflows to Switzerland, mostly driven by a reduction in Swiss residents' net purchases...