¿Gobernar la globalización? Política y economía en la regulación de los movimientos internacionales de capital

Resumo

Instability and recurrent crisis in the international economy have led
a number of governments to some kind of regulation of short-term financial
investment. Regulating capital flows is based on the evidence that free
markets not always deliver the best allocation of resources, in whose
cases governments have to implement active policies in order to prevent
market failures. Beginning with a summing up of this issue since its initial
recognition in the Bretton Woods accords to current IMF and the US Federal
Reserve efforts to institutionalize de-regulation of the capital account
as a mandatory condition for affiliation to the IMF. It is then argued that US
government efforts in this direction are part and parcel of its attempts at
a global re-design of its political and economic hegemony. Subsequently
the paper focuses on some recent experiences of regulating short-term
financial flows in both Latin America and Asia, arguing that, under certain
conditions, regulation of this kind of capital movements can improve the
performance of policy strategies addressed at sustained development
and full employment.