Global liquidity and capital flow regulations

Abstract

After the Global Financial Crisis, the usage of capital controls and macroprudential policies has returned and becomes an essential element of the policy paradigm in different countries. However, our knowledge on the effectiveness of these policy instruments is still insufficient and requires serious empirical reconsideration. The main contribution of our paper is in identifying that capital controls (on both outflows and inflows) and macroprudential instruments are effective measures in reducing the volume of cross-border banking flows in a sample of 112 countries over the period 2000–2016. Using panel regressions incorporating country fixed effects, we find that FX and/or countercyclical reserve and countercyclical capital buffer requirements, reserve requirement ratios and concentration limits are the most effective macroprudential instruments to manage countries’ exposures to global liquidity fluctuations. Additionally, capital surcharges on SIFIs, limits on interbank exposures and foreign currency loans are also associated with a large reduction in flows, a finding which contributes to the literature by emphasizing the importance of macroprudential instruments aimed at financial institutions’ assets or liabilities. However, leverage ratios, limits on domestic currency loans, levy/tax on financial institutions, and other borrower related instruments appear to be insignificant regulatory measures. At times of large and volatile cross-border capital flows, it is desirable to employ both capital controls and macroprudential policies, with latter tend to be generally more effective measures in reducing the volume of cross-border banking flows. The results are robust to changes in the estimation methodology and varying sets of the control variables.