Increased capital mobility and policy reform in developing countries

Abstract

Since the 1950s and the 1960s when Ramaswamy deliberated on issues of development, developing economies have undergone major changes. Increased urbanisation, introduction of more complex and sophisticated technologies and reduced dependence on exports of primary commodities have brought in their wake considerable changes which warrant a new outlook on development policies. At the centre of this is the capability of governments to regulate economic activity and the associated insulation of domestic economics from international markets denoted here by the term “inner oriented” policies. Moreover, the belief that the Great Depression and the Second World War had destroyed the private international capital markets, which was borne out by the fact that during 1950s and the 1960s international capital flows were over-whelmingly on official account, is no longer valid today. This paper first reviews what is now understood as a “stylised fact” of inner oriented developing countries’ economic performance and then consider how the presence of sizeable private capital flows has altered the situation.