Capital Account Regimes and the Developing Countries: Issues and Approaches

Debate over the role of volatile private capital flows in international payments and appropriate government policies relating to them has a long history. The League of Nations produced an influential study of exchange-rate experience in the interwar period that addressed some of these issues (Nurkse, 1944); policy debate thereon sharpened in the preparations for (and at) the Bretton Woods conference in 1944; and it resurfaced repeatedly as current and capital account convertibility was restored to an increasing number of developed countries in the post Second World War period (Helleiner, 1994).