1998 Articles

The Capital Myth: The Difference Between Trade in Widgets and Dollars

Bhagwati, Jagdish N.

In the aftermath of the Asian financial crisis, the mainstream view that dominates policy circles, indeed the prevalent myth, is that despite the striking evidence of the inherently crisis-prone nature of freer capital movements, a world of full capital mobility continues to be inevitable and immensely desirable. Instead of maintaining careful restrictions, we are told, the only sensible course is to continue working toward unfettered capital flows; the favored solution is to turn the IMF even more firmly into an international lender of last resort that dispenses bailout funds to crisis-afflicted countries. The IMF took an important step in this direction at its annual meeting in Hong Kong last September, when the Interim Committee issued a statement virtually endorsing an eventual move to capital account convertibility, which means that you and I, nationals or foreigners, could take capital in and out freely, in any volume and at any time for IMF members. The obligations originally listed in 1944 in the Articles of Agreement, on the other hand, included only "avoidance of restrictions on payments for current transactions" and did not embrace capital account convertibility as an obligation or even a goal.