The Future of International Capital Flows

Our Financial Stability Papers are designed to develop new insights into risk management, to promote risk reduction policies, to improve financial crisis management planning or to report on aspects of our systemic financial stability work.
Published on 12 December 2011

Financial Stability Paper No. 12
By William Speller, Gregory Thwaites and Michelle Wright

The experience of the past decade has demonstrated the challenges that international capital flows can pose for financial stability. The build-up of global imbalances (large net capital flows) was one of the preconditions for the recent financial crisis. Increased interconnectedness between countries’ financial sectors (large gross capital flows) created channels through which the initial shock could spread around the world. In these respects, the scale and volatility of international capital flows were crucial determinants of the depth and breadth of the crisis which followed Lehman Brothers’ demise.

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