Autonomia de política econômica, fragilidade externa e equilíbrio do balanço de pagamentos

The objective of this article is to present the economic theory of capital controls, that is, the theoretical arguments that favor the introduction of capital controls. In this setting we will argue that economic theory have three main arguments for the introduction of capital controls: to increase the degree of freedom in the formulation of economic policy, to reduce the external financial fragility and to assure the inter-temporal equilibrium of the balance of payments. Critics of capital controls argue that these benefits would be out-weighted by the costs of these controls as, for example, higher levels of domestic interest rates, reduced access to international credit markets and so on. Those critics, however, do not present any kind of evidence to support their arguments. So we can conclude that criticism against the introduction of capital controls in emerging economies are based in ideological arguments rather than on economic theory.