http://www.j-bradford-delong.net/movable_type/2003_archives/003037.html Those of us card-carrying neoliberals who pushed for large-scale opening of capital flows in the early 1990s had a particular vision of the future in our minds' eyes--a vision of the future did not come to pass. We looked at how extraordinarily strongly the world's system of relative prices was tilted against the poor: how cheap were the products that they exported, and how expensive were the capital goods made in the post-industrial core that they needed to import in order to industrialize and develop. "Why not free up capital flows and so encourage large-scale lending from the rich to the poor?" we asked. Such large-scale lending might cut a generation off the time it would take economies where people were poor to converge to the industrial structures and living standards of countries where people were rich. Certainly such large-scale borrowing and lending had played a key role in the economic development of the late-nineteenth century temperate periphery--Canada, the western United States, Australia, New Zealand, Chile, Argentina, Uruguay, and South Africa--more than a century ago. But the future we saw did not come to pass. Instead of capital flowing from rich to poor, it flowed from poor to rich--and en-us http://www.la-mancha.net/archives/000066.html Brad DeLong has up a post rethinking his support for free capital flows. It's an interesting article and worth reading as a sort of mea-culpa that doesn't quite manage the culpa part but it can be summarized fairly briefly. Basically... http://www.marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2004/01/empire_and_capi.html Brad DeLong laments that international capital in the late twentieth century did not flow to poorer countries the way it did in the late 19th century. Tyler comments here. The key point that I think Brad and Tyler both miss http://blogofpandora.blogspot.com/2004_01_01_blogofpandora_archive.html#107402508161044829 Brad DeLong rightfully complains about "The Lost[?] Promise of International Capital Flows": "Instead of capital flowing from rich to poor, it flowed from poor to rich". Now, what is there to make one (and especially an intelligent economics professor)... http://pedantry.fistfulofeuros.net/archives/000253.html This and this in particular, although this and this aren't exactly uppers either. The entry on the failures of free international capital movement is awful when you realise how many lives and how much misery it implies, but there are... http://pedantry.fistfulofeuros.net/archives/000253.html This and this in particular, although this and this aren't exactly uppers either. The entry on the failures of free international capital movement is awful when you realise how many lives and how much misery it implies, but there are...