What Macroeconomic Conditions Best Explain Southeast Asian Capital Flows?

Abstract

The paper examines the capital flows of seven Southeast Asian emerging economies over the last decade and a half. It first evaluates the role of economic conditions within a country itself, including the country's domestic financial conditions and the openness of its financial markets to international capital flows. Then, the role of the counties' own domestic conditions is compared with regional influences and with the importance of macroeconomic conditions elsewhere, such as in Europe, and in the largest single recipient of the outflows, the United States. Key results include: (1) domestic capital market conditions are the best predictors (among the variables that we examine) of the capital flows of these countries; (2) capital market openness is of little use in predicting changes in capital flows; and, (3) while the macroeconomic conditions of the United States are strong predictors of subsequent GDP growth in the region, they are not, by themselves, good predictors of the region's capital flows.Global Imbalances, Financial Market Capitalization, Productivity