Controle de capitais: economistas dos EUA a favor

Uma carta dirigida ao Secretário do Tesouro, o Secretário do Comércio e à Secretária de Estado defende a adoção de medidas defensivas contra fluxos excessivos de capitais, pregando a mudança dos acordos de investimentos e de liberalização de comércio:

January 31, 2011

Secretary Hillary Rodham Clinton
U.S. Department of State
2201 C Street NW
Washington, D.C. 20520

Secretary Timothy Geithner
Department of the Treasury
1500 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW Washington, D.C. 20220

Ambassador Ron Kirk
Office of the United States Trade Representative
600 17th Street NW
Washington, DC 20508

Dear Secretary Clinton, Secretary Geithner, and Ambassador Kirk:

We, the undersigned economists, write to alert you to important new developments in the economics literature pertaining to prudential financial regulations, and to express particular concern regarding the extent to which capital controls are restricted in U.S. trade and investment treaties.
Authoritative research recently published by the National Bureau of Economic Research, the International Monetary Fund, and elsewhere has found that limits on the inflow of short-term capital into developing nations can stem the development of dangerous asset bubbles and currency appreciations and generally grant nations more autonomy in monetary policy-making.i
Given the severity of the global financial crisis and its aftermath, nations will need all the possible tools at their disposal to prevent and mitigate financial crises. While capital account regulations are no panacea, this new research points to an emerging consensus that capital management techniques should be included among the “carefully designed macro-prudential measures” supported by G-20 leaders at the Seoul Summit.ii Indeed, in recent months, a number of countries, from Thailand to Brazil, have responded to surging hot money flows by adopting various forms of capital regulations.
We also write to express our concern that many U.S. free trade agreements and bilateral investment treaties contain provisions that strictly limit the ability of our trading partners to deploy capital controls. The “capital transfers” provisions of such agreements require governments to permit all transfers relating to a covered investment to be made “freely and without delay into and out of its territory.”
Under these agreements, private foreign investors have the power to effectively sue governments in international tribunals over alleged violations of these provisions. A few recent U.S. trade agreements put some limits on the amount of damages foreign investors may receive as compensation for certain capital control measures and require an extended “cooling off” period before investors may file their claims.iii However, these minor reforms do not go far enough to ensure that governments have the authority to use such legitimate policy tools. The trade and investment agreements of other major capital-exporting nations allow for more flexibility.
We recommend that future U.S. FTAs and BITs permit governments to deploy capital controls without being subject to investor claims, as part of a broader menu of policy options to prevent and mitigate financial crises.
Sincerely,

Initial Signatories:
1. Ricardo Hausmann, Director, Harvard University Center for International Development
2. Dani Rodrik, Rafiq Hariri Professor of International Political Economy, John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University
3. Joseph Stiglitz, University Professor, Columbia University, Nobel laureate
4. Arvind Subramanian, Senior Fellow, Peterson Institute for International Economics, and Senior Fellow, Center for Global Development
5. Nancy Birdsall, President, Center for Global Development, Washington, DC
6. Olivier Jeanne, Professor of Economics, Johns Hopkins University, and Senior Fellow, Peterson Institute for International Economics
7. Pranab Bardhan, Professor of Economics, University of California, Berkeley
8. Lance Taylor, Department of Economics, New School for Social Research
9. Jose Antonio Ocampo, School of International and Public Affairs, Columbia University
10. Stephany Griffith-Jones, Initiative for Policy Dialogue, Columbia University
11. Ethan Kaplan, IIES, Stockholm University and Columbia University
12. Dimitri B. Papadimitriou, President, The Levy Economics Institute of Bard College
13. Ilene Grabel, Josef Korbel School of International Studies, University of Denver
14. Alice Amsden, Department of Urban Studies and Planning, MIT
15. Gerald Epstein, Department of Economics, University of Massachusetts-Amherst
16. Kevin P. Gallagher, Department of International Relations, Boston University
17. Sarah Anderson, Global Economy Project Director, Institute for Policy Studies
18. Arindrajit Dube, Department of Economics, University of Massachusetts-Amherst
19. William Miles, Department of Economics, Wichita State University
20. Adam Hersh, Center for American Progress
21. James K. Galbraith, Lloyd M. Bentsen Jr. Chair in Government/Business Relations and Professor of Government, University of Texas at Austin
22. Paul Blustein, Nonresident Fellow, the Brookings Institution, and Senior Visiting Fellow, Centre for International Governance Innovation
23. Anton Korinek, Department of Economics, University of Maryland

Other US-Based
24. Rania Antonopoulos, Director, Gender Equality and the Economy Program, Levy Economics Institute
25. Eileen Appelbaum, Center for Economic and Policy Research
(...)
127. Steven Topik, Department of History, University of California
(...)
139. Silverio Zebral, Chief-Economist, Organization of American States (OAS)
International
(...)
159. Ha-Joon Chang, Department of Economics, University of Cambridge, UK
(...)
174. Ricardo Ffrench-Davis, Professor, Departamento de Economía, Universidad de Chile, Chile
(...)
177. Roberto Frenkel, Professor and Principal Research Associate, University of Buenos Aires and CEDES, Argentina
(...)
210. André Nassif, Professor, Department of Economics, Universidade Federal Fluminense Brazil and The Brazilian Development Bank (BNDES), Brazil
(...)
229. Gilson Schwartz, Professor, University of São Paulo, Brazil
(...)
239. Eduardo Strachman, Coordinator of Post Graduate Studies in Economics, São Paulo State University, (Unesp), Araraquara, São Paulo, Brazil

Organizations listed for identification purposes only.

i For some of the most important recent studies see: Ostry JD, Ghosh AR, Habermeier K, Chamon M, Qureshi MS and Reinhardt DBS (2010). Capital Inflows. The Role of Controls. IMF Staff Position Note, SPN/10/04. Washington, DC, International Monetary Fund. Magud N and Reinhart CM (2006). Capital Controls: An Evaluation. NBER Working Paper 11973. Cambridge, MA, National Bureau of Economic Research. Further studies are available upon request.
ii “Seoul Summit Document,” Nov. 12, 2010.
iii See, for example, Annex 10-E of the U.S.-Peru FTA.