平衡向公平倾斜：资本管制与外债结构

Tilting the BalanceTowards Equity: CapitalControls and theStructure of ExternalLiabilities Tobias Krahnke and Wenjie Li WP/26/XX IMF Working Papersdescribe research inprogress by the author(s) and are published toelicit comments and to encourage debate.The views expressed in IMF Working Papers arethose of the author(s) and do not necessarilyrepresent the views of the IMF, its Executive Board,or IMF management. 2026February IMF Working Paper Strategy Policy and Review Department Tilting the Balance Towards Equity: Capital Controls and the Structure of External LiabilitiesPrepared byTobias Krahnke and Wenjie Li* Authorized for distribution byMichele RutaFebruary2026 IMF Working Papersdescribe research in progress by the author(s) and are published to elicitcomments and to encourage debate.The views expressed in IMF Working Papers are those of theauthor(s) and do not necessarily represent the views of the IMF, its Executive Board, or IMF management. ABSTRACT:Capital flow restrictions have long been debated as a tool to manage external financialvulnerabilities, as volatile international capital flows and high external debt can contribute to financial crises.However, empirical evidence on whether capital flow management measures (CFMs) can shift the compositionof countries’ external liabilities toward more stable types of funding is limited. Using a novel dataset of granularcapital account openness indicators measuring policy intensity, we show that an asymmetric liberalizationfavoring equity over debt can tilt external capital structures toward equity. This effect is stronger in countrieswith higher institutional quality, underscoring the role of governance in attracting stable foreign investment. RECOMMENDED CITATION:Tobias Krahnke and Wenjie Li (2026). Tilting the Balance Towards Equity:Capital Controls and the Structure of External Liabilities. IMF Working Paper 26/37. Tilting the Balance Towards Equity:Capital Controls and the Structure ofExternal Liabilities Prepared byTobias Krahnke and Wenjie Li1 1Introduction ”The advocacy of a control of capital movements must not be taken to meanthat the era of international investment should be brought to an end [...] Theobject [...]is to have a means of distinguishing [...]between movementsof floating funds and genuine new investment for developing the world’s re-sources.” —J.M. Keynes (1942), as cited in IMF (1969), p. 13. The role of capital flow restrictions in managing external financial vulnerabilities has beenwidely debated, as volatile international capital movements and large external debt canamplify the risk of financial crises, especially in emerging market economies (Ma andWei (2020)). Liquidity crises seldom arise from sudden stops in equity inflows. Instead,they are more often triggered by abrupt halts in debt inflows, making high externaldebt levels a key risk factor (Cat˜ao and Milesi-Ferretti (2014)). Against this backdrop,there is growing consensus that the structure of a country’s foreign liabilities – i.e., therelative shares of foreign direct investment (FDI), portfolio equity, and external debtin its external financing – significantly influences its susceptibility to external financialcrises.While contained external leverage is thus deemed preferable, attracting equityfinancing and avoiding over-borrowing remains a complex challenge for many countries.Especially in the aftermath of the global financial crisis, the role of capital controls hasthus come under renewed scrutiny, not as a means to shut out international investment,but as a potential instrument to promote more stable and resilient external financing. Thedebate has focused primarily on capital inflows rather than outflows. Inflow measures aretypically viewed as tools to influence the scale and composition of external financing duringmore normal times, whereas outflow controls are used far less frequently and are usuallydeployed as temporary crisis-management instruments during periods of acute stress.To the extent that policy can influence the composition of capital flows, an importantconsideration is whether these flow responses ultimately cumulate into changes in the stockof external liabilities – a key determinant of crisis vulnerability. This naturally raises thequestion whether capital flow management measures (CFMs) can meaningfully shape acountry’s external capital structure by tilting it towards more equity-type liabilities. If so,an asymmetric approach to capital account liberalization – one that distinguishes betweenequity and debt flows – could allow policymakers to actively influence the composition ofexternal liabilities and reduce vulnerability to external crises.Two examples that offersuggestive evidence are India and Brazil.Figure 1 displays the equity share in totalforeign liabilities alongside a novel indicator of capital flow openness on equity (blueline) and debt (red line) inflows by non-residents.Starting in the early 1990s, India liberalized equ