Dani Rodrik's weblog

Re-legitimizing capital controls in trade agreements

In a world where economic logic ruled, restrictions on the use of capital controls would not find their way into trade agreements.  But they have. 

More than 250 economists (including yours truly) have now signed a letter that tries to reverse the tide.  It concludes thus:  

“We recommend that future U.S. FTAs and BITs permit governments to deploy capital controls withou being subject to investor claims, as part of a broader menu of policy options to prevent and mitigate financial crises.”

The letter is addressed to Hillary Clinton, Tim Geithner, and Ron Kirk.  Here is the letter and the list of signatories.

“Hooray For Nation States”

That’s the title the editors at The New Republic picked for the article I wrote based on my new book.  It was really hard to get the argument of the book into a short article, and frankly I am not sure I quite succeeded.  (You have to be a subscriber to read the whole article or buy the hardcover issue.)

I hope there is enough there though to want to make people read the whole book.

Meanwhile, Andrew Leonard over at Salon.com says he likes the first 20 pages of the book.   

UPDATE: The Globalization Paradox is now shipping from Amazon!

Bringing common sense back to the globalization debate

Suppose that the world’s leading policymakers were to meet again in Bretton Woods, New Hamp­shire, to design a new global economic order. They would natu­rally be preoccupied with today’s problems: the eurozone crisis, global recovery, financial regulation, international macroeconomic imbal­ances, and so on. But addressing these issues would require the assembled leaders to rise above them and consider the soundness of global economic arrangements overall.

Here are seven commonsense principles of global economic governance they might agree on.