Liquidity traps, capital flows

This version: September 7, 2017 (original version December 17, 2015)Cette version: 7 septembre 2017 (version originale : 17 décembre 2015)Motivated by debates surrounding international capital flows during the Great Recession, we conduct a positive and normative analysis of capital flows when a region of the global economy experiences a liquidity trap. Capital flows reduce inefficient output fluctuations in this region by inducing exchange rate movements that reallocate expenditure towards the goods it produces. Restricting capital mobility hampers such an adjustment. From a global perspective, constrained efficiency entails subsidizing capital flows to address an aggregate demand externality associated with exchange rate movements. Absent cooperation, however, dynamic terms-of-trade manipulation motives drive countries to inefficiently restrict capital flows, impeding aggregate demand stabilization