Emerging Countries in the Crisis Aftermath: the Financial Integration Reconsidered?

Since 2009, many emerging economies have started to implement capital control measures, a trend which breaks with the financial globalization dynamics that has marked emerging markets since the beginning of the 1990’s. In this article, we first expose the theoretical framework of strategies of integration in financial globalization and the way the financial crisis, which started in the US and in Europe in 2007, has put into question this framework. Then, we analyze the way some emerging markets authorities limit financial integration, the various tools they use corresponding to different needs. The overall efficiency of these measures is difficult to assess. This wave of capital control can be interpreted as a pragmatic approach and the end of an ideology that systematically promotes the opening of financial markets. It also illustrates a deeper trend: in order to protect themselves from the financial crisis and its aftermath, emerging countries may be tempted to adopt non cooperative solutions.