Minouche Shafik: Think global, act local

Speech by Ms Minouche Shafik, Deputy Governor for Markets and Banking of the Bank of England, at the Joint Bank of England, IMF and Hong Kong Monetary Authority conference on Monetary, Financial and Prudential Policy Interactions in the Post-Crisis World, Hong Kong, 24 October 2016.

Introduction

The benefits of open capital markets are clear. They facilitate the flow of finance to where it would be most productive and help ensure global resources are allocated most efficiently. They allow savers and investors to diversify portfolios beyond national borders, and they provide a greater range of funding sources to fast growing economies and businesses. Motivated by these gains from openness, greater capital mobility has been one of the defining features of the global economy since the end of the Bretton Woods era, as first advanced and then emerging market economies liberalised their capital accounts (Chart 1).