Do capital controls affect the response of investment to saving? evidence from the Pacific Basin

This paper examines the effect of capital controls on the response of investment to savings in Pacific Basin countries. A robust finding is that the size of the savings coefficient tends to be smaller (larger) in countries with relatively higher (lower) capital controls. Additionally, relaxation in capital controls for the most part had no discernible impact on the savings- investment relationship in individual country time-series regressions. At least a partial resolution to these puzzles is found in the government policy response: Countries with a relatively high saving-investment correlation tended to have governments that countered widening current account imbalances with fiscal policy; the reverse generally held true for countries with low saving-investment correlation. In fact, for this latter group of countries, financing the government deficit through foreign borrowing was a major factor in loosening the link between national saving and investment.