Within less than two years, a currency crisis that began in Thailand had spread throughout East Asia, Russia, and Brazil, affecting developed economies as well as emerging markets around the world. The scope and virulence of this international financial contagion was completely unexpected. In an...

We use changes in Brazil s tax on capital inflows from 2006 to 2011 to test for direct portfolio effects and externalities from capital controls on investor portfolios. The analysis is structured based on information from investor interviews. We find that an increase in Brazil s tax on foreign...