Re: Controlling Capital?

[Paul Davidson <pdavidso@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Sat, 9 Mar 1996, Ric Holt wrote:

>Would anyone like to discuss the
> Tobin tax on foreign currency transactions?

I am giving such a paper at the Conference on Uncertainty in a Global
economiy at Leeds on March 16, 1996. An earlier version of the paper was
entitled "Will Grains of Sand Do the Job When Road Blocks are Needed?"

>
> Secondly, OK this control of capitl movements seems to be easy, but as
> capital is mobile, more mobile than political authority, such an effort
> to control movements by one country may well just push capital offshore.
> Witness the effects of the US capital controls programme (Interest
> equalization tax, Regulation Q, Voluntary Foreign Credit Restraint), and
> the resultant (partially, but importantly) development of the Eurodollar
> and offshore markets.
>
> So, it seems to me that regulation by any one nation-state, even if its
> the US, is unlikely to work. What is needed in international action or
> global governance, governance which could have a variety of different
> aims and mechanisms depending on what people (ideas of cosmopolitan
> democracy a la David Held) want.


but this is just as true with a Tobin Tax.


Paul D.