Before the taper tantrum in May 2013, as portfolio capital moved more steadily and strongly, the main focus of policy makers was probably how to discourage or slow down the entrance of these funds. Strategies in many countries included capital restrictions, official foreign exchange purchases to avoid currency appreciation, and interest rate cuts by central banks.
Taken at face value, the published data indicate that the level of output per hour in a number of service-producing industries has been falling for more than two decades. In other words, the data imply that firms in these industries have been becoming less and less efficient for more than twenty years. These circumstances simply are not credible.