José De Gregorio: Tackling the capital inflow challenge Speech by Mr José De Gregorio, Governor of the Central Bank of Chile, at the Bank of Spain, the IE Business School in Madrid, and CEMLA’s Meeting of Central Bank Governors of Latin America and Spain in Buenos Aires, the three of them in May 2010. *  *  *  I thank the valuable comments of Kevin Cowan, Pablo García and Enrique Orellana. The last few years have brought unprecedented challenges to macroeconomic management in small, open economies. The severe inflationary shock that began in 2007 was followed by the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression and a worldwide economic recession with no match in the postwar period. Today, a while after the immediate resolution of the crisis, we face new challenges. On the one hand, some developed economies, whose public finances were severely damaged by the great recession, now face a period of drastic macroeconomic adjustments and, in some cases, uncertainty about how their debts will be restructured. On the other hand, a substantial segment of emerging economies, which suffered no permanent damages in the balance sheets of their households, firms, or governments, is currently experiencing what can be an incipient start of a credit and economic rebound. The new momentum of capital inflows mirrors this phenomenon. The current status of these inflows and how to deal with them are a substantial part of the challenges we face today and the substance of this document.
Source: WEO April 2010, IMF. Figure 9 Real exchange rate (index, 1986=100)  120  120  110  110  100  100  90  90  80  80  70  70  88  91  94  97  00  03  06  Reserve requirement period and exchange rate band Dollar sale Dollar purchase RER  09  Source: Central Bank of Chile. BIS Review 72/2010  11