Late to the Game? Capital Flows to the Western Balkans

Abstract

The boom and bust in capital flows to the New Member States (NMS) has received considerable attention, relatively little has, however, been written about capital flows to the Western Balkans, often perceived to be ‘late arrivals’ to large capital flows. We find that while financial integration took off later in the Western Balkans, it has increased rapidly, despite lower capital account openness. Capital inflows are (perhaps surprisingly) diverse in terms of source countries, but broadly similar in terms of drivers and composition, though with equity shares higher than they were in the NMS at comparable levels of development.

Keywords

• capital flows
• foreign direct investment
• Western Balkans