Relationship between the misalignment of the real exchange rate and capital flight in the developing countries

Abstract

The objective of this work is to determine the role of the misalignment of the real exchange rate in capital flight for a sample of developing countries over the period 1980-2010. Firstly, we calculated the degrees of misalignment for all countries of our sample, which degrees were introduced as a determinant of capital flight. Then, we examined the effect of the overvaluation and the undervaluation on capital flight. The results show that a strong undervaluation may discourage capital flight, while a strong overvaluation can stimulate it.

Keywords

• capital flight
• equilibrium real exchange rate
• overvaluation
• undervaluation
• cointegration