ABSTRACT
Policy stigmas are an important aspect of financial governance. Their prescriptions serve both to regulate behaviour and to identify what counts as ‘good’ financial governance. Conformity with stigmas is thus an important part of signalling ‘good’ financial citizenship. This chapter explores the source, significance, and shortcomings of one particular policy stigma, that which has been attached to capital controls. Focusing on the International Monetary Fund, it examines empirically how the degree of approval fixed to controls has varied considerably across time and space and within the IMF itself. It analyses the origin and impact of this stigma as well as the potential costs and risks it raises.
