This paper studies the relation between the evolution of capital controls and electoral cycles. We exploit a dataset containing detailed information on the level of restrictions on capital flows for 98 countries on an annual basis from 1995 to 2015, constructed by Fernandez et al. (IMF Econ Rev 64:548–574, 2016). First, we find that restrictions are more likely to increase during an election year. The relationship between changes in capital controls and elections is more robust than with any other economic variable. Second, these changes are driven predominantly by restrictions on capital outflows and on relatively liquid asset categories. Third, changes occur mostly after elections, though not exclusively. Finally, capital controls increase more if the new government is more leftist or less liberal than its predecessor, and greater electoral uncertainty is related to higher restrictions on capital flows. Overall, these results suggest that theories examining the cyclical properties of capital controls should also consider electoral cycles.

本文研究了资本控制演变与选举周期之间的关系。我们利用由Fernandez等人构建的数据集，该数据集包含1995年至2015年每年98个国家的资本流动限制水平的详细信息。（IMF Econ Rev 64：548–574，2016）。首先，我们发现在选举年中，限制更有可能增加。资本控制的变化和选举之间的关系比任何其他经济变量都更牢固。其次，这些变化主要是受到资本流出和相对流动性资产类别的限制所驱动。第三，变化大多发生在选举之后，尽管不是排他性的。最后，如果新政府比前任政府更左倾或较不自由，则资本管制的增长会更大，更大的选举不确定性与对资本流动的更高限制有关。总体而言，这些结果表明，检验资本管制周期性特征的理论也应考虑选举周期。