A key area where research in UNCTAD/Trade Development Reports and this paper was well ahead of the curve is external liberalization and financial openness. This work challenges the mainstream view promoted at the time that external financial liberalization is desirable on efficiency grounds (in terms of its impact on the level and allocation of investment) and these efficiency gains more than compensate for the loss of policy autonomy. It is argued that international capital flows rarely improve the international allocation of savings – most of them are driven by short-term, speculative capital gains rather than by real investment opportunities. It warns that the surge in capital flows to Latin America, notably to Mexico, that was taking place in the early 1990s could end with a bust, leading to payments and debt crises with devastating effects on incomes and jobs and poverty. Indeed in Trade and Development Reports, UNCTAD constantly monitored capital flows to developing countries in the 1990s, drawing attention to vulnerabilities in various parts of the developing world to boom-bust cycles, including Latin America, East Asia and elsewhere, advocating (some 15 years before the IMF) controls over capital inflows including market-friendly taxes and direct restrictions, as a way of preventing such cycles.