Expanding the Landscape of Cross-Border Flow Restrictions: Modern Tools and Historical Perspectives

Employing large language models to analyze official documents, we construct a comprehensive record of daily changes in de jure restrictions on cross-border flows worldwide since the 1950s. Our analysis uncovers the wide array of instruments used to regulate cross-border financial flows over the past seven decades, leveraging the fine granularity of the new measures to characterize cross-country and time-series variation across eight categories of restrictions —- distinguishing by flow, direction, instrument type, intensity, and overall policy stance. We exploit the high frequency nature of the new data to document novel patterns in the use of these restrictions, as well as their relationship to crises and political economy determinants.