The causes of international capital flows are treated by different economic schools in different ways and evolve with the development of both the global economy and economics.

The question why the export and import of capital, focused primarily on the traditional theory. Under them usually mean neoclassical and neo-Keynesian, and sometimes the Marxist theory of international capital movements.

For the first time questions the movement of capital between the countries have been put representatives of the British classical school at the end of XVIII - the first half of the XIX century. Adam Smith and David Ricardo. They showed that in terms of restrictions on the export of capital money exchange rate decreases, prices go up, because the amount of money (gold and silver) exceeds the actual demand in the country. In this case, as Adam Smith argued, nothing can stop taking money out of the country. Thus, he established a link between the quantity of money in the country, their price (interest), commodity prices and the "flight" of capital to countries with high purchasing power of money.

Ricardo, considering the comparative costs, showed the possibility of moving the business capital and labor in the country with a comparative advantage. Disciple of Ricardo JS Mill argued that the export of capital has always promotes the expansion of trade and the most efficient production specialization of countries. For this necessarily need an additional motive: a significant difference in rates of return between the two countries, as capital migrates only at the prospect of getting very high profits.

In the XX century. Neoclassical (Swedish E. Heckscher and Ohlin B., an American and a Dane R. Nurkse K. Iversen) continued to develop these concepts. They also came from the fact that the main impetus of the international movement of capital is the rate of interest or the marginal productivity of capital: capital moves from places where its marginal productivity is low in places where it is high. B. Olin first of economists pointed to the export of capital in order to avoid high taxation and a sharp decrease in the homeland security investments. He also drew the line between exports and short-term capital (the latter, in his opinion, is usually speculative in nature), which is located between the export of export credits.

R. Nurkse considered as the basis of the international movement of capital differences in interest rates, the dynamics of which is determined by conditions that affect the demand and supply of capital. K. Iversen put forward the concept of limiting international capital mobility: the different types of capital are unequal mobility, which explains the fact that one and the same country is a exporter and importer of capital in relation to different countries.

However, further development of the neoclassical theory has shown that it is of little use for the study of direct investment, as one of its main premises - the presence of perfect competition - does not allow its supporters to analyze those firm-specific advantages (in economic theory are treated as a monopoly), which usually are based directly investment.

In the XX century. great popularity enjoyed the views of the English economist John Maynard Keynes and his followers. John Maynard Keynes believed that the country can only become a real capital exporter when its exports exceed imports (to enable countries - buyers of goods to finance their imports), and the growth of foreign investment should be supported by a positive trade balance of the country of export , in violation of this rule is necessary to state intervention. The export of capital should be adjusted so that the outflow of capital from the country's consistent growth of merchandise exports.

These views were reflected in the concept of neo-Keynesians (American F. Machlup, an Englishman Harrod's, etc.). F. Machlup believed that the most beneficial to the importing country is a direct investment flows, which do not constitute debt. By R. Harrod, the export of capital and the movement of the balance of trade stimulates economic growth, which depends on the value of investments. If saving more investment, growth is slowing, which stimulates the export of capital.

In the context of neo-Keynesian theory and models are the export of capital, based on liquidity preference, which means the tendency of investors to keeping one part of its resources in highly liquid (so the low-margin) form, and the other part - in the low-liquidity (but profitable) form. Thus, the American economist James Tobin proposed the concept of portfolio liquidity, according to which the behavior is determined by the investor's desire to diversify its portfolio securities (including through foreign securities), measuring the profitability, liquidity and risk.

His compatriot Charles Kindleberger has shown that in different countries for different capital markets characterized by preference for liquidity and, therefore, possible active exchange of portfolio investment between the two countries, which explains the migration of capital between the developed countries.

Contribute to the development of theories of capital contributed and Marxist theory. Karl Marx argued capital export its relative abundance in the countries - exporters of capital. Under an excess of capital, he understood such capital, the use of which in the country of his presence would lead to a reduction in its rate of return. The active growth of monopolies in the late XIX century. stimulated the export of capital and, therefore, Lenin called it one of the most essential economic bases of imperialism. The desire to increase their monopoly monopoly profits realized through the export of "excess capital" of the world, especially in regions where the high profits achieved. The export of capital is found to be the basis of the financial oppression of the weaker nations.

Among the so-called "non-traditional" theories of international migration of capital should be divided into two areas: the theory of international development finance in developing countries and the theory of multinational corporations.

International development finance is based on the provision of funds to developing countries. Part of the funds provided by foreign states and international organizations on favorable terms, official development assistance. In the early postwar decades, the official capital inflows to developing countries was seen as a factor that will ensure self-sustaining and self-development of their economy ("supportive care", "development aid"). A significant portion of the funds to these countries, acted as a bilateral or multilateral assistance with significant gifts (grants).

The starting point to justify the flow of financial resources to developing countries were the findings about the features of the accumulation of capital in the underdeveloped economy, made by American economist Simon Kuznets and K. Kurihara. According to Kuznets, an underdeveloped country in the process of capital accumulation has to attract foreign capital, which gives it the foreign exchange to pay for imports and compensate for the lack of savings for investment. In this regard have been developed two types of models of development assistance - the models fill the gap in savings and investments and models make up a foreign currency.

With criticism of the use of development aid were many Western economists. They noted that the governments of developing countries do not use aids to enhance the investment programs and to increase the consumption of government programs that are not related to the economic development of the country.

The crisis of the theory of development assistance Western economists (eg, L. Pearson) have developed various theories of partnership that has found expression in the creation of mixed companies as a form of foreign investment with the participation of local capital. This company provides the agreement between the foreign private capital, government and local entrepreneurs.

90th. XX century. were marked by massive inflows of private capital to developing countries. At the forefront were the foreign direct investment, carried out mainly through multinational corporations. The concept of capital export transnational corporations based on ideas about the need to have an extra edge over local competitors, which allow to obtain higher profits. This idea was the basis for the development of some models of migration of capital.

Model of monopolistic advantage was developed by the American economist Stephen Hymer and further developed by Charles Kindleberger, R. E. Keyvzom, G. J. Johnson, R. Lacroix and other economists. It is based on the idea that a foreign investor is in a less favorable situation than the local: it is worse than the country knows the market and the "rules of the game" for him, he does not have extensive connections here, it incurs additional transport costs and longer suffers from the risks at he does not have the so-called "administrative resources." So he needs the so-called monopolistic advantages, due to which he could get a higher profit.

Internalization model (from the English. Internal - internal) is based on the idea of ​​Anglo-American economist Ronald Coase that within a large corporation operates special internal market regulated by the heads of the corporation and its subsidiaries. This opens the way for a more comfortable and allows the transfer of technology to realize the potential of vertical integration. The creators of the internalization model (British Peter Buckley, Mark Casson, Alan Ragmi and others) believe that a significant part of the formal international operations is actually intercompany transactions TNCs, which are determined by the direction of the strategic objectives of the firm and have no relation to the principles of comparative advantage or to differences in factor endowments.

John Dunning's eclectic model has absorbed from other models of direct investment that has been tested and lives, and why it is often referred to as "eclectic paradigm". In this model, the firm starts production of goods and services abroad, if the conditions of the existing strengths (owner, internalization and location).

The theory of capital flight poorly developed, although in recent decades, capital flight has become a large scale in the world, including in the last decade and from Russia. The term "capital flight" is interpreted in different ways, which affects the estimates of the scale of this phenomenon. So, D. Kaddington reduces capital flight to the illegal export and / or removal of short-term capital. By M. Dooley, capital flight occurs when residents of different countries may be at a low cost to benefit from existing or expected difference in taxes.

However, most researchers (Charles Kindleberger, W. Klein, J. Walter) suggest that capital flight - is a movement of capital from the country, which is contrary to its interests, and is due to many adverse domestic holders of its investment climate in the country, also because of the often illicit origin of the capital and the subsequent