Dear Macroprudence

Macroprudential: Credit regulation: The International Monetary Fund estimates that investment into emerging markets is back at pre-crisis levels. Abundant foreign investment undoubtedly beats the lack of it. Portfolio investment is an important alternative to direct investment. Too much, though, can be overwhelming. It could end up funding non-viable enterprises, driving up prices and creating asset price bubbles. Hot money can also flow out as fast as it comes in.

Domestic monetary policy has proved toothless against these global capital flows. Raising interest rates in emerging markets attracts even more foreign funds. Letting the currency appreciate could be a solution, but not an attractive one for export-dependent economies. Some resort instead to capital controls, which punishes investment indiscriminately.

Another option: Manipulate the way overseas funds create domestic credit. Hot money typically enters a country through its banks as a long-term deposit or overnight loan. Alter the way banks borrow and lend these funds, and authorities could recapture control of their money supply: that is the hope. Indonesia, for example, forces banks to stash more of their foreign-currency deposits at the central bank and reduce offshore borrowing. South Korea is considering a levy on its banks' foreign-currency loans.

These kind of "macroprudential" policies are foreign to Western ears, where aside from capital requirements, banks remain free to determine how much or where to borrow and lend. They gorged on short-term credit before the crisis and crowded into complex, long-term property assets — with disastrous results.

Bossing around banks is nothing new to Asia, though. Asia's Japan-style state capitalism long relied on bankers to channel public savings to strategic industries. And nations from China to India, Singapore and the UAE tweak reserve-rate requirements, loan-loss provisioning and property lending caps to regulate credit and property speculation.

Lax enforcement and loopholes can render such measures useless. And there are risks that stricter controls in one economy will push hot money to others. But global regulators would do well to study Asia's efforts as they try to build a better monetary mousetrap.