Capital Controls

Capital controls are rules a government puts in place to restrict how freely money can move across its borders, limiting how much citizens can convert into foreign currency, or how much foreign investors can pull out at once. Countries usually reach for them during a currency crisis or a sudden wave of capital flight, when a free-for-all of money leaving the country would crash the currency further. They're a blunt, controversial tool, since they also scare off future investment, but they can buy a government breathing room to stabilize its economy without its currency collapsing overnight.