三元悖论理论最早可以溯源至英国经济学家米德(1953),他分析了开放经济条件下内部均衡目标和外部均衡目标发生冲突,即“米德冲突”。其中,在保证包括货币政策在内的支出增减政策有效的情况下,固定汇率制度和资本自由流动是不能共存的,这与后来提出的“三元悖论”理论之间有着理论传承关系。蒙代尔(1963)提出了著名的M-F模型,为后来“三元悖论”理论的提出奠定了重要基础。亚洲金融危机后,克鲁格曼(Krugman,1999)在“O Canada: A neglected nation gets its Nobel”一文中说到:
The point is that you can't have it all: A country must pick two out of three. It can fix its exchange rate without emasculating its central bank,but only by maintaining controls on capital flows (like China today); itcan leave capital movement free but retain monetary autonomy, butonly by letting the exchange rate fluctuate (like Britain--or Canada); or itcan choose to leave capital free and stabilize the currency, but only byabandoning any ability to adjust interest rates to fight inflation or recession (like Argentina today, or for that matter most of Europe).”明确提出了“三元悖论”的原则。后来,克鲁格曼又在其著作《萧条经济学的回归》一书中对这一原则进行了论述,使得该原则被越来越多的人所认同。