Measuring Outward Orientation In Developing Countries

The paper provides a critical review of the existing empirical literature that deals with the relationship between trade orientation and economic performance. Using a model that avoids the shortcomings of most current measures of trade orientation, the author finds strong support for the hypothesis that, other things being equal, countries with a less distorted external sector grow faster than countries with a more distorted external sector.

This edited volume seeks to provide a critical and technical look at international political economic indices (PEIs). It examines measurement issues, relates PEIs to economic theory, and suggests better measures than those currently used.

Global Geopolitical Power and African Political and Economic Institutions: When Elephants Fight describes the emergence and nature of the prevailing African political and economic institutions in two periods. In the first, most countries adopted political and economic institutions that funneled significant levels of political and economic power to the political elites, usually through one- or no-party (military) political systems, inward-oriented development policies, and/ or state-led—and often state-owned—industrialization. In the second period, most countries adopted institutions that diluted the overarching political and economic power of ruling elites through the adoption of de jure multiparty electoral systems, more outward-oriented trade policies, and the privatization of many state owned or controlled sectors, though significant political and economic power remains in their hands. The choices made in each period were consistent with prevailing ideas on governance and development, the self-interests of political elites, and the perceived availability of support or autonomy vis-à-vis domestic, regional, and international sources of power at the time. This book illustrates how these two region-wide shifts in prevailing political and economic institutions and practices of Africa can be linked to two prior global geopolitical realignments: the end of WWII with the ensuing American and Soviet led bipolar system, and the end of the Cold War with American primacy. Each period featured changed or newly empowered international and regional leaders with competing national priorities within new intellectual and geopolitical climates, altering the opportunities and constraints for African leaders in instituting or maintaining particular political and economic institutions or practices. The economic and political institutions of Africa that emerged did so as a result of a complex mix of contending domestic, regional, and international forces (material and intellectual)—all which were themselves greatly transformed in the wake of these two global geopolitical realignments.

This paper discusses the broad orientation of the economic systems adopted in developing countries. While government-led development strategies were widely followed by developing countries since the 1950s and 1960s, a distinct trend towards the adoption of market-oriented systems has developed in the last decade. The paper reviews international trade policies, noting the move away from protectionism, and financial markets policies, where financial repression is also giving way to more liberal systems. The paper also discusses newer ideas supporting “industrial policies” or policies to promote certain export activities, that are partly inspired by the success of several East Asian economies, and observes that their application to other developing countries would not be promising.

"The recent and apparently broad move towards unilateral trade liberalization in the developing world has not been systematically documented, nor has comparative data been compiled. This study investigates the extent and character of trade reform in 32 countries in South Asia, East Asia, Africa, and Latin America. Changes in tariffs, non-tariffs barriers, foreign exchange controls, and export impediments between the mid-1980s and 1992/93 are discussed. Data are presented on changes in the level, range, and dispersion of tariffs, and coverage of quantitative restraints. Similarities and differences both within and between regions are evaluated." -- Website.

An attempt to assist policy-makers in developing countries to cope with the challenges they face during the rest of the century and beyond. For this purpose it provides information on the experience of developing, developed and socialist countries.