Openness Outward Orientation Trade Liberalization And Economic Performance In Developing Countries

This paper deals with the role of trade regimes in determining economic performance and growth in the developing countries. The policy and empirical literatures on trade orientation and economic growth are critically reviewed; it is argued that a key limitation of these works has been the inability to create measures of trade orientation that are: (i) objective; (ii) continuous and (iii) comparable across countries. A growth model that relates trade orientation to the ability to absorb technological progress from the rest of the world is developed for the case of a small country. The model is tested using a new index of trade orientation that is free from the limitations described above. The results obtained using a cross country data set provide strong support to the hypothesis that, with other things given, countries with a less distorted external sector grow faster than those countries with a more distorted external sector. The new theories of economic growth are also discussed, and their usefulness for analyzing the relation between trade orientation and growth in the developing countries is assessed.

The global financial crisis triggered a broad reassessment of economic integration policies in developed and developing countries worldwide. The crisis-induced collapse in trade was the sharpest ever since World War II, affecting all countries and all product categories. A huge shock to the trading system, combined with severe macroeconomic instability, makes it natural for policymakers to call into question the basic underlying assumptions of trade liberalization and openness. In particular, outward-oriented or export-led growth strategies are being reassessed as openness is increasingly associated with greater volatility. However, it is crucial not to lose sight of the dynamic benefits that openness can offer. Examples include technology transfer, increased competitive pressure that reduces markups and improves efficiency, and economies of scale. The real question is how to manage outward-oriented strategies so as to maximize the benefits of openness while minimizing risks. This book aims to contribute to this important and ongoing policy debate, bringing together recent empirical work on the trade collapse, its causes and consequences, and the broader trade policy agenda in the post-crisis environment. It addresses critical policy issues revolving around the topic of outward-oriented growth strategy, including policy instruments that help manage risks associated with outward-orientation, lessons learned from the crisis for particular countries and regions, and how emerging trade policy issues such as climate change, commodities, global production networking, and migration affect the prospects for recovery and outward-oriented growth.

The global financial crisis triggered a broad reassessment of economic integration policies in developed and developing countries worldwide. The crisis-induced collapse in trade was the sharpest ever since World War II, affecting all countries and all product categories. A huge shock to the trading system, combined with severe macroeconomic instability, makes it natural for policymakers to call into question the basic underlying assumptions of trade liberalisation and openness. In particular, outward-oriented or export-led growth strategies are being reassessed as openness is increasingly associated with greater volatility. However, it is crucial not to lose sight of the dynamic benefits that openness can offer. Examples include technology transfer, increased competitive pressure that reduces markups and improves efficiency, and economies of scale. The real question is how to manage outward-oriented strategies so as to maximize the benefits of openness while minimizing risks. This book aims to contribute to this important and ongoing policy debate, bringing together recent empirical work on the trade collapse, its causes and consequences, and the broader trade policy agenda in the post-crisis environment. It addresses critical policy issues revolving around the topic of outward-oriented growth strategy, including policy instruments that help manage risks associated with outward-orientation, lessons learned from the crisis for particular countries and regions, and how emerging trade policy issues such as climate change, commodities, global production networking, and migration affect the prospects for recovery and outward-oriented growth.

One of the most enduring questions in economics involves how a nation could accelerate the pace of its economic development. One of the most enduring answers to this question is to promote exports -either because doing so directly influences development via encouraging production of goods for export, or because export promotion permits accumulation of foreign exchange which permits importation of high-quality goods and services, which can in turn be used to expand the nation's production possibilities. In either case, growth is said to be export-led; the latter case is the so-called "two-gap" hypothesis (McKinnon, 1964; Findlay, 1973). The early work on export-led growth consisted of static cross-country com parisons (Michaely, 1977; Balassa, 1978; Tyler, 1981; Kormendi and Meguire, 1985). These studies generally concluded that there is strong evidence in favour of export-led growth because export growth and income growth are highly correlated. However, Kravis pointed out in 1970 that the question is an essen tially dynamic one: as he put it, are exports the handmaiden or the engine of growth? To make this determination one needs to look at time series to see whether or not exports are driving income. This approach has been taken in a number of papers (Jung and Marshall, 1985; Chow, 1987; Serletis, 1992; Kunst and Marin, 1989; Marin, 1992; Afxentiou and Serletis, 1991), designed to assess whether or not individual countries exhibit statistically significant evidence of export-led growth using Granger causality tests.

Abstract: The empirical study of the impact of trade liberalization has not convinced the skeptics about the economic gains after trade reforms. Some have even argued that trade reforms have led to economic collapse and to deindustrialization. Using a sample that excludes countries that were subject to major exogenous disruptions, the authors note that post-reform economic growth was 1.2 percentage points higher than before the reforms. This is remarkable considering that pre-reform periods were characterized by highly expansionary state policies and large external borrowing, and the crisis years that preceded trade liberalization in the comparisons are eliminated. Through multivariate fixed effects estimations the authors calculate that annual per capita GDP growth rates increased by up to 2.6 percentage points after the trade reforms, compared to a counterfactual that takes into consideration the evolution of several growth determinants. Moreover, trade liberalization has been followed by an acceleration of growth in investment, exports of goods and services, and manufacturing exports, and as opposed to common belief, outward orientation did not lead to significant deindustrialization and actually seems to have increased export diversification. Growth acceleration occurred irrespective of income per capita level and was quite significant in Sub-Saharan Africa. As expected, small countries benefited most from the reforms.

This is a meticulously researched and well written book on a subject of immense contemporary academic and policy interest. Prema-chandra Athukorala, Journal of Development Studies The book is a valuable contribution to the analysis of the links between trade liberalisation, poverty and inequality . . . The book is a coherent piece of work offering an abundance of well-researched and argued information, effectively establishing it as a notable contribution to the investigation and understanding of this very important field. Therefore this book is highly recommended as an important publication for everyone interested in this field as it is a powerful guide to the complex questions that emerge when dealing with the issues of trade liberalisation and poverty elimination at international level. Marios Koutsias, International Trade Law and Regulation Thirlwall and Pacheco-López s book makes its contribution by serving as a clearly written synthesis of a diversity of literatures on trade liberalization and its impacts on growth, inequality and wages, and poverty. . . . the book is an excellent one. It should be a required reading companion to any graduate-level trade course. Kevin P. Gallagher, Journal of Human Development and Capabilities This book breaks out of the standard distinction between free trade and protectionism , and shows how to think constructively about trade policy as an instrument of national economic strategy. It is highly recommended for those who wish to think beyond orthodoxy, and especially for those in developing countries who wish to influence negotiations with developed countries and western-based international organisations. Robert Wade, London School of Economics, UK This is a gem of a book. Based on deep understanding of diverse economic theories and empirical evidence, it offers us a succinct but highly informative overview of the controversies surrounding the impact of trade policy on growth, inequality, and macroeconomics. Ha-Joon Chang, University of Cambridge, UK, and author of Kicking Away the Ladder, and Bad Samaritans Free-trade fundamentalism is gradually making way for a more nuanced and historically well-informed understanding of the role that trade policy plays in economic development. Thirlwall and Pacheco-López provide an excellent review of the relevant literature as well as a sophisticated critique of the earlier, simplistic views. As they explain, it is the details the timing, sequencing, and context that determine whether liberalization will succeed. Dani Rodrik, Harvard University, US This book will infuriate the free trade ultras who believe that liberalisation is the answer to every problem and a good thing too. The real world, as Thirlwall and Pacheco-López show clearly and vividly, is different from the world of theoretical models so beloved by today s economic orthodoxy, and they take delight in tweaking the noses of the Washington consensus. History suggests they are right to argue that managed trade is better for developing countries than swallowing large doses of free-trade medicine. Larry Elliott, The Guardian Orthodox trade and growth theory, and the world s multilateral development institutions, extol the virtues of trade liberalisation and free trade for more rapid economic development of poor countries. However, the contemporary reality and history seem to tell a different story. The world economy has experienced an unprecedented period of trade liberalisation in the last thirty years, and yet international and global inequality is widening; domestic poverty (outside of China) is increasing; poor countries exports have grown more slowly than their imports leading to balance of payments crises, and the so-called globalising economies of the world (excluding China and India) have fared no better, and in some cases worse, than those countries that have not liberalised so extensively. This book argues that orthodox theory is based on many unreal assumptions,