Internationalisation,growth and pay inequality: a cointegration analysis for Turkey, 1970–2007

The nature of the internationalisation-growth-inequality nexus is very complex; and therefore, not surprisingly, there is no consensus on whether increasing openness to trade leads to higher inequality or not – in fact, there is even no full understanding on the impact of the openness on the economic growth. In the case of Turkey it is observed that there is relatively little empirical work that addresses the issue of inequality. Considering this fact, the study aims to provide some more evidence on the complex relationship between trade openness, foreign direct investment, economic growth and pay inequality by utilising a combination of different Theil Indices of pay inequality. The paper utilises the Johansen Cointegration and Granger Causality methods. Our findings yield that higher economic growth resulting from trade openness comes with higher pay inequality.     

Eco-Labeling and Stages of Development

The paper examines the effectiveness of eco-labeling in providing a market-based solution to the under-consumption of eco-friendly products in developing and developed countries. The authors show that whether labeling is an effective device in solving the problem of asymmetric information between sellers and buyers, or whether false labeling severs the link between willingness to pay and environmental conscious production choices, depends crucially on how monitoring intensities respond endogenously to economic growth, openness to trade, and technology transfers. In particular, by accounting for endogenous policy responses to economic growth, it is shown that an inverted-U relationship exists between consumer spending on eco-unfriendly products and national income. In addition, while international trade unambiguously benefits the environment in the presence of eco-labeling with perfect enforcement, trade openness may nevertheless delay the turning point of the growth and environment relationship, when the cost of enforcement falls disproportionately on developing countries, and when environmental policies are employed to reap terms-of-trade gains.     

Relationship between trade openness and economic growth in Latin America: A causality analysis with heterogeneous panel data

We empirically analyze the causality relationship between economic growth and international trade using new advancements in the econometric methodology for heterogeneous panel data applied to Latin American countries. First, we test for dependencies between the units of cross‐section (countries) and then we test for cointegration between growth and openness. Finally, we test for Granger causality using a heterogeneous panel data test. The results reject the hypothesis of general, unidirectional, and homogeneous relationship between trade openness and economic growth in Latin American countries as a group. However, considering heterogeneity, we found significant evidence of causality from trade liberalization to economic growth in Chile, Peru, Nicaragua, and Uruguay; we have found bidirectional causality in Mexico and Honduras; and a causal relationship from economic growth to trade liberalization in Colombia, Costa Rica, Guatemala, and the Dominican Republic.     

Does Latin America Have More to Gain From Exchange Rate Liberalization than Sub-Saharan Africa?

An examination of the relationship between exchange rate liberalization and economic growth in selected Latin American and Sub-Saharan African countries reveals evidence of a short-run causal relationship between the two variables in both Latin America and Sub-Saharan Africa. Within each region, exchange rate liberalization causes growth in some countries while others exhibit reverse causality running from growth to exchange rate leads to increased growth and growth induces exchange rate liberalization in most Latin American countries, in the majority of Sub-Saharan African countries studied, exchange rate liberalization reduces growth while growth causes distortions in the exchange rate. Market imperfections, expansionary fiscal and monetary policies under a fixed exchange rate regime, and poor terms of trade are cited as possible explanations for the findings for Sub-Saharan Africa. [F, O]     

CO2 emissions,economic growth,energy consumption,trade and urbanization in new EU member and candidate countries: A panel data analysis

This paper investigates the causal relationship between energy consumption, carbon dioxide emissions, economic growth, trade openness and urbanization for a panel of new EU member and candidate countries over the period 1992–2010. Panel unit root tests, panel cointegration methods and panel causality tests are used to investigate this relationship. The main results provide evidence supporting the Environmental Kuznets Curve hypothesis. Hence, there is an inverted U-shaped relationship between environment and income for the sampled countries. The results also indicate that there is a short-run unidirectional panel causality running from energy consumption, trade openness and urbanization to carbon emissions, from GDP to energy consumption, from GDP, energy consumption and urbanization to trade openness, from urbanization to GDP, and from urbanization to trade openness. As for the long-run causal relationship, the results indicate that estimated coefficients of lagged error correction term in the carbon dioxide emissions, energy consumption, GDP, and trade openness equations are statistically significant, implying that these four variables could play an important role in adjustment process as the system departs from the long-run equilibrium.     

The non-linear impact of monetary policy on international reserves: macroeconomic variables nexus

This paper employs panel smooth transition regression models to investigate the nonlinear effects of two monetary policy proxies (i.e., real exchange rate return and real interest rate differential) on the international reserves—macroeconomic variables nexus. The panel data set includes the fourteen G-20 countries during the period 1991–2012. Empirical results show that the marginal effects of the macroeconomic variables (savings, terms of trade, public debt, capital account liberalization, economic growth, and trade openness) on international reserves are non-linear and vary with time, the proxies and countries, not linear and constant derived from traditional linear model. Currency devaluation policy (against the US dollar) can non-linearly enlarge the positive contribution of trade openness and public debt on international reserves, and non-linearly reduce the negative impact of terms of trade on international reserves, as the Marshall–Lerner condition holds. Expansionary monetary policy (through the decrease in domestic interest rates) can strengthen the positive effects of public debt, trade openness, and economic growth on international reserves. The precautionary and mercantilist views of reserves holdings are partially supported.     

Does industrial concentration impact on the relationship between policies and volatility?

It is usually recommended that countries diversify their economies to guard against any negative shocks that might impact on one industry. However, previous research has not identified how concentration can impact on the effectiveness of macroeconomic policies. This paper attempts to evaluate the relationship between industrial concentration, policies and economic volatility for a sample of 147 countries for the period 1970 to 2005. The study reports that less concentrated countries tend to have lower rates of output, consumption and investment growth volatility. In addition, while trade and capital account openness variables alone tend to diminish economic volatility, in concentrated economies opening both the capital and trade account can increase economic volatility.     

Effect of trade openness on regional economic growth in China: revisiting the discussion

Increasing openness contributes to economic growth in developing countries, but the endogeneity problem impedes drawing this conclusion. This paper uses the constructed trade share to circumvent the effects of endogeneity according to a method proposed by Frankel and Romer. The results demonstrate that increasing openness has a positive impact on provinces’ GDP and GDP per capita. In addition, an increase in lagged openness is beneficial for present economic growth, and even openness gained many years ago, which is measured by the number of treaty ports, makes a difference in present economic growth.     

The effects of fragility and financial inequalities on inclusive growth in African countries

Africa has the largest number and proportion of fragile states in the world. Fragile states are characterized by slower economic growth, higher incidences of poverty, and persistent inequality. Thus, there is a circular relationship between fragility, inequality, and slow economic growth. This study examines the relationship between fragility, financial inequalities, and inclusive growth in African countries. We introduce a novel way of examining inclusive growth in African countries by developing a unified measure of inclusive growth that captures the two dimensions of inclusive growth: income growth and income distribution. This enables us to adequately assess not just increased opportunities arising from economic growth, but also see how those new opportunities are distributed across all segments of the population. We captured the fragile status of African countries by using an index of fragility. We measured financial inequalities using new data on financial inclusion. The data analysis suggested negative relationships between fragility and inclusive growth in African countries. In addition, the results suggest positive relationships between financial inclusion and inclusive growth. Thus, inclusive growth can be fostered through policies that reduce financial inequalities. Therefore, a less fragile environment is conducive to inclusive growth both directly and indirectly through financial inclusion.     

Is Trade Good for Your Health?*

We use a panel of 219 countries to examine the relationship between a country’s openness to international trade and several health outcomes and find that, in general, increased openness is associated with lower rates of infant mortality and higher life expectancies, especially in developing countries. We find evidence suggesting that some of the positive correlation between trade and health can be attributed to knowledge spillovers. In addition, openness is associated with sound economic policies which themselves are related to better health outcomes.     

External Openness and Economic Growth in Developing Countries

This paper investigates empirically the relationship between two channels of external openness: international trade, foreign direct investment (FDI), and the rate of economic growth implied by the leader–follower model. The predictions of the theory are tested for the group of 97 developing countries in the period of 1974–2006 using static and dynamic panel data estimation methods. The estimation results show that both international trade and FDI positively contribute to growth.     

Trade openness and economic growth: Bayesian model averaging estimate of cross-country growth regressions

In this paper, we investigate the robustness of the relationship between trade openness and long-run economic growth over the sample period 1960–2000, utilising Bayesian model averaging techniques to account for model uncertainty issues in a systematic manner. We find no evidence that trade openness is directly and robustly correlated with economic growth in the long run. We further check the robustness of this finding by employing a battery of proxies for trade openness, namely, current openness, real openness, the fraction of open years based on the Sachs and Warner (1995) criteria and the weighted averages of tariff rates, non-tariff barriers and the black market premium. The main result is robust to the inclusion of different trade openness proxies and none of the proxies is robustly associated with economic growth. The data evidence also indicates that economic institutions and macroeconomic uncertainties such as those induced by high inflation and excess government consumption are key factors in explaining economic growth.     

Trade openness and economic growth: a cross-country empirical investigation

This paper demonstrates that trade liberalization does not have a simple and straightforward relationship with growth using a large number of openness measures for a cross section of countries over the last three decades. We use two groups of trade openness measures. The regression results for numerous trade intensity ratios are mostly consistent with the existing literature. However, contrary to the conventional view on the growth effects of trade barriers, our estimation results show that trade barriers are positively and, in most specifications, significantly associated with growth, especially for developing countries and they are consistent with the findings of theoretical growth and development literature.     

External Debt and Growth in Emerging Economies

The paper studies the relationship between external debt and economic growth in a panel of emerging countries. A number of economists have proposed different methods of analysing the nexus between economic growth and public debt. The paper investigates the debt-growth nexus using a linear and non-linear specification, employing a panel ARDL model on 13 emerging countries during the period 1990–2016. The results show that there is no robust effect of debt on economic growth in the long run; however in the short run, external debt is negatively and significantly correlated to economic growth.     

Economic Globalisation and Youth Unemployment – Evidence from African countries

The present study seeks to examine the impact of economic globalisation on youth unemployment for 50 African countries between the period 1994 and 2013. In addition to the economic globalisation measurements, the present study controlled the variables that represent the fluctuations in economic activates; demographic changes, a country’s economic size; the quality of governmental institutions; and labour market regulation. The results of the Arellano-Bond (A-B) GMM technique showed that greater openness to global markets would reflect in a lower youth unemployment rate. Furthermore, the results revealed that rigidity in labour market regulations seemed to reduce the youth unemployment rate. In addition, urbanisation seemed to raise the youth unemployment rate. The findings supported contemporary calls to participate in international trade to facilitate the job creation process.     

Financial development,trade openness and economic growth in African countries: New insights from a panel causality approach

This paper examines the causal relationship between financial development and economic growth for 21 African countries within a framework which also accounts for international trade. We develop a financial development index based on four different financial development indicators and apply the panel bootstrapped approach to Granger causality. The empirical results show limited support for the finance-led growth and the trade-led growth hypotheses. The results imply that recent attempts at financial development and trade liberalization do not seem to have made a significant impact on growth.     

Granger causality tests among openness to international trade,human capital accumulation and economic growth in China: 1952–1999

Abstract

This study examines Granger causality among openness to international trade, human capital accumulation and economic growth in China using time series data over the period from 1952 to 1999 and a sub-period, i.e. a period from 1978 to 1999. For the 1952–1999 period, economic growth is found to Granger cause human capital accumulation and not vice versa. For the 1978–1999 period, economic growth and openness to international trade, economic growth and human capital accumulation, and human capital accumulation and openness to international trade are found to have bidirectional Granger causality, respectively. Thus, there is a dynamic relationship among openness to international trade, human capital accumulation and economic growth. The experience of economic reform in China could be an example to other developing countries.     

Economic freedom–growth nexus in European Union countries

This study examines the economic freedom and economic growth nexus in a panel of 28 European Union countries. We investigate the relationship between growth and different components of economic freedom, measured in five major areas of the Economic Freedom of the World index. The aim of the article is to assess which aspects of economic freedom – and to what extent – contribute to economic growth in the EU. Our empirical analyses suggest that the results are sensitive to the method of estimation. Using the Generalized Method of Moments estimator which allows addressing endogeneity, we found a positive relationship between economic growth and four of the five aspects of economic freedom: security of property rights, quality of monetary policy, freedom to trade and regulatory policies.     

Financial deepening,trade openness and economic growth in Latin America and the Caribbean

This contribution investigates the causal interactions between financial deepening, trade openness and economic growth in 13 Latin American and Caribbean countries. We construct a composite indicator for financial deepening and use it to detect Granger causality within a modified Vector Autoregressive/Vector Error Correction Model (VAR/VECM) framework. We find almost no evidence for the popular hypothesis of finance-led growth. Evidence of bidirectional finance–growth causality is stronger but mostly instable in the long run. Most results indicate a demand following or insignificant causal relationship between finance and growth. There is also no evidence that finance indirectly induces growth via the channel of trade openness. Hence, policies that prioritize financial and trade sector development cannot be supported.     

Does FDI improve economic development in North African countries?

This article examines the relationship between FDI inflows and welfare improvement in North African countries. Using net per capita FDI inflows and the United Nations Development Program’s Human Development Index as the principal variables, our analyses confirm the positive and strongly significant relationship between net FDI inflows and welfare improvement in North Africa, although we do find significant differences among the countries in the region. This relationship holds even after we control for government size, country indebtedness, macroeconomic instability, infrastructural development, institutional quality, political risk, openness to trade, education and financial market development. Hence, at the aggregate level, FDI contributes to economic growth in North Africa, in turn generating additional revenues for governments and populations in the region through fiscal policies and jobs creation. We also found that FDI received by countries in the region are mainly concentrated in very few industries (particularly extractive petroleum, services and tourism, construction and utilities); relatively fewer of these investments are directed towards the nonextractive primary industries, which are pro-poor sectors and highly labour intensive, or the manufacturing sector, with a high potential for spillover effects in the economy. This lack of diversification of FDI received in the region’s economies in part explains the differences observed in the link between FDI and welfare in these countries. It is therefore essential for governments in the region to continue investing in social infrastructures while improving the quality of their institutions and their governance; doing so will probably help avoid the type of unrest we have witnessed recently.