Inclusive Growth and Structural Reforms in APEC Member Economies

This paper empirically analyses the simultaneous impacts of structural re-forms - trade liberalization, capital account liberalization, and financial liberal-ization - on inclusive growth using panel data for 17 APEC member econ-omies covering years from 1970 to 2016. The results show that capital ac-count liberalization and growth of market capitalization are positively associ-ated with inclusive growth of APEC member economies, especially non-high-income member economies. Trade liberalization has a negative impact on inclusive growth only of the whole income group. We further find the robust evidence that the expansion of domestic credits provided by financial sectors had a negative impact on inclusive growth. These results give implica-tions that governments of APEC member economies need to design trade policies in a way of expanding outcomes of trade liberalization in a more inclusive way and of increasing extensive margins of export sectors. In addi-tion, they need to design policies to increase access to the financial sector for the poor and socially marginalized people.