IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/
MyIDEAS: Log in (now much improved!) to save this article

Trade openness, growth, and informality: Panel VAR evidence from OECD economies

Author Info

Listed author(s):
  • Serdar Birinci

    ()

    (Bogazici University)

Abstract

This paper analyzes empirically the linkages between trade openness, economic growth, and the size of the informal economy. I employ panel VAR techniques in a quarterly panel data set composed of 12 advanced economies over the period from 1964:1 to 2010:4 allowing bi-directional interaction between the variables in the system in order to address the endogeneity problem. The results provide evidence that there is a positive bi-directional relationship between GDP growth and trade openness. Second, fluctuations of GDP growth are explained by the size of the informal economy, while the impact of GDP growth on the size of the informal economy is not found to be robust with respect to change in VAR order. Moreover, the size of the informal economy affects GDP growth more than openness, and the causality from openness to GDP growth is slightly stronger than the causality from GDP growth to openness. Finally, there is no conclusive, robust evidence regarding the interaction between the size of the informal economy and trade openness.

Download Info

If you experience problems downloading a file, check if you have the proper application to view it first. In case of further problems read the IDEAS help page. Note that these files are not on the IDEAS site. Please be patient as the files may be large.

File URL: http://www.accessecon.com/Pubs/EB/2013/Volume33/EB-13-V33-I1-P66.pdf
Download Restriction: no

Article provided by AccessEcon in its journal Economics Bulletin.

Volume (Year): 33 (2013)
Issue (Month): 1 ()
Pages: 694-705

as
in new window

Handle: RePEc:ebl:ecbull:eb-13-00032
Contact details of provider:

Keywords: informal sector; openness; growth; panel VAR;

Find related papers by JEL classification:

  • F4 - International Economics - - Macroeconomic Aspects of International Trade and Finance
  • E6 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Macroeconomic Policy, Macroeconomic Aspects of Public Finance, and General Outlook

References listed on IDEAS
Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:

as
in new window


  1. Andreas Buehn & Friedrich Schneider, 2012. "Shadow economies around the world: novel insights, accepted knowledge, and new estimates," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 19(1), pages 139-171, February.
  2. Arellano, Manuel & Bover, Olympia, 1995. "Another look at the instrumental variable estimation of error-components models," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 68(1), pages 29-51, July.
  3. Yanikkaya, Halit, 2003. "Trade openness and economic growth: a cross-country empirical investigation," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 72(1), pages 57-89, October.
  4. Kaddour Hadri, 2000. "Testing for stationarity in heterogeneous panel data," Econometrics Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 3(2), pages 148-161.
  5. Koujianou Goldberg, Pinelopi & Pavcnik, Nina, 2003. "The response of the informal sector to trade liberalization," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 72(2), pages 463-496, December.
  6. Awokuse, Titus O., 2007. "Causality between exports, imports, and economic growth: Evidence from transition economies," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 94(3), pages 389-395, March.
  7. David H. Romer & Jeffrey A. Frankel, 1999. "Does Trade Cause Growth?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 89(3), pages 379-399, June.
  8. Love, Inessa & Zicchino, Lea, 2006. "Financial development and dynamic investment behavior: Evidence from panel VAR," The Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 46(2), pages 190-210, May.
  9. Massenot, Baptiste & Straub, Stéphane, 2011. "Informal Sector and Economic Growth: The Supply of Credit Channel," TSE Working Papers 11-254, Toulouse School of Economics (TSE).
  10. Edwards, Sebastian, 1998. "Openness, Productivity and Growth: What Do We Really Know?," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 108(447), pages 383-398, March.
  11. Im, Kyung So & Pesaran, M. Hashem & Shin, Yongcheol, 2003. "Testing for unit roots in heterogeneous panels," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 115(1), pages 53-74, July.
  12. Norbert Fiess & Marco Fugazza, 2008. "Trade Liberalisation and Informality: New stylized facts," Working Papers 2008_34, Business School - Economics, University of Glasgow.
  13. Francisco Rodriguez & Dani Rodrik, 2001. "Trade Policy and Economic Growth: A Skeptic's Guide to the Cross-National Evidence," NBER Chapters,in: NBER Macroeconomics Annual 2000, Volume 15, pages 261-338 National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  14. Jung, Woo S. & Marshall, Peyton J., 1985. "Exports, growth and causality in developing countries," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 18(1), pages 1-12.
  15. Sarkar, Prabirjit, 2007. "Trade Openness and Growth: Is There Any Link?," MPRA Paper 4997, University Library of Munich, Germany.
  16. Ceyhun Elgin & Oguz Oztunali, 2012. "Shadow Economies around the World: Model Based Estimates," Working Papers 2012/05, Bogazici University, Department of Economics.
Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.

as
in new window


Cited by:

  1. Abeer Elshennawy & Dirk Willenbockel, 2014. "Trade Liberalization and the Costs and Benefits of Informality an Intertemporal General Equilibrium Model for Egypt," Working Papers 888, Economic Research Forum, revised Dec 2014.
  2. Jiranyakul, Komain, 2014. "Temporal causal relationship between stock market capitalization, trade openness and real GDP: evidence from Thailand," MPRA Paper 59652, University Library of Munich, Germany.
  3. Imamoglu, Hatice, 2017. "Estimating the roles of financial sector development and international trade openness in underground economies: Evidence from the European Union," Economics Discussion Papers 2017-50, Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW).
  4. Berdiev, Aziz N. & Saunoris, James W., 2016. "Financial development and the shadow economy: A panel VAR analysis," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 57(C), pages 197-207.
  5. Pablo Duarte, 2017. "The relationship between GDP and the size of the informal economy: empirical evidence for Spain," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 52(4), pages 1409-1421, June.
  6. Jiranyakul, Komain, 2014. "Temporal causal relationship between stock market capitalization, trade openness and real GDP: evidence from Thailand," MPRA Paper 60623, University Library of Munich, Germany.

This item is not listed on Wikipedia, on a reading list or among the top items on IDEAS.

Access and download statistics

When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ebl:ecbull:eb-13-00032. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: (John P. Conley)

If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

If references are entirely missing, you can add them using this form.

If the full references list an item that is present in RePEc, but the system did not link to it, you can help with this form.

If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

This information is provided to you by IDEAS at the Research Division of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis using RePEc data.