IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/pal/imfstp/v56y2009i3p447-475.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Trade Openness and Growth: Pursuing Empirical Glasnost

Author

Listed:
  • Andreas Billmeier
  • Tommaso Nannicini

Abstract

Studies of the impact of trade openness on growth are based either on cross-country analysis—which lacks transparency—or case studies—which lack statistical rigor. This paper applies a transparent econometric method drawn from the treatment evaluation literature (matching estimators) to make the comparison between treated (that is, open) and control (that is, closed) countries explicit while remaining within a statistical framework. Matching estimators highlight that common cross-country evidence is based on rather far-fetched country comparisons, which stem from the lack of common support of treated and control countries in the covariate space. The paper therefore advocates paying more attention to appropriate sample restriction in cross-country macro research. IMF Staff Papers (2009) 56, 447–475. doi:10.1057/imfsp.2008.39; published online 3 March 2009

Suggested Citation

  • Andreas Billmeier & Tommaso Nannicini, 2009. "Trade Openness and Growth: Pursuing Empirical Glasnost," IMF Staff Papers, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 56(3), pages 447-475, August.
    • Handle: RePEc:pal:imfstp:v:56:y:2009:i:3:p:447-475
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.palgrave-journals.com/imfsp/journal/v56/n3/pdf/imfsp200839a.pdf
    File Function: Link to full text PDF
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: http://www.palgrave-journals.com/imfsp/journal/v56/n3/full/imfsp200839a.html
    File Function: Link to full text HTML
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version below or search for a different version of it.

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Sebastian Edwards & I. Igal Magendzo, 2003. "Dollarization and economic performance: What do we really know?," International Journal of Finance & Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 8(4), pages 351-363.
    2. Giavazzi, Francesco & Tabellini, Guido, 2005. "Economic and political liberalizations," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 52(7), pages 1297-1330, October.
    3. Romain Wacziarg & Karen Horn Welch, 2008. "Trade Liberalization and Growth: New Evidence," The World Bank Economic Review, World Bank, vol. 22(2), pages 187-231, June.
    4. Ruben Atoyan & Patrick Conway, 2006. "Evaluating the impact of IMF programs: A comparison of matching and instrumental-variable estimators," The Review of International Organizations, Springer, vol. 1(2), pages 99-124, June.
    5. David H. Romer & Jeffrey A. Frankel, 1999. "Does Trade Cause Growth?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 89(3), pages 379-399, June.
    6. Harrison, Ann, 1996. "Openness and growth: A time-series, cross-country analysis for developing countries," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 48(2), pages 419-447, March.
    7. Alberto Abadie & Javier Gardeazabal, 2003. "The Economic Costs of Conflict: A Case Study of the Basque Country," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 93(1), pages 113-132, March.
    8. Alberto Abadie & David Drukker & Jane Leber Herr & Guido W. Imbens, 2004. "Implementing matching estimators for average treatment effects in Stata," Stata Journal, StataCorp LLC, vol. 4(3), pages 290-311, September.
    9. Robert J. Barro, 1991. "Economic Growth in a Cross Section of Countries," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 106(2), pages 407-443.
    10. L Alan Winters, 2004. "Trade Liberalisation and Economic Performance: An Overview," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 114(493), pages 4-21, February.
    11. Vamvakidis, Athanasios, 2002. "How Robust Is the Growth-Openness Connection? Historical Evidence," Journal of Economic Growth, Springer, vol. 7(1), pages 57-80, March.
    12. Alberto Abadie & Alexis Diamond & Jens Hainmueller, 2007. "Synthetic Control Methods for Comparative Case Studies: Estimating the Effect of California's Tobacco Control Program," NBER Technical Working Papers 0335, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    13. Pritchett, Lant, 2000. "Understanding Patterns of Economic Growth: Searching for Hills among Plateaus, Mountains, and Plains," The World Bank Economic Review, World Bank, vol. 14(2), pages 221-250, May.
    14. Temple, Jonathan, 2000. "Growth Regressions and What the Textbooks Don't Tell You," Bulletin of Economic Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 52(3), pages 181-205, July.
    15. Irwin, Douglas A. & Tervio, Marko, 2002. "Does trade raise income?: Evidence from the twentieth century," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 58(1), pages 1-18, October.
    16. Levine, Ross & Renelt, David, 1992. "A Sensitivity Analysis of Cross-Country Growth Regressions," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 82(4), pages 942-963, September.
    17. International Monetary Fund, 2004. "Once Again, is Openness Good for Growth?," IMF Working Papers 2004/135, International Monetary Fund.
    18. Jeffrey D. Sachs & Andrew Warner, 1995. "Economic Reform and the Process of Global Integration," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 26(1, 25th A), pages 1-118.
    19. Guido W. Imbens, 2004. "Nonparametric Estimation of Average Treatment Effects Under Exogeneity: A Review," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 86(1), pages 4-29, February.
    20. Edwards, Sebastian, 1992. "Trade orientation, distortions and growth in developing countries," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 39(1), pages 31-57, July.
    21. Slaughter, Matthew J., 2001. "Trade liberalization and per capita income convergence: a difference-in-differences analysis," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 55(1), pages 203-228, October.
    22. Lee, Ha Yan & Ricci, Luca Antonio & Rigobon, Roberto, 2004. "Once again, is openness good for growth?," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 75(2), pages 451-472, December.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Tommaso Nannicini & Andreas Billmeier, 2011. "Economies in Transition: How Important Is Trade Openness for Growth?," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 73(3), pages 287-314, June.
    2. Iyke Bernard Njindan, 2017. "Does Trade Openness Matter for Economic Growth in the CEE Countries?," Review of Economic Perspectives, Sciendo, vol. 17(1), pages 3-24, March.
    3. Tarlok Singh, 2010. "Does International Trade Cause Economic Growth? A Survey," The World Economy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 33(11), pages 1517-1564, November.
    4. Agapi Lambrini Somwaru, 2013. "Does trade liberalization and its associated increased economic activity affect permanently the value and pattern of trade flows?," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 45(23), pages 3263-3277, August.
    5. Antonio N. Bojanic, 2012. "The Impact of Financial Development and Trade on the Economic Growth of Bolivia," Journal of Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 15(1), pages 51-70, May.
    6. Bretschger, Lucas, 2010. "Taxes, mobile capital, and economic dynamics in a globalizing world," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 32(2), pages 594-605, June.
    7. María Soledad Feal Zubimendi, 2008. "Crecimiento económico y apertura comercial: análisis de la influencia de los canales," Estudios Economicos, Universidad Nacional del Sur, Departamento de Economia, vol. 25(50), pages 37-73, January-j.
    8. Ulaşan, Bülent, 2012. "Openness to international trade and economic growth: A cross-country empirical investigation," Economics Discussion Papers 2012-25, Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel).
    9. Daniel Sakyi & Jose Villaverde & Adolfo Maza & Krishna Reddy Chittedieonardo, 2012. "Trade Openness, Growth and Development: Evidence from Heterogeneous Panel Cointegration Analysis for Middle-Income Countries," Revista Cuadernos de Economia, Universidad Nacional de Colombia, FCE, CID, August.
    10. Abo-Zaid Salem M, 2011. "The Trade-Growth Relationship in Israel Revisited: Evidence from Annual Data, 1960-2004," Review of Middle East Economics and Finance, De Gruyter, vol. 6(3), pages 63-93, February.
    11. Capolupo, Rosa, 2009. "The New Growth Theories and Their Empirics after Twenty Years," Economics - The Open-Access, Open-Assessment E-Journal (2007-2020), Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel), vol. 3, pages 1-72.
    12. Sambit Bhattacharyya & Steve Dowrick & Jane Golley, 2009. "Institutions and Trade: Competitors or Complements in Economic Development?," The Economic Record, The Economic Society of Australia, vol. 85(270), pages 318-330, September.
    13. Mariam Camarero & Inmaculada Martínez-Zarzoso & Felicitas Nowak-Lehmann & Cecilio Tamarit, 2016. "Trade Openness and Income: A Tale of Two Regions," The World Economy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 39(3), pages 386-408, March.
    14. Niclas Berggren & Henrik Jordahl, 2005. "Does free trade really reduce growth? Further testing using the economic freedom index," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 122(1), pages 99-114, January.
    15. Önder, Ali Sina & Yilmazkuday, Hakan, 2016. "Trade partner diversification and growth: How trade links matter," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 50(C), pages 241-258.
    16. Maëlan Le Goff & Raju Jan Singh, 2014. "Does trade reduce poverty? A view from Africa," Journal of African Trade, Springer, vol. 1(1), pages 5-14, March.
    17. Sambit Bhattacharyya, 2011. "Growth Miracles and Growth Debacles," Books, Edward Elgar Publishing, number 13609, December.
    18. Robert Mullings & Aruneema Mahabir, 2016. "Growth by Destination: The Role of Trade in Africa’s Recent Growth Episode," NBS Discussion Papers in Economics 2016/01, Economics, Nottingham Business School, Nottingham Trent University.
    19. Dearmon, Jacob & Grier, Robin, 2011. "Trust and the accumulation of physical and human capital," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 27(3), pages 507-519, September.
    20. Sumbal Fatima & Bateer Chen & Muhammad Ramzan & Qamar Abbas, 2020. "The Nexus Between Trade Openness and GDP Growth: Analyzing the Role of Human Capital Accumulation," SAGE Open, , vol. 10(4), pages 21582440209, November.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:pal:imfstp:v:56:y:2009:i:3:p:447-475. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    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 CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc 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 RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.palgrave-journals.com/ .

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

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.