Does finance affect economic growth? A number of studies have identified a positive correlation between the level of development of a country's financial sector and the rate of growth of its per capita income. As has been noted elsewhere, the observed correlation does not necessarily imply a causal relationship. This paper examines whether financial development facilitates economic growth by scrutinizing one rationale for such a relationship; that financial development reduces the costs of external finance to firms. Specifically, we ask whether industrial sectors that are relatively more in need of external finance develop disproportionately faster in countries with more developed financial markets. We find this to be true in a large sample of countries over the 1980s. We show this result is unlikely to be driven by omitted variables, outliers, or reverse causality.

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Financial Dependence and Growth

Norms have never been absent from the study of international politics, but the sweeping “ideational turn” in the 1980s and 1990s brought them back as a central theoretical concern in the field. Much theorizing about norms has focused on how they create social structure, standards of appropriateness, and stability in international politics. Recent empirical research on norms, in contrast, has examined their role in creating political change, but change processes have been less well-theorized. We induce from this research a variety of theoretical arguments and testable hypotheses about the role of norms in political change. We argue that norms evolve in a three-stage “life cycle” of emergence, “norm cascades,” and internalization, and that each stage is governed by different motives, mechanisms, and behavioral logics. We also highlight the rational and strategic nature of many social construction processes and argue that theoretical progress will only be made by placing attention on the connections between norms and rationality rather than by opposing the two.

/pdf/international-norm-dynamics-and-political-change-37ig9r9dlq.pdf

International Norm Dynamics and Political Change

Examining the correlation between trade and income cannot identify the direction of causation between the two. Countries’ geographic characteristics, however, have important effects on trade, and are plausibly uncorrelated with other determinants of income. This paper therefore constructs measures of the geographic component of countries’ trade, and uses those measures to obtain instrumental variables estimates of the effect of trade on income. The results provide no evidence that ordinary least-squares estimates overstate the effects of trade. Further, they suggest that trade has a quantitatively large and robust, though only moderately statistically significant, positive effect on income. (JEL F43, 040)

/pdf/does-trade-cause-growth-532nt8hsja.pdf

Does Trade Cause Growth

WHEN T H E BROOKINGS Panel on Economic Activity began in 1970, the world economy roughly accorded with the idea of three distinct economic systems: a capitalist first world, a socialist second world, and a developing third world which aimed for a middle way between the first two. The third world was characterized not only by its low levels of per capita GDP, but also by a distinctive economic system that assigned the state sector the predominant role in industrialization, although not the monopoly on industrial ownership as in the socialist economies. The years between 1970 and 1995, and especially the last decade, have witnessed the most remarkable institutional harmonization and economic integration among nations in world history. While economic integration was increasing throughout the 1970s and 1980s, the extent of integration has come sharply into focus only since the collapse of communism in 1989. In 1995 one dominant global economic system is emerging. The common set of institutions is exemplified by the new World Trade Organization (WTO), which was established by agreement of more than 120 economies, with almost all the rest eager to join as rapidly as possible. Part of the new trade agreement involves a codification of basic principles governing trade in goods and services. Similarly, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) now boasts nearly universal membership, with member countries pledged to basic principles of currency convertibility. Most programs of economic reform now underway in the developing world and in the post-communist world have as their strategic aim the

/pdf/economic-reform-and-the-process-of-global-integration-29a1wosjcb.pdf

Economic Reform and the Process of Global Integration

The paper develops a theory of exchange rate movements under perfect capital mobility, a slow adjustment of goods markets relative to asset markets, and consistent expectations. The perfect foresight path is derived and it is shown that along that path a monetary expansion causes the exchange rate to depreciate. An initial overshooting of exchange rates is shown to derive from the differential adjustment speed of markets. The magnitude and persistence of the overshooting is developed in terms of the structural parameters of the model. To the extent that output responds to a monetary expansion in the short run, this acts as a dampening effect on exchange depreciation and may, in fact, lead to an increase in interest rates.

https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdfplus/1831272.pdf

Expectations and Exchange Rate Dynamics

This paper discusses Ricardian trade and payments theory in the case of a continuum of goods. The analysis thus extends the development of many-commodity, two-country comparative advantage analysis as presented, for example, in Gottfried Haberler (1937), Frank Graham (1923), Paul Samuelson (1964), and Frank W. Taussig (1927). The literature is historically reviewed by John Chipman (1965). Perhaps surprisingly, the continuum assumption simplifies the analysis neatly in comparison with the discrete many-commodity case. The distinguishing feature of the Ricardian approach emphasized in this paper is the determination of the competitive margin in production between imported and exported goods. The analysis advances the existing literature by formally showing precisely how tariffs and transport costs establish a range of commodities that are not traded, and how the price-specie flow mechanism does or does not give rise to movements in relative cost and price levels. The formal real model is introduced in Section 1. Its equilibrium determines the relative wage and price structure and the efficient international specialization pattern. Section II considers standard comparative static questions of growth, demand shifts,

/pdf/comparative-advantage-trade-and-payments-in-a-ricardian-yrjglter5u.pdf

Comparative Advantage, Trade, and Payments in a Ricardian Model with a Continuum of Goods -

Exchange Rates and the Current Account.

Comparative Advantage, Trade, and Payments in a Ricardian Model with a Continuum of Goods

The adjustment of relative prices to exchange rate movements is explained in an industrial organization approach. Given labor costs in the respective currencies, exchange rate movements change costs for firms selling in the home market and thus disturb the industry equilibrium. The extent of absolute and relative price adjustment is shown to depend on market integration, product substitutability, the relative number of domestic and foreign firms, and the market structure. The impact of exchange rates on prices is illustrated in a variety of approaches including the Cournot, A. Dixit and J. Stiglitz_(1977), and S. Salop_(1979) models. Some empirical evidence is offered in support of the theory. Copyright 1987 by American Economic Association.

Rudiger Dornbusch

Papers

Expectations and Exchange Rate Dynamics

Comparative Advantage, Trade, and Payments in a Ricardian Model with a Continuum of Goods -

Exchange Rates and the Current Account.

Comparative Advantage, Trade, and Payments in a Ricardian Model with a Continuum of Goods

Exchange Rates and Prices