The Gains and Pains of Financial Integration and Trade Liberalization

This study is motivated by the fact that even though many African countries have witnessed rapid growth, they have also experienced high volatility in the form of severe financial crises, especially in the last two decades. These developments naturally lead to the issue of whether, in a more integrated global economy, the relationship between growth and output volatility has changed. The phenomena have also raised questions on whether the growth–output volatility relationship can be linked to the growing pains seemingly associated with rising trade and financial integration. This chapter attempts to provide answer to these questions by providing insights on how trade and financial integration affect the relationship between growth and output volatility using data from selected Africa countries. The study explores in detail the relationship between growth and the volatility of output components (consumption and investment). Our main result is that there is a positive growth and output volatility impact of trade openness and integration with the international financial market. The relationship between growth and financial integration and investment volatility is stronger in the long run than in the short run, while the consumption volatility impact of trade openness is higher in the long run than in the short run, suggesting that countries that are more open to trade appear to face less severe trade-off between growth and volatility.

The initiative from the world economic community to integrate different types of economies was globalization that ensured free flow of goods and services, it is popularly known as trade openness. The extension of this effort was to cover the flow of financial capital across the economies in terms of net foreign direct investment and foreign portfolio investment, the combination of these types of capital flow is called financial integration (FI). The primary objective of the policies of globalization and FI was to boost up the global as well as country-specific growth rates. Although a list of works is there in the literature on the related fields for different country or group levels, it is hardly to find such works in the highly emerging economies of the world. This study has strived to investigate whether globalization and FI at all influence the growth of incomes of the commonly accepted three top emerging economies, Brazil, China, and India. This study uses unit roots test, Johansen cointegration test, and causality test in a VAR setup for the period 1990–2016 to find long-run associations and short-run dynamics among the variables. It reveals that all the four indicators have long-run associations for the three countries but the errors are corrected for Brazil and China only. However, only for China, the FI and globalization factors have made a cause to PCGDP; no such causal relations are observed for Brazil and India.

Economic and financial integration (hereafter, economic integration) among economies has been a fertile area of research. Yet, what we argue is that economic integration needs new thoughts to adequately model the recent challenges to the global economy by developing a new index/measure of economic integration. The new index will not only shed invaluable insights into the drivers of economic integration between Australia and the Middle East but will also help craft economic, trade, and commercial policies to achieve the desired type of integration with Australia's trading partners. Our analysis is undertaken on a cross section of 140 countries for the year 2011, to understand the causes and indicators of integration. Our model combines changes in real GDP, per capita GDP, percentage of educational expense, and gender inequality as causal factors to explain integration as a latent variable. We use three indicators of integration: (1) a standard measure of economic integration, (2) exports and imports as a percentage of GDP, (3) flows of foreign direct investment. We then explore the linkages between these indicators, or manifestations of integration, and a number of its possible causes. In terms of the new index we rank 140 nations and note that Australia is ranked among the top 20 nations in terms of integration with the global economy. Except Israel and Oman, Australia's trade partners in the Middle East have little integration with the global economy. In a similar vein, we also find that Australia's northern neighbors – especially Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, Cambodia, Myanmar, Sri Lanka, India – are yet to get well-integrated with the global economy. As a result, we argue, Australia can lead these countries from Southeast Asia and the Middle East to form closer ties with the global economy via Australia and, by doing so, Australia can create unprecedented economic and social benefit.

Financial liberalization is assumed to be the integration of a country's local financial system with international financial markets and institutions. This integration usually requires that governments liberalize the domestic financial sector and the capital account. Financial sectors were liberalized in most of the developing countries in Asia, Africa, and Latin America within the early 1990s. Among these countries, emerging economies are those who promise huge potential for growth but also pose significant political, monetary, and social risks. Brazil and India are often compared among the major emerging economies. Despite these general similarities between them, there are notable differences in various aspects of opening the balance of payments capital account in both countries. In this chapter, we have tried to analyze the long-run as well as short-run relationship between quarterly growth rate of GDP with the stock market, real market, and money market macroeconomic variables in India and Brazil during the period from the first quarter of 1996–1997 to the second quarter of 2018–2019. To estimate the cointegration relationship between growth rate of GDP and its determinants, we employ the bounds testing procedure (modified-ARDL) developed by Pesaran, Shin, and Smith (2001, Journal of Applied Econometrics, 16(3), 289–326). According to our results, stock market plays a positive role in long-term growth in India. Although during the beginning period of the neoliberal reforms, India faced strong domestic political opposition, our study shows that liberalizing the financial market has been fruitful for long-term growth. Our results in case of Brazil show that inflation has a negative and significant impact on long-run growth rate of GDP. The results further show that the share of gross fixed capital formation in GDP in Brazil has a positive and significant long-run relation with the growth rate of GDP. The empirical results further indicate that just like India, liberalization of the financial market and allowing foreign capital inflows have been beneficial for the economy of Brazil in the long run.

The greatest challenge facing most economies today is how to grow their economies and reduce over-dependence on imports in the midst of increasing integration of world economies. Addressing this challenge seems to be difficult despite all efforts by policymakers at different times to salvage the situation, the problem persists as evident in the global financial crisis of 2008 and the Eurozone crisis of 2012 which were generally viewed as a glaring illustration of limitless pursuit of economic integration and governance failure at the expense of carefulness, prudence, due diligence, and regulation. It also reflects the lack of proper coordination and lack of proper economic integration facing most emerging market economies of the world. Against this background, this study focuses on the reexamination of the impact of trade openness (TOP) and financial openness (FOP) on economic growth in emerging market economies. The direct and interaction effect of the both openness variables on economic growth in these markets is investigated using data from 2000 to 2017 adopted from World Development indicators of the World Bank. Over 30 emerging market economies covering Asia, Latin America, and Europe are included in the study. For empirical analysis, the study uses one measure of FOP: de facto (total capital flow) variables following Aizenman and Noy (2009) and a measure of TOP as total trade–GDP ratio. The study applies the Dynamic Panel Approach, that is, the Arellano–Bond GMM estimation technique and Granger Causality Test to address the objectives. The results of this study show that TOP has a positive and significant impact on all the countries studied, whereas FOP has positive but no significant impact on economic growth of these countries, implying that these countries have not harnessed the benefit of financial liberalization and integration. It is recommended that the emerging market economies should open not only their economies to trade but also open their economies to finance so as to reap the benefits of FOP and integration.

This chapter attempts to investigate and analyze the worldwide long-run dynamics among foreign direct investment (FDI) inflow, international trade, and economic growth empirically in the era of globalization. Impact of FDI on economic performances has been a burning topic during the current age. Different theoretical studies viewed both positive and negative impacts of inflow of foreign capital in terms of FDI. We empirically test the relationships among FDI and trade, gross domestic product by using the data for top 20 FDI-hosting countries sourced from UNCTAD in a dynamic panel frame over the period of 1991–2016. The stochastic properties are looked into by carrying out panel data unit root tests developed by Levin, Lin, and Chu (2002) and Im, Pesaran, and Shin (2003). We carry out the generalized method of moments estimates. Empirical findings suggest that inflows of FDI significantly promote economic growth in selected economies.

The present study aims to determine the existence of simultaneous relationship between economic growth, income inequality, fiscal policy, and total trade of the 13 emerging market economies as a group for the period 1980–2010. After establishing the existence of simultaneity between the above relationships, a simultaneous panel model has been formulated and estimated incorporating the nonlinearity among the variables as suggested by the existing literature. An inverted U-shape relationship is evident between (1) economic growth, income inequality, and total trade in economic growth equation, (2) income inequality, economic growth, and per capita income in income inequality equation, and (3) total trade and economic growth in total trade equation. Thus, the existence of a two-way nonlinear relationship is highlighted between economic growth, income inequality, and total trade. Apart from these nonlinear relationships, positive and significant effect of (1) gross capital formation, inflation, population growth, human capital, fiscal policy, monetary policy, and domestic credit to private sector on economic growth; (2) civil liabilities on income inequality; (3) gross capital formation and inflation on total trade; (4) total trade, population growth of those aged 65 years and above, political system on fiscal policy is highlighted. Also, negative and significant effect of (1) fiscal policy on income inequality and (2) income inequality on fiscal policy is revealed.

In recent years, the global economy has undergone major transformations involving the liberalization of markets for traditional goods, services, and capital flows. This has led to the emergence of a world financial market underpinned by digital platforms, innovative and the rapid growth of integrated digital platforms, integration, investment, economic growth, development, and the potential for poverty reduction, especially, in the Global South and, in particular in sub-Saharan Africa. The goal of this chapter is to investigate the increasing accessibility and relationship between digital (e-economy) financial integration and poverty alleviation since the era of structural adjustment programs in sub-Sahara Africa with Ghana as a case study. The emphasis is on the New Digital Economy (NDE) relative to new sources of data from mobile and ubiquitous Internet connectivity. The processes of digitalization and financial sector integration and inclusion become increasingly contestable, decomposable, and reconfigurable, and the capacity to innovate will be a key success factor in policies geared toward poverty alleviation. The multiple linear regression model and its estimation using ordinary least squares (OLS) is doubtless the most widely used tool in econometrics. It helps to estimate the relation between a dependent variable and a set of explanatory variables. An OLS model for macro data set relative to a regression model is applied to provide the empirical estimations of the increasing accessibility and the relationship between digital financial integration, investment, economic growth, development, and poverty alleviation.

India's balance of payments (BoP) has gone though several merits and oddities over its long journey since her liberalization era. On its way forward it has faced three of the world's worst challenges from the global turmoil. Of them, the impact of first crisis on India was minimal. But the other two crises had a tremendous impact on its external sector. In effect, the current and capital account of India's BoP have undergone significant structural changes during these two and a half a decades (1990–1991 to 2014–2015). It is in this context this chapter evaluates the evolution of two and a half decades of India's BoP in the context of global changes and exchange rate fluctuations and instability.

Financial sustainability in emerging market economies crucially depends on stable foreign capital inflows as these countries lack adequate domestic capital and sophisticated technology. This study attempts to examine the impact of major political risk factors in the emerging market economies along with basic economic fundamentals such as institutional variables like per capita electric consumption, trade openness, and real rate of interest. We have followed a static panel data approach in studying the impact of these crucial variables in Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) inflows in 15 major emerging economies for the period 2000–2014. Risk perceptions, i.e., political risk data, have been collected from the International Country Risk Guide (ICRG) provided by the Political Risk Services (PRS) Group. In our research purpose, we have considered dependent variable as FDI inflows for 15 emerging countries during the period 2000–2014, which are drawn from the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD, 2014, 2015) FDI database. Our results demonstrate that there are six subcomponents of risk perception (political risk) which are statistically significant in explaining variation in FDI inflows of the major emerging countries. The results show that government stability, socioeconomic conditions, religious tension, and bureaucracy quality have a positive impact on FDI inflows of emerging countries, whereas internal conflict and law and order have a negative impact on FDI inflows of these countries. Stable government is more attractive to foreign investors. Again, an improvement in the socioeconomic conditions is positively related with FDI inflows in emerging countries. Decreasing bureaucracy leads to a reduction in corruption, and assists expanding FDI flows in the emerging country.

This chapter seeks to analyze the development across the length and breadth of the Indian financial system in the post-reform period, based on the “flow of funds” accounts estimates by RBI. Besides, this chapter also analyzes the integration of the Indian capital market with the stock markets of the United States, the United Kingdom, Japan, China, Hong Kong, and Singapore using the movements in their stock prices during 1998–2015. Moreover, this chapter is intended for examining the potential implication financial integration, particularly the financial openness of India, on volatility spillover and financial contagion in as much as these two issues have emphatic significance in the determination of the relevant policy roadmap. Our findings broadly confirms the expectations by revealing significantly positive correlations in stock prices, in returns to investments in stock markets, and in mean returns and risk. The integration of the capital markets is also manifested in the cyclical fluctuations of the stock price indices, signifying the underlying sensitivity to random shocks.

In the present era, there is visible trend of transition of the economy from the managerial capitalism to finance capitalism, which increases the role of finance in the economic development of a country. The concept of financial development deals with the access, depth, efficiency, and stability of the financial institution and the market of a country. On the other hand, the financial integration is the degree of the financial openness of a country. There are de facto (gross stock of foreign assets and liabilities as a ratio of GDP, cross border capital flows) and de jure (capital account restrictions) measures of the financial integration. An efficient financial system increases the savings rate, which enhances capital accumulation in the economy. This process will channelize the fund from the household to the financial system. The economic liberalization induces the household to utilize their global market fund and enhance the marginal productivity of the capital. A deeper financial integration is expected to increase the public access in the domestic financial market as well as in the global market. Financial integration has some indirect effect on the economic growth through expansion and development of the financial system. In this context, this study examines the state of financial development and the financial integration across emerging countries in Asia. An attempt also was made to investigate whether the developed financial system promotes the financial integration or the financial integration induces the authority to develop the financial system. This study is based on the selected Asian countries over the period 2001–2016. Empirical evidence also support a significant positive association between the indicators of financial development and financial integration. It also indicates an empirical relationship from the financial development to the financial integration, and vice versa.

The present study has two objectives. First, one is to clarify the terms, “co-movement” and “co-integration” in the context of stock market indices. Second, to investigate empirically, whether an emerging stock market index represented by Nifty has moved together with DJI and N225 during the study period and whether they are co-integrated or not. This chapter tries to search out an answer for co-movement and co-integration staying within the theoretical framework through an extensive review of the literature. Moreover, the present study is unique because it tries to focus mostly on the pros and cons of financial integration and trade liberalization and the contributing factors responsible for trade and financial integrations leading to co-movement and co-integration among the countries considered in this study. India is taken as a proxy for an emerging economy. Furthermore, this chapter considers America and Japan as proxies for the developed countries around the globe and a significant country among the APAC nations, respectively. The empirical results reveal that not only three indices are highly correlated but they also possess a co-integrating relationship. This establishes the fact that neither is there any scope of international diversification in the short run nor in the long run. However, the Granger causality test results point out the fact that Nifty granger causes DJI and N225 during the study period.

One major source of inflation in India is her import of intermediate inputs. In the modern globalized world, where India is deeply integrated with the world economy, exchange rate affects inflation through various channels. This chapter attempts to gauge the extent of exchange rate pass through to inflation. Using the co-integration framework, this chapter finds considerable evidence of imported inflation in the long run, almost 40%–74% for CPI-IW. At the same time, we also discern evidence of short-run price stickiness of CPI-IW. However, for CPI-AL, the extent of pass-through is a meager 14%. This is due to the fact that CPI-IW gives more weightage to imported components while CPI-AL gives more weight to food and clothing, which are mainly domestically produced.

One of the highly debatable issues in the arena of international economics in recent years is whether a country should go for full capital account convertibility. In terms of the timing and process of capital account liberalization, India and China have been remarkably similar. Both started with a more or less closed capital account in the 1970s and the 1980s, in the context of a heavily state-influenced, planned economy. And in both countries, the first wave of liberalization came in the early 1990s and thus, the journey began. The objective of this chapter is to provide a critical analysis of both India and China's approach to the capital account liberalization program in the backdrop of the recent financial crises and to give an account of the theoretical issues that have arisen in international discussions on CAC and India's standpoint on this issue in particular. Second, how far is the capital account liberalization justified in the context of the recent episodes of financial crises that India and China have witnessed? Using a macroempiric model, this chapter tries to answer whether every member country in the IMF should hurriedly go for CAC or not. In addition, empirically through FMOLS, the authors pool in the “Rupee Convertibility” and “Renminbi Internationalization” along with exchange rate variation and its implications for India's and China's BoP situation (in terms of the export–import position and FDI flows) based on data from 1992 to 2017. ^{1 , 2}

The emerging market economies, in particular, have become victim to the laundering activities which have damaged investment potentials, undermined governance, fostered crime and corruption, and decreased tax revenues. In this chapter, we construct a macrotheoretic framework to analyze money laundering in the form of tax evasion by individuals in an economy in the events of financial autarky and free trade. In other words, our theoretical model allows us to examine if movement from autarky to a state of financial integration whets the degree of financial malpractice like money laundering.

For decades Mexico has had a good relationship with Japan. The leaders of both countries have struggled to maintain a relationship of friendly cooperation to benefit the development of both countries. Mexico, being a source of coarse natural resources, has always been in the crosshairs of industries of several countries and in recent years has improved its trade relationship with Japan to complement the lack of resources of the Asian country. In 2005 entered into force the Economic Partnership Agreement between Mexico and Japan, a marketing agreement between the two countries that would promote cooperation and boost their economy. The aim of this chapter is to determine the impact of Japanese FDI in manufacturing in Mexico in terms of technological spills that occur in the sector. In addition, to establish whether there are flaws that do not allow technological spillovers generated, if any, are older.

Financial integration being an increasingly important part of ongoing trade liberalization requires an in-depth analysis. This study seeks to survey all the available studies that try to measure the magnitude of cross-country integration. We see that primarily there are two types of measure available, viz De jure and De facto. These measures can be further broken down into different subparts which lay emphasis on different aspects of financial integration. We see that there is no accepted single universal index to measure financial integration, each actually having its own pros and cons and it is upon the researcher to use one or more that best fit his/her purpose.

Any country including India which has registered remarkable growth has done so by participating in the economic integration process led by global and regional trade liberalization. India has an emerging web of cooperation with East Asian countries, especially Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) through the ASEAN–India dialogue process, the bilateral free trade agreement with Malaysia, Singapore, and Thailand and subregional initiatives such as the Mekong–Ganga Cooperation and the Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation (BIMSTEC; Yong 2005).

India's free trade agreements and regional trade agreements with countries in this region have not been models of success in their implementation even when there were benefits. The main idea of the formal trade negotiation was to enhance ASEAN-India partnership, specifically in the economic arena. However, India's position in ASEAN's external trade and investment flows has not yet experienced any special momentum. The two-way trade between India and ASEAN is tilted toward ASEAN with the trade gap expanding rapidly.

Thus, to understand India's trade with ASEAN, the chapter would examine India's trade prospects with the ASEAN-5 (Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, Philippines, and Vietnam) particularly in merchandise trade. This chapter would identify new products that India can export to the ASEAN, which will increase its share in ASEAN's market. In order to achieve this, the chapter seeks to discuss the detailed microanalysis at HS 6-digit level to capture the trade creation effects based on lower unit value items for estimating product-specific potential exports and imports to/from ASEAN.

Vietnam is a land that has seen turbulent past and has faced huge damage as being a land for proxy war between the USA and the USSR, but yet it has risen and liberated itself out by adapting renovation or Doi-Moi as it is formally called in Vietnam. The purpose of this chapter is to identify the major impact of trade liberalization and trade integration on the Vietnamese economy. Through this chapter we have tried to bring out the changes that took place in the Vietnamese economy post liberalization. The structural change that took place in the Vietnamese economy due to liberalization is analyzed in this chapter. We have used paired sample T-test and Chow Test (F-Test) to observe the change as Vietnam joined the WTO. The effect that the various policy and FTA that Vietnam had after joining the WTO will be analyzed through this chapter.