IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/csa/wpaper/2005-07.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The Geography of Output Volatility

Author

Listed:
  • Adeel Malik
  • Jonathan R W Temple

Abstract

This paper examines the structural determinants of output volatility in developing countries, and especially the roles of geography and institutions. We investigate the volatility effects of market access, climate variability, the geographic predisposition to trade, and various measures of institutional quality. We find an especially important role for market access: remote countries are more likely to have undiversified exports and to experience greater volatility in output growth. Our results are based on Bayesian methods that allow us to address formally the problem of model uncertainty and to examine robustness across a wide range of specifications.

Suggested Citation

  • Adeel Malik & Jonathan R W Temple, 2005. "The Geography of Output Volatility," CSAE Working Paper Series 2005-07, Centre for the Study of African Economies, University of Oxford.
  • Handle: RePEc:csa:wpaper:2005-07
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:d263bd7e-98c4-4ee4-b865-c96775f1381e
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Ramey, Garey & Ramey, Valerie A, 1995. "Cross-Country Evidence on the Link between Volatility and Growth," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 85(5), pages 1138-1151, December.
    2. repec:bla:econom:v:66:y:1999:i:262:p:157-79 is not listed on IDEAS
    3. Alesina, Alberto & Devleeschauwer, Arnaud & Easterly, William & Kurlat, Sergio & Wacziarg, Romain, 2003. "Fractionalization," Journal of Economic Growth, Springer, vol. 8(2), pages 155-194, June.
    4. Robert E. Hall & Charles I. Jones, 1999. "Why do Some Countries Produce So Much More Output Per Worker than Others?," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 114(1), pages 83-116.
    5. Esteban Rossi-Hansberg, 2005. "A Spatial Theory of Trade," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 95(5), pages 1464-1491, December.
    6. A. H. Gelb, 1979. "On the Definition and Measurement of Instability and the Costs of Buffering Export Fluctuations," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 46(1), pages 149-162.
    7. Rodrik, Dani, 1999. "Where Did All the Growth Go? External Shocks, Social Conflict, and Growth Collapses," Journal of Economic Growth, Springer, vol. 4(4), pages 385-412, December.
    8. Thomas Snow, Michael Faye, John McArthur and Jeffrey Sachs, 2003. "Country case studies on the challenges facing landlocked developing countries," Human Development Occasional Papers (1992-2007) HDOCPA-2003-11, Human Development Report Office (HDRO), United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).
    9. James E. Anderson & Eric van Wincoop, 2004. "Trade Costs," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 42(3), pages 691-751, September.
    10. Edward L. Glaeser & Rafael La Porta & Florencio Lopez-de-Silanes & Andrei Shleifer, 2004. "Do Institutions Cause Growth?," Journal of Economic Growth, Springer, vol. 9(3), pages 271-303, September.
    11. Daron Acemoglu & Simon Johnson & James A. Robinson, 2001. "The Colonial Origins of Comparative Development: An Empirical Investigation," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 91(5), pages 1369-1401, December.
    12. Easterly, William & Kremer, Michael & Pritchett, Lant & Summers, Lawrence H., 1993. "Good policy or good luck?: Country growth performance and temporary shocks," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 32(3), pages 459-483, December.
    13. Acemoglu, Daron & Johnson, Simon & Robinson, James & Thaicharoen, Yunyong, 2003. "Institutional causes, macroeconomic symptoms: volatility, crises and growth," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 50(1), pages 49-123, January.
    14. Dani Rodrik & Arvind Subramanian & Francesco Trebbi, 2004. "Institutions Rule: The Primacy of Institutions Over Geography and Integration in Economic Development," Journal of Economic Growth, Springer, vol. 9(2), pages 131-165, June.
    15. Tsui, Kai Yuen, 1988. "The measurement of export instability : A methodological note," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 27(1), pages 61-65.
    16. John Luke Gallup & Jeffrey D. Sachs & Andrew Mellinger, 1999. "Geography and Economic Development," CID Working Papers 01A, Center for International Development at Harvard University.
    17. Imbs, Jean, 2007. "Growth and volatility," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 54(7), pages 1848-1862, October.
    18. Jonathan Isham & Michael Woolcock & Lant Pritchett & Gwen Busby, 2005. "The Varieties of Resource Experience: Natural Resource Export Structures and the Political Economy of Economic Growth," The World Bank Economic Review, World Bank, vol. 19(2), pages 141-174.
    19. L. ALAN WINTERS & NEIL McCULLOCH & ANDREW McKAY, 2015. "Trade Liberalization and Poverty: The Evidence So Far," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: Non-Tariff Barriers, Regionalism and Poverty Essays in Applied International Trade Analysis, chapter 14, pages 271-314, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    20. Marianne Baxter & Michael A. Kouparitsas, 2006. "What Can Account for Fluctuations in the Terms of Trade?," International Finance, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 9(1), pages 63-86, May.
    21. Witold Jerzy Henisz, 2004. "Political Institutions and Policy Volatility," Economics and Politics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 16(1), pages 1-27, March.
    22. Acemoglu, Daron & Zilibotti, Fabrizio, 1997. "Was Prometheus Unbound by Chance? Risk, Diversification, and Growth," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 105(4), pages 709-751, August.
    23. Rappaport, Jordan & Sachs, Jeffrey D, 2003. "The United States as a Coastal Nation," Journal of Economic Growth, Springer, vol. 8(1), pages 5-46, March.
    24. Denizer Cevdet A. & Iyigun Murat F. & Owen Ann, 2002. "Finance and Macroeconomic Volatility," The B.E. Journal of Macroeconomics, De Gruyter, vol. 2(1), pages 1-32, October.
    25. White, Halbert, 1980. "A Heteroskedasticity-Consistent Covariance Matrix Estimator and a Direct Test for Heteroskedasticity," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 48(4), pages 817-838, May.
    26. Scott, Andrew & Uhlig, Harald, 1999. "Fickle investors: An impediment to growth?," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 43(7), pages 1345-1370, June.
    27. Miklós Koren & Silvana Tenreyro, 2007. "Volatility and Development," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 122(1), pages 243-287.
    28. Alberto F. Ades & Edward L. Glaeser, 1999. "Evidence on Growth, Increasing Returns, and the Extent of the Market," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 114(3), pages 1025-1045.
    29. Steven N. Durlauf & Andros Kourtellos & Chih Ming Tan, 2008. "Are Any Growth Theories Robust?," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 118(527), pages 329-346, March.
    30. Easterly, William & Kraay, Aart, 2000. "Small States, Small Problems? Income, Growth, and Volatility in Small States," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 28(11), pages 2013-2027, November.
    31. Raddatz, Claudio, 2007. "Are external shocks responsible for the instability of output in low-income countries?," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 84(1), pages 155-187, September.
    32. Michael Gavin & Ricardo Hausmann, 1998. "Macroeconomic Volatility and Economic Development," International Economic Association Series, in: Silvio Borner & Martin Paldam (ed.), The Political Dimension of Economic Growth, chapter 5, pages 97-116, Palgrave Macmillan.
    33. Ricardo Hausmann & Jason Hwang & Dani Rodrik, 2007. "What you export matters," Journal of Economic Growth, Springer, vol. 12(1), pages 1-25, March.
    34. Novy, Dennis, 2006. "Is the Iceberg Melting Less Quickly? International Trade Costs after World War II," The Warwick Economics Research Paper Series (TWERPS) 764, University of Warwick, Department of Economics.
    35. Turnovsky, Stephen J. & Chattopadhyay, Pradip, 2003. "Volatility and growth in developing economies: some numerical results and empirical evidence," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 59(2), pages 267-295, March.
    36. Gallup, John & Sachs, Jeffrey, 1999. "Geography and Economic Development," Harvard Institute for International Development (HIID) Papers 294434, Harvard University, Kennedy School of Government.
    37. Gavira, Alejandro & Panizza, Ugo & Seddon, Jessica & Stein, Ernesto, 2004. "Political Institutions and Growth Collapses," Revista Latinoamericana de Desarrollo Economico, Carrera de Economía de la Universidad Católica Boliviana (UCB) "San Pablo", issue 2, pages 11-32, Abril.
    38. Carmen Fernandez & Eduardo Ley & Mark F. J. Steel, 2001. "Model uncertainty in cross-country growth regressions," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 16(5), pages 563-576.
    39. Ferreira da Silva, Gisele, 2002. "The impact of financial system development on business cycles volatility: cross-country evidence," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 24(2), pages 233-253, June.
    40. Razin, Assaf & Sadka, Efraim & Coury, Tarek, 2003. "Trade openness, investment instability and terms-of-trade volatility," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 61(2), pages 285-306, December.
    41. David E. Bloom & Jeffrey D. Sachs, 1998. "Geography, Demography, and Economic Growth in Africa," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 29(2), pages 207-296.
    42. Gallup, J.L. & Sachs, J.D. & Mullinger, A., 1999. "Geography and Economic Development," Papers 1, Chicago - Graduate School of Business.
    43. Kohli, Ulrich, 2004. "Real GDP, real domestic income, and terms-of-trade changes," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 62(1), pages 83-106, January.
    44. David H. Romer & Jeffrey A. Frankel, 1999. "Does Trade Cause Growth?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 89(3), pages 379-399, June.
    45. Redding, Stephen & Venables, Anthony J., 2004. "Economic geography and international inequality," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 62(1), pages 53-82, January.
    46. Bekaert, Geert & Harvey, Campbell R. & Lundblad, Christian, 2006. "Growth volatility and financial liberalization," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 25(3), pages 370-403, April.
    47. Hugo A. Hopenhayn & Maria E. Muniagurría, 1993. "Policy variability and economic growth," Economics Working Papers 30, Department of Economics and Business, Universitat Pompeu Fabra.
    48. Xavier Sala-I-Martin & Gernot Doppelhofer & Ronald I. Miller, 2004. "Determinants of Long-Term Growth: A Bayesian Averaging of Classical Estimates (BACE) Approach," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 94(4), pages 813-835, September.
    49. Daron Acemoglu & Simon Johnson & James A. Robinson, 2002. "Reversal of Fortune: Geography and Institutions in the Making of the Modern World Income Distribution," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 117(4), pages 1231-1294.
    50. MacKinnon, James G. & White, Halbert, 1985. "Some heteroskedasticity-consistent covariance matrix estimators with improved finite sample properties," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 29(3), pages 305-325, September.
    51. Checchi, Daniele & Garcia-Penalosa, Cecilia, 2004. "Risk and the distribution of human capital," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 82(1), pages 53-61, January.
    52. W. J. Henisz, 2000. "The Institutional Environment for Economic Growth," Economics and Politics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 12(1), pages 1-31, March.
    53. Kalemli-Ozcan, Sebnem & Sorensen, Bent E. & Yosha, Oved, 2001. "Economic integration, industrial specialization, and the asymmetry of macroeconomic fluctuations," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 55(1), pages 107-137, October.
    54. Stephen Redding & Anthony Venables, 2004. "Geography and Export Performance: External Market Access and Internal Supply Capacity," NBER Chapters, in: Challenges to Globalization: Analyzing the Economics, pages 95-127, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    55. Milner, Chris & Zgovu, Evious, 2006. "A natural experiment for identifying the impact of 'natural' trade barriers on exports," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 80(1), pages 251-268, June.
    56. William A. Brock & Steven N. Durlauf & Kenneth D. West, 2003. "Policy Evaluation in Uncertain Economic Environments," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 34(1), pages 235-322.
    57. Easterly, William & Levine, Ross, 2003. "Tropics, germs, and crops: how endowments influence economic development," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 50(1), pages 3-39, January.
    58. Byeongju Jeong, 2002. "Policy Uncertainty and Long-Run Investment and Output across Countries," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 43(2), pages 363-392, May.
    59. Ahmed Mushfiq Mobarak, 2005. "Democracy, Volatility, and Economic Development," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 87(2), pages 348-361, May.
    60. 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.
    61. 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.
    62. Ng, Francis & Yeats, Alexander, 2003. "Export profiles of small landlocked countries : a case study focusing on their implications for Lesotho," Policy Research Working Paper Series 3085, The World Bank.
    63. repec:rus:hseeco:72137 is not listed on IDEAS
    64. Beck, Thorsten & Lundberg, Mattias & Majnoni, Giovanni, 2006. "Financial intermediary development and growth volatility: Do intermediaries dampen or magnify shocks?," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 25(7), pages 1146-1167, November.
    65. John Luke Gallup & Jeffrey D. Sachs & Andrew Mellinger, 1999. "Geography and Economic Development," CID Working Papers 1, Center for International Development at Harvard University.
    66. Dollar, David & Kraay, Aart, 2003. "Institutions, trade, and growth," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 50(1), pages 133-162, January.
    67. Heitor Almeida & Daniel Ferreira, 2002. "Democracy and the Variability of Economic Performance," Economics and Politics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 14(3), pages 225-257, November.
    68. Kaufmann, Daniel & Kraay, Aart & Zoido-Lobaton, Pablo, 1999. "Aggregating governance indicators," Policy Research Working Paper Series 2195, The World Bank.
    69. Jeffrey D. Sachs, 2003. "Institutions Don't Rule: Direct Effects of Geography on Per Capita Income," NBER Working Papers 9490, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    70. Mr. Ayhan Kose & Mr. Kenneth Rogoff & Mr. Eswar S Prasad & Shang-Jin Wei, 2003. "Effects of Financial Globalization on Developing Countries: Some Empirical Evidence," IMF Occasional Papers 2003/007, International Monetary Fund.
    71. Gallup, John L. & Sachs, Jeffrey D. & Mellinger, Andrew, "undated". "Geography and Economic Development," Instructional Stata datasets for econometrics geodata, Boston College Department of Economics.
    72. Dani Rodrik, 2000. "Participatory Politics, Social Cooperation, and Economic Stability," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 90(2), pages 140-144, May.
    73. Norman V. Loayza & Claudio Raddatz, 2007. "The Structural Determinants of External Vulnerability," The World Bank Economic Review, World Bank, vol. 21(3), pages 359-387, October.
    74. Amjadi, Azita & Yeats, Alexander J., 1995. "Have transport costs contributed to the relative decline of sub-Saharan African exports? Some preliminary empirical evidence," Policy Research Working Paper Series 1559, The World Bank.
    75. Agenor, Pierre-Richard & McDermott, C John & Prasad, Eswar S, 2000. "Macroeconomic Fluctuations in Developing Countries: Some Stylized Facts," The World Bank Economic Review, World Bank, vol. 14(2), pages 251-285, May.
    76. Broda, Christian, 2004. "Terms of trade and exchange rate regimes in developing countries," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 63(1), pages 31-58, May.
    77. Ricardo Hausmann & Michael Gavin, 1996. "Securing Stability and Growth in a Shock Prone Region: The Policy Challenge for Latin America," Research Department Publications 4020, Inter-American Development Bank, Research Department.
    78. Jonathan Eaton & Samuel Kortum, 2002. "Technology, Geography, and Trade," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 70(5), pages 1741-1779, September.
    79. Jeffrey D. Sachs, 2001. "Tropical Underdevelopment," NBER Working Papers 8119, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    80. Hugo A. Hopenhayn & María E. Muniagurria, 1996. "Policy Variability and Economic Growth," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 63(4), pages 611-625.
    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. Malik, Adeel & Temple, Jonathan R.W., 2009. "The geography of output volatility," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 90(2), pages 163-178, November.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Volatility; Geography; Institutions; Bayesian Model Averaging;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • O11 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Macroeconomic Analyses of Economic Development
    • E30 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles - - - General (includes Measurement and Data)

    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:csa:wpaper:2005-07. 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: Julia Coffey (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/csaoxuk.html .

    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.