IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/wbk/wbrwps/566.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Measuring outward orientation in developing countries : can it be done?

Author

Listed:
  • Pritchett, Lant

Abstract

The pressure for trade reform as an integral component of adjustment programs has intensified the ongoing debate about the benefits of trade liberalization of trade regimes in the less developed countries (LDCs). This heightened interest has in turn generated continued empirical study of the relationship between economic performance and trade policy orientation. One branch of this overall policy-performance literature uses cross-country regressions relating economic performance and a measure of policy"outward orientation"or"openness"to investigate this relationship. This paper attempts to move the debate on the empirical cross-country relationship between trade policy and economic performance backwards one step by asking the question, can the economists'intuitive notion of outwardly oriented policy captured empirically? It reviews some principles of the measurement of trade barriers and examines the relationship between four types of empirical measures of outward orientation across countries, including: (a) the share of trade in GDP; (b) the average tariff and coverage ratio of non-tariffbarriers; (c) measures of the deviation of countries'actual trade pattern from the pattern predicted from a model of resource based comparative advantage; and (d) a measure of real price distortions. The paper also discusses the interpretation and implications of the lack of association between the various measures.

Suggested Citation

  • Pritchett, Lant, 1991. "Measuring outward orientation in developing countries : can it be done?," Policy Research Working Paper Series 566, The World Bank.
    • Handle: RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:566
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www-wds.worldbank.org/external/default/WDSContentServer/WDSP/IB/1991/01/01/000009265_3960930075427/Rendered/PDF/multi0page.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Citations

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


    Cited by:

    1. Judith Dean, 1995. "From protectionism to free trade fever? Recent reforms in developing countries," Open Economies Review, Springer, vol. 6(4), pages 369-385, October.
    2. Bernstein, Jeffrey R. & Weinstein, David E., 2002. "Do endowments predict the location of production?: Evidence from national and international data," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 56(1), pages 55-76, January.
    3. repec:wbk:wbrwps:1025 is not listed on IDEAS
    4. Manuel R. Agosin, 1994. "Réformes des politiques commerciales et performances économiques," Revue Tiers Monde, Programme National Persée, vol. 35(139), pages 499-520.
    5. 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.
    6. Baek, Jungho & Cho, Yongsung & Koo, Won W., 2009. "The environmental consequences of globalization: A country-specific time-series analysis," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 68(8-9), pages 2255-2264, June.
    7. Krishna, Kala & Ozyildirim, Ataman & Swanson, Norman R., 2003. "Trade, investment and growth: nexus, analysis and prognosis," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 70(2), pages 479-499, April.
    8. Dani Rodrik, 1993. "Trade and Industrial Policy Reform in Developing Countries: A Review of Recent Theory and Evidence," NBER Working Papers 4417, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    9. De Lombaerde, Philippe A.A., 2009. "On the dynamic measurement of economic openness," Journal of Policy Modeling, Elsevier, vol. 31(5), pages 731-736, September.
    10. Krishna, Kala, 2009. "Background Paper on the IMF's Trade Restrictiveness Index," MPRA Paper 21316, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    11. Ernesto R. Gantman & Marcelo P. Dabós, 2018. "Does trade openness influence the real effective exchange rate? New evidence from panel time-series," SERIEs: Journal of the Spanish Economic Association, Springer;Spanish Economic Association, vol. 9(1), pages 91-113, March.
    12. Charles Ackah, & Oliver Morrissey, 2007. "Trade Liberalisation is Good for You if You are Rich," Discussion Papers 07/01, University of Nottingham, CREDIT.
    13. Assaf Razin & Andrew Rose, 1992. "Business Cycle Volatility and Openness: An Exploratory Cross-Section Analysis," NBER Working Papers 4208, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    14. Edwards, Sebastian, 1998. "Openness, Productivity and Growth: What Do We Really Know?," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 108(447), pages 383-398, March.
    15. Chandran, V.G.R. & Munusamy, 2009. "Trade openness and manufacturing growth in Malaysia," Journal of Policy Modeling, Elsevier, vol. 31(5), pages 637-647, September.
    16. Banerji, Arup & Ghanem, Hafez, 1995. "Political regimes, trade, and labor policies in developing countries," Policy Research Working Paper Series 1521, The World Bank.
    17. Ann Harrison & Ana Revenga, 1995. "The Effects of Trade Policy Reform: What Do We Really Know?," NBER Working Papers 5225, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    18. Haddad, Mona, 1993. "How trade liberalization affected productivity in Morocco," Policy Research Working Paper Series 1096, The World Bank.
    19. Godfred William Cantah & Gabriel William Brafu-Insaidoo & Emmanuel Agyapong Wiafe & Abass Adams, 2018. "FDI and Trade Policy Openness in Sub-Saharan Africa," Eastern Economic Journal, Palgrave Macmillan;Eastern Economic Association, vol. 44(1), pages 97-116, January.

    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:wbk:wbrwps:566. 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.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using 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: Roula I. Yazigi (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/dvewbus.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.