Capital Account Liberalization and Inequality PDF Download

Author: Davide Furceri
Publisher: International Monetary Fund
ISBN: 1513531409
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 26

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Book Description
This paper examines the distributional impact of capital account liberalization. Using panel data for 149 countries from 1970 to 2010, we find that, on average, capital account liberalization reforms increase inequality and reduce the labor share of income in the short and medium term. We also find that the level of financial development and the occurrence of crises play a key role in shaping the response of inequality to capital account liberalization reforms.

Author: Kodjovi M. Eklou
Publisher: International Monetary Fund
ISBN:
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 35

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Book Description
Firms play an important role in shaping income inequality at the aggregated country level, given that wages represent a significant proportion of household income. We investigate the distributional consequences of capital account liberalization, relying on firm level data to explore the implications for betweenfirms earning inequality in ASEAN5 countries over the period 1995-2019. We find that between-firms wage dispersion alone, accounts for a nontrivial proportion of the variation in the market Gini. Our empirical findings show that capital account liberalization increases between-firms wage inequality, as wages grow faster at initially high-paying firms and slow-down at firms at the lower portion of the wage distribution. These results are robust to a battery of robustness checks. Further, the directions and categories of capital account liberalization matter as results are pronounced for inflow liberalization and equity capital flows. We also show that capital account liberalization induces an increase in Profit-to-Wage ratios. Furthermore, the impact depends on country characteristics (wage setting institutions, the level of financial development and the size of the informal sector) as well as industry characteristics (export orientation and external finance dependence).

Author: Mr.Barry J. Eichengreen
Publisher: International Monetary Fund
ISBN: 1513566385
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 37

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Book Description
We review the debate on the association of financial globalization with inequality. We show that the within-country distributional impact of capital account liberalization is context specific and that different types of flows have different distributional effects. Their overall impact depends on the composition of capital flows, their interaction, and on broader economic and institutional conditions. A comprehensive set of policies – macroeconomic, financial and labor- and product-market specific – is important for facilitating wider sharing of the benefits of financial globalization.

Author: Mr.Jonathan David Ostry
Publisher: International Monetary Fund
ISBN: 1484336801
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 46

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Book Description
Do structural reforms that aim to boost potential output also change the distribution of income? We shed light on this question by looking at the broad patterns in the cross-country data covering advanced, emerging-market, and low-income countries. Our main finding is that there is indeed evidence of a growth-equity tradeoff for some important reforms. Financial and capital account liberalization seem to increase both growth and inequality, as do some measures of liberalization of current account transactions. Reforms aimed at strengthening the impartiality of and adherence to the legal system seem to entail no growth-equity tradeoff—such reforms are good for growth and do not worsen inequality. The results for our index of network reforms as well as our measure of the decentralization of collective labor bargaining are the weakest and least robust, potentially due to data limitations. We also ask: If some structural reforms worsen inequality, to what degree does this offset the growth gains from the reforms themselves? While higher inequality does dampen the growth benefits, the net effect on growth remains positive for most reform indicators.

Author: Davide Furceri
Publisher: International Monetary Fund
ISBN: 1484352122
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 61

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Book Description
We take a fresh look at the aggregate and distributional effects of policies to liberalize international capital flows—financial globalization. Both country- and industry-level results suggest that such policies have led on average to limited output gains while contributing to significant increases in inequality—that is, they pose an equity–efficiency trade-off. Behind this average lies considerable heterogeneity in effects depending on country characteristics. Liberalization increases output in countries with high financial depth and those that avoid financial crises, while distributional effects are more pronounced in countries with low financial depth and inclusion and where liberalization is followed by a crisis. Difference-indifference estimates using sectoral data suggest that liberalization episodes reduce the share of labor income, particularly for industries with higher external financial dependence, those with a higher natural propensity to use layoffs to adjust to idiosyncratic shocks, and those with a higher elasticity of substitution between capital and labor. The sectoral results underpin a causal interpretation of the findings using macro data.

Author: Giovanni Andrea Cornia
Publisher: Oxford University Press on Demand
ISBN: 0199271410
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 461

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Book Description
Within-country income inequality has risen since the early 1980s in most of the OECD, all transitional, and many developing countries. More recently, inequality has risen also in India and nations affected by the Asian crisis. Altogether, over the last twenty years, inequality worsened in 70 per cent of the 73 countries analysed in this volume, with the Gini index rising by over five points in half of them. In several cases, the Gini index follows a U-shaped pattern, with theturn-around point located between the late 1970s and early 1990s. Where the shift towards liberalization and globalization was concluded, the right arm of the U stabilized at the 'steady state level of inequality' typical of the new policy regime, as observed in the UK after 1990.Mainstream theory focusing on rises in wage differentials by skill caused by either North-South trade, migration, or technological change poorly explains the recent rise in income inequality. Likewise, while the traditional causes of income polarization-high land concentration, unequal access to education, the urban bias, the 'curse of natural resources'-still account for much of cross-country variation in income inequality, they cannot explain its recent rise.This volume suggests that the recent rise in income inequality was caused to a considerable extent by a policy-driven worsening in factorial income distribution, wage spread and spatial inequality. In this regard, the volume discusses the distributive impact of reforms in trade and financial liberalization, taxation, public expenditure, safety nets, and labour markets. The volume thus represents one of the first attempts to analyse systematically the relation between policy changes inspired byliberalization and globalization and income inequality. It suggests that capital account liberalization appears to have had-on average-the strongest disequalizing effect, followed by domestic financial liberalization, labour market deregulation, and tax reform. Trade liberalization had uncleareffects, while public expenditure reform often had positive effects.

Author: Hali J. Edison
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Capital market
Languages : en
Pages : 72

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Book Description
This paper reviews the literature on the effects of capital account liberalization and stock market liberalization on economic growth. The various empirical measures used to gauge the presence of controls on capital account transactions as well as indicators of stock market liberalization are discussed. We compare detailed measures of capital account controls that attempt to capture the intensity of enforcement with others that simply capture whether or not controls are present. Our review of the literature shows the contrasting results that have been obtained. These differences may reflect differences in country coverage, sample periods and indicators of liberalization. In order to reconcile these differences, we present new estimates of the effects on growth of capital account liberalization and stock market liberalization. We find some support for a positive effect of capital account liberalization on growth, especially for developing countries.

Author: Mr.Michael Kumhof
Publisher: International Monetary Fund
ISBN: 1463936397
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 44

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Book Description
This paper studies the empirical and theoretical link between increases in income inequality and increases in current account deficits. Cross-sectional econometric evidence shows that higher top income shares, and also financial liberalization, which is a common policy response to increases in income inequality, are associated with substantially larger external deficits. To study this mechanism we develop a DSGE model that features workers whose income share declines at the expense of investors. Loans to workers from domestic and foreign investors support aggregate demand and result in current account deficits. Financial liberalization helps workers smooth consumption, but at the cost of higher household debt and larger current account deficits. In emerging markets, workers cannot borrow from investors, who instead deploy their surplus funds abroad, leading to current account surpluses instead of deficits.

Author: Daniel Jägers
Publisher: GRIN Verlag
ISBN: 3346785491
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 83

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Book Description
Diploma Thesis from the year 2012 in the subject Politics - General and Theories of International Politics, grade: 1,0, , course: Maastricht Graduate School of Governance, language: English, abstract: Observing an increasing financial liberalization and income inequality during the last decades, this study investigates how the opening of financial markets is influencing income inequality. Operationalizing the research question, it focuses on capital account liberalization (CAL). The paper begins with an extensive literature review which recognizes the importance of a countries institutional quality and derives the following two hypotheses: CAL generally increases income inequality and CAL leads to an especially high increase in income inequality if the institutional quality is low. These hypotheses are empirically tested based on a panel data set covering 159 countries from 1996 – 2009. In the last decades the economies and financial systems of many countries liberalized and integrated with each other in order to benefit economically. However, at the same time income inequality and the gap between the extreme poor and the rich increased. The European Union is one of the regions with the most remarkable development regarding financial liberalization and integration. Some countries have been transformed within the last 25 years from centrally planned economies with controlled financial markets to market economies with open financial markets, integrated within the European Monetary Union. On the one hand this financial liberalization and integration is argued to be an important reason for economic growth. However, on the other hand it is strongly related to the Euro currency crises which is currently the main challenge facing the EU and is discussed daily on the news. The lower- and middle-classes in particular are protesting against immense financial supports for banks and investors on the one side and wage reductions, unemployment and social benefit cuts on the other. Can these inequalities be explained by the increasing liberalization of financial markets? Are they logical consequences of international financial liberalization and integration? This paper approaches these questions on a meta-level by answering the research question: How is Financial Market Liberalization Influencing Income Inequality? Before elaborating on this research question and explaining the investigated hypotheses it is explained what exactly is meant by financial market liberalization.

Author: Ying Yirong
Publisher: CRC Press
ISBN: 9781498712262
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
Along with the development of economic globalization, many countries have begun to relax their controls on their capital accounts. However, the recent financial crises in Latin American countries as well as the exchange rate crises in Southeast Asian countries have shown that there is major risk associated with capital account liberalization. This book details the benefits and risks of capital account liberalization and explains how to take an open-door policy at the appropriate time in order to reduce the risk to the lowest possible level. Supplying a complete mathematical analysis framework for the study of the problem of capital account liberalization, it presents a few important models that have been developed for the study of capital account liberalization. Next, the book examines the influence of capital account liberalization on the stability of financial markets by greatly expanding the scope of ordinary differential equation theory to the analysis of local stabilities. It conveys cutting-edge results while providing a general yet simple analysis framework, enriched with practical experiences from developing countries. This book applies the theory of limit cycles to the study of problems related to capital account liberalization and discusses the contagion of financial crises among different countries. Many problems related to capital account liberalization are formulated as optimization models, showing the fact that much broader economic issues can be solved by employing optimization methods. The book concludes by comparing the contagion effect of financial markets between nations with a relatively high degree of openness with those characterized by a moderate degree of openness. Explaining how to determine optimal capital inflows and outflows, this book provides you with the understanding required to accurately determine the characteristics, backgrounds, causes, and roles of capital account liberalization and relevant capital flows.