Trade & Growth

El reciente trabajo del Banco Mundial Growth before and after trade liberalization es un canto al libre comercio. Con el entusiasmo de los economistas, los autores afirman que las reformas comerciales inducen el crecimiento y presentan datos para defender sus argumentos.

Through multivariate fixed effects estimations we calculate that annual per capita GDP growth rates increased by up to 2.6 percentage points after the trade reforms, compared to a counterfactual that takes into consideration the evolution of several growth determinants. Moreover, trade liberalization has been followed by an acceleration in investment, exports of goods and services, and manufacturing exports, and as opposed to common belief, outward orientation did not lead to significant deindustrialization and actually seems to have increased export diversification.