Trade Openness and Growth: Pursuing Empirical Glasnost

Andreas Billmeier () and Tommaso Nannicini ()

IMF Staff Papers, 2009, vol. 56, issue 3, pages 447-475

Abstract: Studies of the impact of trade openness on growth are based either on cross-country analysis—which lacks transparency—or case studies—which lack statistical rigor. This paper applies a transparent econometric method drawn from the treatment evaluation literature (matching estimators) to make the comparison between treated (that is, open) and control (that is, closed) countries explicit while remaining within a statistical framework. Matching estimators highlight that common cross-country evidence is based on rather far-fetched country comparisons, which stem from the lack of common support of treated and control countries in the covariate space. The paper therefore advocates paying more attention to appropriate sample restriction in cross-country macro research. IMF Staff Papers (2009) 56, 447–475. doi:10.1057/imfsp.2008.39; published online 3 March 2009

Date: 2009

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.palgrave-journals.com/imfsp/journal/v56/n3/pdf/imfsp200839a.pdf Link to full text PDF (application/pdf)
http://www.palgrave-journals.com/imfsp/journal/v56/n3/full/imfsp200839a.html Link to full text HTML (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
Working Paper: Trade Openness and Growth: Pursuing Empirical Glasnost (2007)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: http://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:pal:imfstp:v:56:y:2009:i:3:p:447-475

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
Palgrave Macmillan Journals, Subscription Department, Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS, UK
http://www.palgrave- ... subscribe/index.html

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in IMF Staff Papers from Palgrave Macmillan Journals
Series data maintained by Elizabeth Gale ().