Private Investment, Freedom, Openness, and Economic Growth: Evidence from Recent Cross-Country Data

Rati Ram ()
Additional contact information
Rati Ram: Economics Department, Illinois State University, Postal: 100 N University St # 142 Normal IL 61761-4402 USA, http://www.cob.ilstu.edu/

Economia Internazionale / International Economics, 2000, vol. 53, issue 3, 371-388

Abstract: Using a reasonable growth model and a good dataset that covers a fairly wide intercountry cross-section, this study investigates the role of several factors in economic growth, with a particular focus on the impact of private investment and economic freedom. Seven main points are noted. First, as might be expected, aggregate investment has a sizable and highly significant positive effect on growth. Second, there is no indication that increased private investment helps growth; on the contrary, in ali cases, the private-investment parameter is negative. Third, there is little evidence that economic freedom enhances growth, and the freedom-parameter appears fragile. Fourth, the role of openness seems minor. Fifth, the education-parameter has a positive sign in all cases, and is statistically significant in most regressions. Sixth, the parametric structures for the fuil sample and the LDC subsample are broadly similar. Seventh, the pattern of estimates seems robust to the use of different measures of economic freedom and also to several specificational alternatives and some methodological refinements. In particular, White’s (1980) heteroskedasticity-consistent standard errors yield the same broad pattern as the ordinary (OLS) standard errors.

JEL-codes: F00 O40 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2000
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

There are no downloads for this item, see the EconPapers FAQ for hints about obtaining it.

Related works:
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: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ris:ecoint:0242

Access Statistics for this article

Economia Internazionale / International Economics is currently edited by Giovanni Battista Pittaluga

More articles in Economia Internazionale / International Economics from Camera di Commercio Industria Artigianato Agricoltura di Genova Via Garibaldi 4, 16124 Genova, Italy. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Angela Procopio ().