Degree Type
Honors Capstone Project
Date of Submission
Spring 5-1-2011
Capstone Advisor
Professor Christopher Rohlfs
Honors Reader
Professor Don Dutkowsky
Capstone Major
Economics
Capstone College
Management
Audio/Visual Component
no
Capstone Prize Winner
no
Won Capstone Funding
no
Honors Categories
Social Sciences
Subject Categories
E-Commerce | Finance and Financial Management
Abstract
This paper examines the real per capita gross domestic product (GDP) growth effects of country trade volume interacted with the recent occurrence of banking crisis. Panel macroeconomic data availability permits the inclusion of banking crises which have occurred worldwide over roughly the past five decades.
Linear regression results provide suggestive evidence that greater trade volume, interacted with the recent occurrence of a banking crisis, may have a large, positive effect on real per capita GDP. A 100 point openness index increase causes an average increase of approximately 2.3% per capita GDP when interacted with the presence of a banking crisis. A change from autarky (index zero) to high openness (index 100), for example, substantially offsets the average negative effect of a banking crisis at openness = 0, approximately -6.9% per capita GDP. However, this measurement is imprecise, with robust standard errors of approximately 0.022, or 2.2% of per capita GDP.
Additionally, greater trade openness may aid in the recovery of per capita GDP following a banking crisis. At openness = 0, the average annual effect of each of the ten years following a crisis is -0.2% GDP per capita, approaching statistical significance with robust standard errors of 0.17% GDP per capita, giving the 10-year recovery period a total impact of -2.0% GDP per capita. Interacting openness with years-since-crisis, however, yields an average increase of 0.3% per capita GDP per annum, per 100 openness index points, during the recovery period. This measurement is less precise, however, with robust standard errors of 0.33% GDP per capita. In other words, a banking crisis may put lasting, downward pressure on GDP if no trade is allowed.
I hypothesize that greater preexisting openness may offer countries more options to maintain their consumption components of real per capita GDP via substitution (importing), or to pursue export-led growth policies more easily, as high trade volume would imply the preexistence of developed physical and legal infrastructure for trade activity. Further research is warranted to investigate these mechanisms with greater precision, and to determine if trade openness is serving as a proxy variable for flexibility or resiliency in financial markets, financial openness, generally competent macro policy management or another unknown variable.
Recommended Citation
Brozdowski, Alexander J., "The Effects of Trade Openness on Per Capita GDP during Banking Crises" (2011). Honors Capstone Projects - All. 284.
https://surface.syr.edu/honors_capstone/284
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License.
