External Liberalization Research Articles

Life in the Huddle: Risk, Representation, and the Labour of Athletic Practice in Sarah DeLappe’s The Wolves

Despite being framed by its author as “not really about soccer,” Sarah DeLappe’s Pulitzer-nominated play The Wolves acutely dramatizes the social dynamics that mark the girls’ indoor soccer team at its centre. Sports plays like DeLappe’s are useful contributions to the political discourses on women’s sport because they de-contextualize sportswomen from the prerogative to win, a cultural compulsion that often feeds individualistic “post-feminist” ideologies and perpetuates the dubious supposition that athletic excellence is a pathway to external liberation. Drawing from Holly Thorpe, Marianne Clark, and Julie Brice’s notion of biocultural creativity, this article demonstrates how The Wolves illuminates the performative processes through which sportswomen cultivate their personal and communal bodies, often in response to institutions that exacerbate the risks already inherent in the sport. By holding The Wolves in tension with uncritical presumptions regarding the “transcendency” of sport and in conversation with the well-earned successes of the United States Women’s National Team, this article asserts that the limits of sport’s representational frameworks must be complemented with a nuanced grasp of women’s sporting politics, a politics that requires collective negotiation with vulnerability as it persists in structures within and beyond the elite level.

Is Rising Inequality Unavoidable in a Globalizing Economy Characterized by Rapid Technical Change?

This paper assesses how correct is the view that a rise in income inequality is unavoidable in a globalizing economy characterized by rapid skill-biased technical change. To do so, it reviews the inequality trends recorded in the main developed and developing region during the last three decades. The data show that inequality rose in almost 70% of the countries with data during the years 1980–2000. These years were characterized by rapid internal and external liberalization and privatization. Yet, this trend was reversed during the subsequent decade, when Latin America and parts of sub-Saharan Africa and Southeast Asia recorded a decline in inequality. The evidence also suggests that while globalization and technical change may indeed increase inequality, domestic factors and policies were often behind the inequality increases of the last three decades.

A comparative analysis of the financial liberalization in Turkey and Brazil

The objective of this study is to explain the financial liberalization processes in Turkey and Brazil, to analyze the external financial liberalization processes and the financial integration indices and to compare the developments in the financial integration indices of Turkey and Brazil during the period 1980-2013. Our analysis revealed that, on the one hand, Brazil has continued its external liberalization process since the 1990s, but on the other hand, Brazil used two main tools to manage the capital flows, namely, capital controls and liberalization of capital outflows. In contrast, Turkey did not employ these tools following liberalization of the capital account.

Russia in world trade: Between globalism and regionalism

The article examines Russia’s participation in world trade and trade policy, using trade data for 1996–2017 and simulations of a numerical world trade model where Russia is divided into domestic regions. Since the mid-1990s, Russia’s foreign trade has grown much faster than the world average. This was accompanied by rapid deterioration in the trade balance for manufacturing, and fast redirection of imports, with more from China and relatively less from others, especially Eastern Europe. Only 1/8 of Russia’s foreign trade in 2017 was with Eastern Europe. This is why Russia can gain more from trade integration with the world beyond Eastern Europe, according to the model simulation analysis. For Russian domestic regions, multilateral liberalization among all countries has a similar effect across all of them, with a welfare gain due to lower import prices. For the commodity-exporting regions of Russia, preferential free trade agreements (FTAs) have a similar impact. For the more industrialized Russian regions, on the other hand, FTAs lead to manufacturing growth, rising wages and higher prices, and a larger welfare gain. According to the model simulations, trade integration promotes industrial diversification, with manufacturing growth also in some commodity regions. The results indicate that external liberalization is particularly important for the central parts of Russia; with Volga and West Siberia generally obtaining the strongest manufacturing boost from trade integration.

The Impact of Brexit on EU Trade Policy

There has been increased interest in trade policy following the UK’s EU membership referendum. However, relatively little scholarly analysis has been produced on how Brexit will affect EU trade policy. Instead, the received wisdom has been that Brexit will shift the EU’s trade policy position in a less liberal direction. This is based on a ‘static’ analysis where the UK variable is simply removed from the figurative ‘function’ determining EU trade policy. We argue that this neglects the potential role of more ‘dynamic’ effects. First, the negotiations to determine the nature of the EU–UK future economic partnership are likely to involve a lengthy process with a still uncertain, and possibly evolving, destination. The outcome and process of arriving there will influence how economic operators and policymakers adapt their preferences and behaviour, including through possible relocation and the formation of new alliances. This will shape EU trade policy in potentially counterintuitive ways. Second, the absence of clear material structures from which actors can ‘read’ their interests highlights the importance of considering the role of ideas and political framing. How the vote for and consequences of Brexit are interpreted will likely shape what is considered an appropriate policy response. Examining EU trade policy since the Brexit vote, the article finds that rather than push the EU in a more illiberal direction, the referendum result has been used to reinforce the European Commission’s external liberalisation agenda. The Commission’s discursive response to Brexit and Donald Trump has been to portray the EU as a champion of free trade in an era of global populism.

External sector liberalization, financial development and income in South Asia

The paper provides an analysis on the impact of external sector openness and financial sector development on per capita income in the South Asian economies of Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka. For the annual series from 1980 to 2015, the instrumental variable model using a generalized method of moments (GMM) approach is estimated. The results show that liberalizing the external sector raises per capita income, conditional on the level of financial sector development. The large-economy influence analysis shows that India will benefit the most from external sector liberalization and other economies involved in this study still need to focus on financial sector development as opposed to on liberalizing capital flows. It further indicates that premature external liberalization in small and poor economies tends to be beneficial to the large neighbouring economy, which in this case is India, leading to resource exploitation. Accordingly, unless financial markets and institutions are strong enough to effectively deal with domestic resource mobilization, opening up the external sector alone may impede the economic development process.

External and internal liberalization that ENP promotes as transmission belts of democratization and political stability: success and failure revisited - the Southern Dimension

The European Neighborhood Policy (ENP) was launched in 2004 with the aim of building new political and economic relations between the EU and its Southern and Eastern neighboring states through support for introduction of reforms and systemic changes in the partner states. In the South, the initiative covered ten countries: Algeria, Egypt, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Libya, Morocco, Palestine, Syria and Tunisia. It was associated with better political and economic relations with the EU, which should result in a wider access to the European market for Mediterranean goods and a larger foreign direct investment in$ow to the partner countries' markets. The aim of the paper is to analyze the effects of ENP on the Southern Mediterranean neighbors in the context of economic liberalization and pro-democratic changes. The paper analyses two problems: economic development and trade liberalization offered by ENP through deeper integration with the EU and marketoriented regulations. The second problem analyzed in the paper concerns the process of democratic changes that the EU committed to promote. Due to the highly controversial nature of democratization for the Mediterranean states, it was replaced by the idea of good governance. For this purpose, general trends within the Mediterranean societies in their approach to that notion of governance are presented.

Domestic Politics and External Financial Liberalization in China: The Capacity and Fragility of External Market Pressure

This article explores how the Chinese Communist Party has relied in part on making global financial markets and institutions a source of external pressure to help pass domestic economic and financial reform. We explore two case studies of external financial liberalization: the listing of Chinese state-owned enterprises on foreign stock exchanges and the financial reform aspects of the Shanghai Free Trade Zone. These studies show that external liberalization policies are interlinked with both micro- and macro-level reforms in the domestic economy. We conclude that, after 2005, this strategy of applying external pressure, in fact, did not lead to more comprehensive economic restructuring because the agents of external pressure—in this instance, foreign banks and accounting firms—were themselves party to the reinforcement of state control and ultimately did not (or could not) promote further external liberalization. Domestic agents that supported external liberalization were also quick to abandon it when external pressure conflicted with other domestic policy objectives.

Elucidating the energetic contributions to the binding free energy.

New exact equations are derived for the terms contributing to the binding free energy (ΔG0) of a ligand-receptor pair using our recently introduced formalism which we here call perturbation-divergence formalism (PDF). Specifically, ΔG0 equals the sum of the average of the perturbation (pertaining to new interactions) and additional dissipative terms. The average of the perturbation includes the sum of the average receptor-ligand interactions and the average of the change of solvation energies upon association. The Kullback-Leibler (KL) divergence quantifies the energetically dissipative terms, which are due to the configurational changes and, using the chain rule of KL divergence, can be decomposed into (i) dissipation due to limiting the external liberation (translation and rotation) of the ligand relative to the receptor and (ii) dissipation due to conformational (internal) changes inside the receptor and the ligand. We also identify all exactly canceling energetic terms which do not contribute to ΔG0. Furthermore, the PDF provides a new approach towards dimensionality reduction in the representation of the association process and towards relating the dynamic (high dimensional) with the thermodynamic (one-dimensional) changes.

Trade Liberalization and the Aggregate Matching Function in India

This paper investigates the link between trade liberalization and the job-matching process in India by estimating an aggregate matching function by incorporating trade openness as a proxy for trade liberalization. Monthly data are drawn from the National Employment Service's Employment Exchange, India's only public employment service. The results show that trade liberalization leads to a decline in the number of new hires. This implies the exacerbation of matching efficiency, described by an outward shift of the Beveridge curve. This finding is in accordance with a widely held public view that trade liberalization increases unemployment. Therefore, the Indian government should continue carrying out structural reforms for the Indian economy to deal with the inefficiencies in the labor market due to external liberalization.

Central and Eastern Europe: Trapped in integration?

The Central and Eastern European new Member States of the European Union (CEECs) went through the transition process following the commandments of the Washington Consensus, which gradually evolved into the “integrative growth model”. External liberalisation exposed the CEECs to recurring problems over external imbalances, bubbles driven by capital inflows, and resulting growth instabilities. Large foreign direct investment inflows attracted by repressed wages and low taxes do not accelerate growth. Arguably, real convergence would be much faster under a system with built-in limitations to free trade, free capital movements – and with more scope for traditional industrial, trade, incomes, and fiscal policies.

Human Development in the Era of Globalization: An Asian Perspective

“People are the real wealth of any nation and every development strategy must be focused on enhancing their capabilities, achievements and freedoms” (UNDP, 2010). In the era of 1950’s, GDP per capita was generally used to measure human development in any nation but in late 1970’s and early 1980’s, it was recognized that only economic indicators are unable to measure the multidimensionality of human development. In this direction, UNDP introduced human development index (HDI) in 1990. In this report, it was considered that economic indicators cannot fully capture the essence of human development because human choices are infinite and change over time but three essential are required for everyone to lead healthy and long life, knowledge/awareness in terms of education and decent standard of living. If these basic requirements (education, health and decent standard of living) are not fulfilled then many other opportunities remain inaccessible to the masses. It is generally considered that human development is the most important aspect for the prosperity and sustained growth of any country. So this is appropriate time to empirically analyze the impact of globalization policies on human development. Many of the developed, developing and least developed nations have considerably opened up their economies for external sector liberalization in terms of trade liberalization, foreign private investment and financial sector reforms. As many of the Asian countries gone through the agenda of economic and financial liberalization and this is appropriate time to investigate the impact of this process of globalization on human development. After collection of data, instrumental variable technique has been applied for empirical investigation and found that trade openness is one of the best instrument used for human development in Asian perspective. ICT access is another criterion which can be used because in changing scenario of 21st century it is required here that for access to health and education facilities, everyone should have access to ICT for cheaper, easy and convenient access. Workers’ remittances and FDI are significantly and negatively contributing. The main reason behind this is the inflow of remittances is spent on those activities which are not human development oriented. Here is a need to give awareness to migrants’ families regarding importance of human development for their households, as well as for sustainable economic growth. As for as FDI is concerned, it is significant and negative in all models which is alarming situation for Asian countries and policy makers should focus on the direction of FDI, its impact and how Asian countries can use FDI for human well being. Almost all investors wish to invest in those sectors where they earn maximum profit and when there exists institutional issues then focus diverted from human well being to non issue. So policy makers should convince foreign investors to invest on profit oriented projects along with human well being perspective. For indepth analysis of globalization on human development, this study estimate some models by introducing control variables along with globalization model. This study utilized control variables from financial, fiscal, and socio-economic sector and found that in presence of control variables the direction and intensity of globalization indicators remain same in human development. So the overall findings are very consistent in almost all models and become helpful for policy design in Asian perspective. At the end of estimations, some diagnostics (DWH test, F statistics and P-H test) have been applied and almost all models are suitable in methodological perspectives. On the basis of findings of this study, it requires to rethink on the economic issue of globalization from interdisciplinary perspectives, regarding its evolutions and new solutions. These are the latest research findings of this research and hopefully will attract academicians and professionals from various business and economics disciplines to tackle this issue and also brainstorm for new ideas. On the basis of empirical analysis of this study, some policy implications have been highlighted as; trade openness has the direct and significant impact on human development and all countries should focus on minimizing trade barriers to become more globalized for the promotion of human development. ICT access is important variable because this leads toward easy access to social services and other indicators of human development. ICT access is also beneficial for implementation and evaluation purpose, especially in developing areas. The direction of FDI is alarming and not contributing in human well being. Policy makers should focus on human development oriented FDI by enhancing argument power with foreign investors. Workers’ remittances are not productively used because recipient families are mostly uneducated/unskilled and government should announce some policies to ensure that remittances are spent in activities those are relevant to human development.

Monetary commitment and structural reforms: a dynamic panel analysis for transition economies

This paper examines the contemporaneous relationship between the exchange rate regime and structural economic reforms for a sample of CEEC/CIS transition countries. We investigate empirically whether structural reforms are complements or substitutes for monetary commitment in the attempt to improve macroeconomic performance. Both EBRD and EFW data suggest a negative relationship between flexible exchange rate arrangements and external liberalization. Another finding from the EFW sample is that economic liberalisation has tended to be stronger under better macroeconomic fundamentals, suggesting that the impact of good macroeconomic conditions as facilitating structural reforms outweighs countervailing effects in the sense of lower reform pressure.

Structural Reforms and Growth in Transition: A Meta-Analysis

The present fiscal difficulties of many countries amplify the call for structural reforms. To provide stylized facts on how reforms worked in the past, we quantitatively review 60 studies estimating the relation between reforms and growth. These studies examine structural reforms carried out in 26 transition countries around the world. Our results show that an average reform caused substantial costs in the short run, but had strong positive e ffects on long-run growth. Reforms focused on external liberalization proved to be more beneficial than others in both the short and long run. The findings hold even after correction for publication bias and misspecifications present in some primary studies.

Structural reforms and growth in transition

AbstractThe present fiscal difficulties of many countries amplify the call for structural reforms. To provide stylized facts on how reforms worked in the past, we quantitatively review 60 studies estimating the relationship between reforms and growth. These studies examine structural reforms carried out in 26 transition countries around the world. Our results show that an average reform caused substantial costs in the short run, but had strong positive effects on long‐run growth. Reforms focused on external liberalization proved to be more beneficial than others in both the short and long run. The findings hold even after correction for publication bias and misspecifications present in some primary studies.

Long-run costs of piecemeal reform: Wage inequality and returns to education in Vietnam

In this paper, we examine changes in wage structure and wage premia during Vietnam’s transition from command to market economy. Relative to other work in this literature, our paper is unique in that we identify the policies that lead to such changes. By examining skill premium trends along the two dimensions of particular importance to the transition—state or non-state firms, and traded or non-traded industries—we are able to separate the contribution of external liberalization to wage growth and rising skill premia from that of domestic labor market reforms, and to examine potential interactions between the two types of reform. The results point to the high cost of incomplete reform in Vietnam. Capital market segmentation creates a two-track market for skills, in which state sector workers earn high salaries while non-state workers face lower demand and lower compensation. Growth is reduced directly by diminished allocative efficiency and reduced incentives to acquire education, and indirectly by higher wage inequality and rents for workers with access to state jobs.

External liberalization by India and China: recent experience and future challenges

PurposeIn this study, the authors aim to analyze India's trade performance from the period of liberalization until the recent financial crisis, and compare it to China's.Design/methodology/approachThe authors then examine Indian trade and investment policy and also institutional factors that potentially determine these trade patterns and performance, especially where they differ from China's.FindingsFinally, the authors highlight future trade policy challenges for India and also provide suggestions to ensure strong growth in trade and integration with the global market.Originality/valueThis paper contributes by performing a comparative analysis of the Indian and Chinese experiences under trade liberalization and also by outlining potential challenges for Indian trade policy in the future.

On the reversibility of structural reforms

What are the factors that explain reversals in the implementation of structural reforms? Our main hypothesis is that reversals in different reforms are driven by different factors. This paper presents novel evidence showing that (a) FDI inflows reduce the likelihood of privatization reversals, (b) worsened terms of trade increase the probability of external liberalization reversals and (c) labor strikes propel reversals in price liberalization.

Monetary Commitment and Structural Reforms: A Dynamic Panel Analysis for Transition Economies

This paper examines the contemporaneous relationship between the exchange rate regime and structural economic reforms for a sample of CEEC/CIS transition countries. We investigate empirically whether structural reforms are complements or substitutes for monetary commitment in the attempt to improve macroeconomic performance. Both EBRD and EFW data suggest a negative relationship between flexible exchange rate arrangements and external liberalization. Another finding from the EFW sample is that economic liberalisation has tended to be stronger under better macroeconomic fundamentals, suggesting that the impact of good macroeconomic conditions as facilitating structural reforms outweighs countervailing effects in the sense of lower reform pressure.

Structural Transformation and the sophistication of Production

A new dataset on export sophistication reveals that in many countries the importance of modern services, and the sophistication of manufactured and service exports, has increased over time. However, this trend was less pronounced in LICs. Sophisticated sectors are more likely to act as a catalyst for broad-based economic growth, rather than turning into isolated enclaves, when the economy is liberalized, the exchange rate is not overvalued, and there are good information flows. An educated workforce, external liberalization, and good information flows are important prerequisites for developing sophisticated goods and services. An appropriate macroeconomic policy is particularly important for goods, skilled labor and good information flows for services.