Available online 8 October 2011 We examine the effects of trade and services liberalization on wage inequality in India. We find that labor reallocations and wage shifts attributable to liberalization account for at most 29% of the increase in inequality between 1993 and 2004, and that the effects of services reforms are many times larger than those of trade liberalization. In contrast, 30–66% ...

The Policy Research Working Paper Series disseminates the findings of work in progress to encourage the exchange of ideas about development issues. An objective of the series is to get the findings out quickly, even if the presentations are less than fully polished. The papers carry the names of the authors and should be cited accordingly. The findings, interpretations, and conclusions expresse...

During the last few decades, many emerging markets have lifted restrictions on cross-border financial transactions. The conventional view was that this would allow these countries to: (i) receive capital inflows from advanced countries that would finance higher investment and growth; (ii) insure against aggregate shocks and reduce consumption volatility; and (iii) accelerate the development of ...

If the costs of going back on previously agreed tari¤ reductions are high relative to the terms of trade gains, then the multilateral liberalization process becomes ‘perpetual’. Perpetual trade liberalization has two unique characteristics. (i) No ‘e¢cient’ tari¤ level exists at which liberalization stops. (ii) Some liberalization must occur in every period. International agreements and institu...

Economic liberalization almost everywhere has constituted a positive supply shock which has been profoundly disinflationary at the global level. Financial liberalization in the industrial countries has also given fuller rein to inherent tendencies towards “procyclicality”, a process of credit creation leading to asset price increases and heavy fixed investment which can amplify the business cyc...

To strengthen the capital market, there is a need to integrate the capital markets within the region by removing legal or informal restriction, specifically, stock market liberalization. Thus the paper is to investigate the effects of the subsequent stock market liberalization on stock market integration in 4 ASEAN countries (Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, Singapore) and Korea from 1997 to 2007...

The surge in capital flows towards emerging market countries is one of the major developments in the world economy in the 1990s. In particular, short-term flows, in the form of portfolio investments or bank loans, have grown at an extremely rapid pace. At the same time, emerging markets have experienced an increasing number of financial crises, with dire consequences. It is increasingly argued ...

This paper reviews both multi-country and country studies on the impact of trade liberalization on growth and employment in developing countries. These studies reveal sharply contrasting effects of trade liberalization on employment, suggesting that country-specifi c and contingent factors are important. In particular, differences in how trade liberalization is implemented are particularly impo...