Opposition to capital market opening

We employ a neoclassical growth model to assess the impact of financial liberalization in a developing country on capital owners' and workers' consumption and welfare. We find for an average non-OECD country that capital owners suffer a 42% reduction in permanent consumption because capital inflows reduce their return to capital while workers gain 8% of permanent consumption because capital inflows increase wages. These huge gross impacts contrast with the small positive net effect found in a neoclassical representative agent model by Gourinchas and Jeanne (2006). Our findings provide an estimate of the amount of redistribution needed to overcome capitalists' opposition to capital inflows.