INTERACTIONS BETWEEN FINANCIAL DEVELOPMENT AND TRADE OPENNESS

This paper empirically investigates the interaction between financial development and trade openness through simultaneous-equation systems. The identification and estimation of the systems rely on the methodology of identification through heteroskedasticity proposed by Rigobon (2003). Using a panel consisting of 70 countries over the period 1960-2007, we find a two-way causal relationship between financial development and trade openness. A better-developed financial sector induces higher openness to trade, while higher openness in goods market stymies financial development. And such findings hold well for low-income, high-inflation, or low-governance countries.