Market Liberalization (market + liberalization)

Distribution by Scientific Domains


Selected Abstracts


Japanese Rice Market Liberalization: A Competitive Equilibrium Approach

THE JAPANESE ECONOMIC REVIEW, Issue 4 2000
Hiroshi Fujiki
This paper quantifies the effect of Japanese rice imports on the Japanese rice market with special attention to the farmland market in the year 2000, based on information available in 1997. Tariff and quota policies do not affect the equilibrium price of rice and rent significantly, given the current acreage controls. The removal of the acreage control programme would reduce the autarky price of rice by 30%. With free importation of rice into Japan, the price of rice would be halved, and the potential increase in the consumer surplus could be 0.3% of the 1995 Japanese GDP. JEL Classification Numbers: F14, Q17, Q18. [source]


Stock Market Liberalization, Economic Reform, and Emerging Market Equity Prices

THE JOURNAL OF FINANCE, Issue 2 2000
Peter Blair Henry
A stock market liberalization is a decision by a country's government to allow foreigners to purchase shares in that country's stock market. On average, a country's aggregate equity price index experiences abnormal returns of 3.3 percent per month in real dollar terms during an eight-month window leading up to the implementation of its initial stock market liberalization. This result is consistent with the prediction of standard international asset pricing models that stock market liberalization may reduce the liberalizing country's cost of equity capital by allowing for risk sharing between domestic and foreign agents. [source]


Optimal Policy for Financial Market Liberalizations: Decentralization and Capital Flow Reversals

GERMAN ECONOMIC REVIEW, Issue 1 2000
Theo S. Eicher
Financial market liberalizations are an integral part of economic development. While initial booms in investment and output are commonly seen as signs of successful deregulation, they often reverse at a later stage as international capital flows turn negative and economic growth slows markedly. Such reversals of fortunes have commonly been attributed to incorrect policies that supposedly followed the initial, appropriate measures. It is unclear, however, if capital flow reversals are actually the result of policy reversals, or if they occur as part of the normal transition when financial liberalization is accompanied by a single suboptimal policy. The later hypothesis has not been explored in the theoretical literature We construct a general equilibrium growth model of a small open economy, in which capital flow reversals are the result of a single, suboptimal policy imposed at the beginning of the financial liberalization. We show how improper taxation of foreign borrowing initially leads to strong growth fuelled by an investment boom and foreign borrowing. Still along the transition, however, the model predicts that capital flows must reverse endogenously at a later stage, as the debt burden rises and the country-specific risk premium increases. Our data on the Latin American and East Asian countries provide strong support for our hypothesis. [source]


CORRUPTION AND POLITICAL AND ECONOMIC REFORMS: A STRUCTURAL BREAKS APPROACH

ECONOMICS & POLITICS, Issue 2 2008
ANDERS OLOFSGÅRD
In this paper we look at the impact of broad policy reforms on the levels of corruption. We use a structural break approach to identify country-specific time periods in which significant shifts in corruption levels take place. We then correlate these times of change with a set of covariates with specific focus on the impact of democratization, and trade and equity market liberalization. We find robust support for the hypothesis that episodes of reduction in corruption levels tend to be correlated with democratization and equity market liberalization. [source]


Inequality and Social Conflict Over Land in Africa

JOURNAL OF AGRARIAN CHANGE, Issue 3 2004
PAULINE E. PETERS
The paper proposes that reports of pervasive competition and conflict over land in sub-Saharan Africa belie a current image of negotiable and adaptive customary systems of landholding and land use but, instead, reveal processes of exclusion, deepening social divisions and class formation. Cases of ambiguous and indeterminate outcomes among claimants over land do occur, but the instances of intensifying conflict over land, deepening social rifts and expropriation of land beg for closer attention. More emphasis needs to be placed by analysts on who benefits and who loses from instances of ,negotiability' in access to land, an analysis that, in turn, needs to be situated in broader political economic and social changes taking place, particularly during the past thirty or so years. This requires a theoretical move away from privileging contingency, flexibility and negotiability that, willy-nilly, ends by suggesting an open field, to one that is able to identify those situations and processes (including com-modification, structural adjustment, market liberalization and globalization) that limit or end negotiation and flexibility for certain social groups or categories. [source]


Is Oligopoly a Condition of Successful Privatization?

JOURNAL OF AGRARIAN CHANGE, Issue 2 2002
The Case of Cotton in Zimbabwe
Zimbabwe embarked on market liberalization in the early 1990s, leading towards increasing participation of private capital in the agricultural sector. This paper examines the emergent shape of the private marketing chain for cotton in Zimbabwe, based on fieldwork conducted in the 1999-2001 cotton marketing seasons. The privatization of the cotton marketing board replaced state monopoly with private oligopoly and competition is still seriously underdeveloped, especially on price. However, because of a concentrated market and collective private action, important aspects of earlier systems of coordination have been maintained, preventing downgrading of Zimbabwean cotton lint after liberalization. The paper concludes with a discussion about (absence of) competition and commodity system sustainability in liberalized markets. [source]


Social Correlates of Party System Demise and Populist Resurgence in Venezuela

LATIN AMERICAN POLITICS AND SOCIETY, Issue 3 2003
Kenneth M. Roberts
ABSTRACT Considering its strong, highly institutionalized two-party system, Venezuela was surely one of the least likely countries in Latin America to experience a party system breakdown and populist resurgence. That traditional party system nevertheless was founded on a mixture of corporatist and clientelist linkages to social actors that were unable to withstand the secular decline of the oil economy and several aborted attempts at market liberalization. Successive administrations led by the dominant parties failed to reverse the economic slide, with devastating consequences for the party system as a whole. The party system ultimately rested on insecure structural foundations; and when its social moorings crumbled in the 1990s, the populist movement of Hugo Chávez emerged to fill the political void. This populist resurgence both capitalized on and accelerated the institutional decomposition of the old order. [source]


Sharing sovereignty for global regulation: The cases of fuel economy and online gambling

REGULATION & GOVERNANCE, Issue 4 2008
John Mikler
Abstract Globalization is sometimes taken as a synonym for market liberalization, because it is claimed that power has flowed from states to markets. Whether happening as a result of undeniable "forces" or some hegemonic consensus, many on both the left and right of politics agree that this is a reality. However, this article argues that states which share sovereignty with market actors are able to influence outcomes beyond their borders. The cases of fuel economy and online gambling regulations are used to illustrate the point. In the former case, Japanese and European industry-driven regulations are being "exported" in the attributes of the products of their car industries. In the latter, UK market-friendly regulations are likely to be "exported" to the European region and beyond because of industry support, and market liberalization principles embodied in European Union institutions. Both cases indicate that sharing sovereignty in the process of making and implementing national regulations produces opportunities for global regulation. [source]


The sequencing of reform policies in China's agricultural transition,

THE ECONOMICS OF TRANSITION, Issue 3 2004
Alan De Brauw
Abstract This paper provides evidence regarding gains due to agricultural market liberalization in China. We empirically identify the different effects that incentive and farm restructuring reforms and gradual market liberalization have on China's agricultural economy during its transition period. We find that average gains within the agricultural sector due to reforms that improved incentives and increased decision-making authority of producers exceed gains due to market liberalization by a large margin. Our method of analyzing the effects of transition policies on economic performance can be generalized to other reform paths in other transition economies. [source]


Stock Market Liberalization, Economic Reform, and Emerging Market Equity Prices

THE JOURNAL OF FINANCE, Issue 2 2000
Peter Blair Henry
A stock market liberalization is a decision by a country's government to allow foreigners to purchase shares in that country's stock market. On average, a country's aggregate equity price index experiences abnormal returns of 3.3 percent per month in real dollar terms during an eight-month window leading up to the implementation of its initial stock market liberalization. This result is consistent with the prediction of standard international asset pricing models that stock market liberalization may reduce the liberalizing country's cost of equity capital by allowing for risk sharing between domestic and foreign agents. [source]


Foreign Speculators and Emerging Equity Markets

THE JOURNAL OF FINANCE, Issue 2 2000
Geert Bekaert
We propose a cross-sectional time-series model to assess the impact of market liberalizations in emerging equity markets on the cost of capital, volatility, beta, and correlation with world market returns. Liberalizations are defined by regulatory changes, the introduction of depositary receipts and country funds, and structural breaks in equity capital flows to the emerging markets. We control for other economic events that might confound the impact of foreign speculators on local equity markets. Across a range of specifications, the cost of capital always decreases after a capital market liberalization with the effect varying between 5 and 75 basis points. [source]


Optimal Policy for Financial Market Liberalizations: Decentralization and Capital Flow Reversals

GERMAN ECONOMIC REVIEW, Issue 1 2000
Theo S. Eicher
Financial market liberalizations are an integral part of economic development. While initial booms in investment and output are commonly seen as signs of successful deregulation, they often reverse at a later stage as international capital flows turn negative and economic growth slows markedly. Such reversals of fortunes have commonly been attributed to incorrect policies that supposedly followed the initial, appropriate measures. It is unclear, however, if capital flow reversals are actually the result of policy reversals, or if they occur as part of the normal transition when financial liberalization is accompanied by a single suboptimal policy. The later hypothesis has not been explored in the theoretical literature We construct a general equilibrium growth model of a small open economy, in which capital flow reversals are the result of a single, suboptimal policy imposed at the beginning of the financial liberalization. We show how improper taxation of foreign borrowing initially leads to strong growth fuelled by an investment boom and foreign borrowing. Still along the transition, however, the model predicts that capital flows must reverse endogenously at a later stage, as the debt burden rises and the country-specific risk premium increases. Our data on the Latin American and East Asian countries provide strong support for our hypothesis. [source]


Foreign Speculators and Emerging Equity Markets

THE JOURNAL OF FINANCE, Issue 2 2000
Geert Bekaert
We propose a cross-sectional time-series model to assess the impact of market liberalizations in emerging equity markets on the cost of capital, volatility, beta, and correlation with world market returns. Liberalizations are defined by regulatory changes, the introduction of depositary receipts and country funds, and structural breaks in equity capital flows to the emerging markets. We control for other economic events that might confound the impact of foreign speculators on local equity markets. Across a range of specifications, the cost of capital always decreases after a capital market liberalization with the effect varying between 5 and 75 basis points. [source]