Publication:
Trade Openness Reduces Volatility When Countries Are Well Diversied

Loading...
Thumbnail Image
Files in English
English PDF (1.08 MB)
683 downloads
English Text (153.47 KB)
135 downloads
Published
2010-02-01
ISSN
Date
2012-03-19
Editor(s)
Abstract
This paper addresses the mechanisms by which trade openness affects growth volatility. Using a diverse set of export diversification indicators, it presents strong evidence pointing to an important role for export diversification in reducing the effect of trade openness on growth volatility. The authors also identify positive thresholds for product diversification at which the effect of openness on volatility changes sign. The effect is shown to be positive only for a minority of countries with highly concentrated export baskets. This result is shown to be robust to both explicit accounting for endogeneity as well as the inclusion of a host of additional controls.
Link to Data Set
Citation
Haddad, Mona E.; Lim, Jamus Jerome; Saborowski, Christian. 2010. Trade Openness Reduces Volatility When Countries Are Well Diversied. Policy Research working paper ; no. WPS 5222. © World Bank. http://hdl.handle.net/10986/3709 License: CC BY 3.0 IGO.
Associated URLs
Associated content
Report Series
Report Series
Other publications in this report series
  • Publication
    The Economic Value of Weather Forecasts: A Quantitative Systematic Literature Review
    (Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-09-10) Farkas, Hannah; Linsenmeier, Manuel; Talevi, Marta; Avner, Paolo; Jafino, Bramka Arga; Sidibe, Moussa
    This study systematically reviews the literature that quantifies the economic benefits of weather observations and forecasts in four weather-dependent economic sectors: agriculture, energy, transport, and disaster-risk management. The review covers 175 peer-reviewed journal articles and 15 policy reports. Findings show that the literature is concentrated in high-income countries and most studies use theoretical models, followed by observational and then experimental research designs. Forecast horizons studied, meteorological variables and services, and monetization techniques vary markedly by sector. Estimated benefits even within specific subsectors span several orders of magnitude and broad uncertainty ranges. An econometric meta-analysis suggests that theoretical studies and studies in richer countries tend to report significantly larger values. Barriers that hinder value realization are identified on both the provider and user sides, with inadequate relevance, weak dissemination, and limited ability to act recurring across sectors. Policy reports rely heavily on back-of-the-envelope or recursive benefit-transfer estimates, rather than on the methods and results of the peer-reviewed literature, revealing a science-to-policy gap. These findings suggest substantial socioeconomic potential of hydrometeorological services around the world, but also knowledge gaps that require more valuation studies focusing on low- and middle-income countries, addressing provider- and user-side barriers and employing rigorous empirical valuation methods to complement and validate theoretical models.
  • Publication
    The Macroeconomic Implications of Climate Change Impacts and Adaptation Options
    (Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-05-29) Abalo, Kodzovi; Boehlert, Brent; Bui, Thanh; Burns, Andrew; Castillo, Diego; Chewpreecha, Unnada; Haider, Alexander; Hallegatte, Stephane; Jooste, Charl; McIsaac, Florent; Ruberl, Heather; Smet, Kim; Strzepek, Ken
    Estimating the macroeconomic implications of climate change impacts and adaptation options is a topic of intense research. This paper presents a framework in the World Bank's macrostructural model to assess climate-related damages. This approach has been used in many Country Climate and Development Reports, a World Bank diagnostic that identifies priorities to ensure continued development in spite of climate change and climate policy objectives. The methodology captures a set of impact channels through which climate change affects the economy by (1) connecting a set of biophysical models to the macroeconomic model and (2) exploring a set of development and climate scenarios. The paper summarizes the results for five countries, highlighting the sources and magnitudes of their vulnerability --- with estimated gross domestic product losses in 2050 exceeding 10 percent of gross domestic product in some countries and scenarios, although only a small set of impact channels is included. The paper also presents estimates of the macroeconomic gains from sector-level adaptation interventions, considering their upfront costs and avoided climate impacts and finding significant net gross domestic product gains from adaptation opportunities identified in the Country Climate and Development Reports. Finally, the paper discusses the limits of current modeling approaches, and their complementarity with empirical approaches based on historical data series. The integrated modeling approach proposed in this paper can inform policymakers as they make proactive decisions on climate change adaptation and resilience.
  • Publication
    Rigging the Scores: Corruption through Scoring Rule Manipulation in Public Procurement Auctions
    (Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-12-02) Chen, Qianmiao
    Public procurement is highly susceptible to corruption, especially in developing countries. Although open auctions are widely adopted to curb it, this paper finds that corruption remains prevalent even within this procurement format. Procurement officers can collaborate with firms to manipulate scoring rules, ensuring predetermined winners, while corrupt firms submit noncompetitive bids to meet minimum bidder requirements. Using extensive data from Chinese public procurement auctions, the paper introduces model-driven statistical tools to detect such corruption, identifying a corruption rate of 65 percent. A procurement expert audit survey confirms the tools’ reliability, with a 91 percent probability that experts recognize suspicious scoring rules when flagged. Firm-level analysis reveals that local, state-owned, and less productive firms are favored in corrupt auctions. Lastly, the paper explores policy implications. Analysis of the national anti-corruption campaign since 2012 suggests that general investigations may be insufficient to address deeply ingrained corrupt practices. Using counterfactuals based on an estimated structural model, the paper shows that implementing anonymous call-for-tender evaluations could improve social welfare by 10 percent by eliminating suspicious rules and encouraging broader participation.
  • Publication
    Labor Demand in the Age of Generative AI: Early Evidence from the U.S. Job Posting Data
    (Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-11-18) Liu, Yan; Wang, He; Yu, Shu
    This paper examines the causal impact of generative artificial intelligence on U.S. labor demand using online job posting data. Exploiting ChatGPT’s release in November 2022 as an exogenous shock, the paper applies difference-in-differences and event study designs to estimate the job displacement effects of generative artificial intelligence. The identification strategy compares labor demand for occupations with high versus low artificial intelligence substitution vulnerability following ChatGPT’s launch, conditioning on similar generative artificial intelligence exposure levels to isolate substitution effects from complementary uses. The analysis uses 285 million job postings collected by Lightcast from the first quarter of 2018 to the second quarter of 2025Q2. The findings show that the number of postings for occupations with above-median artificial intelligence substitution scores fell by an average of 12 percent relative to those with below-median scores. The effect increased from 6 percent in the first year after the launch to 18 percent by the third year. Losses were particularly acute for entry-level positions that require neither advanced degrees (18 percent) nor extensive experience (20 percent), as well as those in administrative support (40 percent) and professional services (30 percent). Although generative artificial intelligence generates new occupations and enhances productivity, which may increase labor demand, early evidence suggests that some occupations may be less likely to be complemented by generative artificial intelligence than others.
  • Publication
    Investment Policy Reforms and Foreign Direct Investment Inflows
    (Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-12-01) Fwaga, Sammy; Chakrapani, Deepa; Abebe, Girum
    Foreign direct investment has the potential to introduce much-needed capital and expertise in emerging and developing economies. To attract foreign direct investment, many countries have eased restrictions on foreign ownership in various sectors, reformed their institutions, and set up investment promotion agencies. Until the mid-2010s, Ethiopia remained one of the few countries that resisted this trend, with several stringent restrictions in place on foreign direct investment entry and operations in the country. This study employs a synthetic control method to examine patterns in foreign capital inflows following a series of investment policy reforms that were substantively introduced in the mid-2010s (circa 2015). The study offers evidence that investment policy reforms contributed to a significant foreign direct investment inflow in Ethiopia, compared to what would have occurred in the absence of these policies. An alternative strategy that conservatively specifies the donor country pool using an AI-assisted deep search technique changes the donor pool weighting matrix of the synthetic control method, but the estimated policy effects largely remain robust to this specification. The findings highlight the importance of targeted reforms in promoting foreign direct investment inflow in developing countries.
Journal
Journal Volume
Journal Issue

Related items

Showing items related by metadata.

  • Publication
    Beyond Commodities
    (World Bank, Washington, DC, 2014-12-01) Thompson Araujo, Jorge; Brueckner, Markus; Clavijo, Mateo; Vostroknutova, Ekaterina; Wacker, Konstantin M.
    The Latin America and Caribbean (LAC) region has seen a decade of remarkable growth and income convergence. Growth has been a key driver for reducing poverty and boosting shared prosperity. It has been debated how much of this decade of growth has been driven by policy reforms and how much was due to the favorable external conditions. While external factors were supportive and relevant, the effect of domestic policies was just as relevant for explaining LAC's recent growth performance. The emphasis of domestic policy has shifted from stabilization policies to structural policies. In addition, a benchmarking exercise reveals which policy gaps will lead to the highest potential growth-payoffs for each country and helps identify potential trade-offs. The authors analyze growth in LAC using descriptive statistics and growth econometrics. The authors use these results for explaining the pattern of growth in LAC over the last decade, for looking ahead, and to identify potential policy gaps.
  • Publication
    Benchmarking the Determinants of Economic Growth in Latin America and the Caribbean
    (World Bank, Washington, DC, 2014-12) Araujo, Jorge Thompson; Brueckner, Markus; Clavijo, Mateo; Vostroknutova, Ekaterina; Wacker, Konstantin M.
    The Latin America and Caribbean (LAC) region has seen a decade of remarkable growth and income convergence. Growth has been a key driver for reducing poverty and boosting shared prosperity. It has been debated how much of this decade of growth has been driven by policy reforms and how much was due to the favorable external conditions. While external factors were supportive and relevant, the effect of domestic policies was just as relevant for explaining LAC's recent growth performance. The emphasis of domestic policy has shifted from stabilization policies to structural policies. In addition, a benchmarking exercise reveals which policy gaps will lead to the highest potential growth-payoffs for each country and helps identify potential trade-offs. The authors analyze growth in LAC using descriptive statistics and growth econometrics. The authors use these results for explaining the pattern of growth in LAC over the last decade, for looking ahead, and to identify potential policy gaps.
  • Publication
    Managing East Asia's Macroeconomic Volatility
    (2009-07-01) Olaberria, Eduardo; Rigolini, Jamele
    East Asia has experienced a dramatic decrease in output growth volatility over the past 20 years. This is good news, as output growth volatility affects poor households because of coping strategies that have long-term, harmful consequences, and the overall economy through its negative impact on economic growth. This paper investigates the factors behind this long decline in volatility, and derives lessons about ways to mitigate renewed upward pressure in face of the financial crisis. The authors show that if, on the one hand, high trade openness has sustained economic growth in the past several decades, on the other hand, it has made countries more vulnerable to external fluctuations. Although less frequent terms of trade shocks and more stable growth rates of trading partners have helped to reduce volatility in the past, the same external factors are now putting renewed pressure on volatility. The way forward seems therefore to be to counterbalance the external upward pressure on volatility by improving domestic factors. Elements under domestic control that can help countries deal with high volatility include more accountable institutions, better regulated financial markets, and more stable fiscal and monetary policies.
  • Publication
    Zooming In : From Aggregate Volatility to Income Distribution
    (2009-04-01) Calderón, César; Yeyati, Eduardo Levy
    In contrast with a growing literature on the drivers of aggregate volatility in developing countries, its consequences in terms of individual incomes have received less attention. This paper looks at the impact of cyclical output fluctuations and extreme output events (crises) on unemployment, poverty, and inequality. The authors find robust evidence that aggregate volatility has a regressive, asymmetric, and non linear impact, as reflected in the strong influence of extreme output drops. The findings show that, in addition to the mitigating role of personal wealth, public expenditure and labor protection exert a similar benign effect. These findings are in line with the income substitutions view of social safety nets, and cast a new light on the value of social programs and labor market regulation in crisis prone developing countries.
  • Publication
    Growth Volatility in Paraguay : Sources, Effects, and Options, Volume 2. Supplementary Volume with Selected Background Papers
    (Washington, DC, 2013-12-20) World Bank
    This supplementary volume of the study on Growth Volatility in Paraguay—Sources, Effects, and Options provides a number of background papers and material that was prepared as part of this study. The topics are closely linked with the overarching story telling presented in the first volume of the report. 1) Business Cycles Accounting for Paraguay, by Viktoria Hnatkovska and Friederike (Fritzi) Koehler-Geib. 2) Agricultural Performance and Macroeconomic Outcomes in Paraguay, by Hakan Berument. 3) Paraguayan Agricultural and Macroeconomic Performance: A Wavelet Approach, by Hakan Berument. 4) A study of the Volatility of the Agricultural GDP in Paraguay and its impact in the Rest of the Economy, by Dionisio Borda, Franchesco Anichini, and Julio Ramirez.

Users also downloaded

Showing related downloaded files

  • Publication
    Corporate Governance of State-Owned Enterprises : A Toolkit
    (Washington, DC, 2014-10-04) World Bank Group
    This Toolkit provides an overall framework with practical tools and information to help policymakers design and implement corporate governance reforms for state-owned enterprises. It covers the key elements of corporate governance, including legal and regulatory framework, state ownership arrangements, performance management systems, financial and fiscal discipline, boards of directors, transparency and disclosure, and protection of shareholders in mixed ownership companies. Experience shows that no one approach is universally applicable and the choice of measures depends on country and enterprise circumstances. The Toolkit thus provides a range of frameworks, concepts, case examples, checklists, and model documents that together aim to help government officials make the appropriate choices for their circumstances. The Toolkit concludes with guidance on managing the reform process, in particular how to prioritize and sequence reforms, build capacity, and engage with stakeholders.
  • Publication
    Mobile Money and the Economy
    (Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the World Bank, 2018-08) Aron, Janine
    Mobile money is a recent innovation that provides financial transaction services via mobile phone, including to the unbanked global poor. The technology has spread rapidly in the developing world, “leapfrogging” the provision of formal banking services by solving the problems of weak institutional infrastructure and the cost structure of conventional banking. This article examines the evolution of mobile money and its important role in widening financial inclusion. It explores the channels of economic influence of mobile money from a micro perspective, and critically reviews the empirical literature on the economic impact of mobile money. The evidence convincingly suggests that mobile money fosters risk-sharing, but direct evidence of the promotion of welfare and saving is still mostly rather less robust.
  • Publication
    Climate Shocks, Vulnerability, Resilience and Livelihoods in Rural Zambia
    (World Bank, Washington, DC, 2021-08) Ngoma, Hambulo; Finn, Arden; Kabisa, Mulako
    To what extent do the behavioral choices of Zambian smallholder farmers influence the negative effects of climate shocks, and what impact do these choices have on vulnerability and resilience? This paper uses nationally representative, three-wave household-level panel data to investigate these questions. The empirical estimation employs an instrumental variable probit regression model, which also controls for the endogeneity of key choice variables. There are four main empirical findings. First, droughts are the most prevalent climate shock rural smallholder farmers in Zambia face, but the extent of exposure differs spatially, with the Southern and Western Provinces being the hardest hit. Nationally, about three-quarters of all smallholder farmers are vulnerable and only about one-quarter are resilient. Second, increased climate shocks correlate with both increased vulnerability and reduced resilience, with short- and long-term deviations in seasonal rainfall worsening vulnerability and resilience. Third, higher asset endowments and education level of the household head reduce vulnerability and increase resilience among smallholder farmers. Female-headed households are more vulnerable and less resilient, on average. Fourth, the use of climate-smart agricultural practices—namely, minimum tillage and use of inorganic fertilizers or hybrid maize seed—significantly improves household resilience in the short term. The paper draws two main policy implications from the findings. First, the results point to an urgent need to invest in research and development for climate shock–tolerant crop varieties and in broader climate-smart agricultural technologies to scale out and scale up context-specific practices through innovative digital platforms. Second, more investment is needed in risk mitigation strategies such as weather indexed insurance, targeted social cash transfers and how to make these work effectively for smallholder farmers. Other important complementary elements include investment in innovative digital platforms that can facilitate timely delivery of climate information services and facilitating asset accumulation and education that can enable farmers to improve climate shock resilience over time.
  • Publication
    Accelerating Digital Transformation in Zambia
    (World Bank, Washington, DC, 2020) World Bank
    Zambia’s seventh national development plan (7NDP) sets ambitious targets for economic growth and poverty reduction. Technology can play an important role as Zambia advances this vision for economic transformation. The introduction of digital systems can also have a transformative effect on government. Improved access to digital technologies and effective use of data and digital systems can thus be powerful tools in the quest to increase private sector productivity, enhance public sector efficiency and effectiveness, and improve the accountability of both the public and private sectors. This digital economy diagnostic assesses Zambia’s strengths and weaknesses with respect to five pillars that together form the foundation upon which the benefits of digital transformation can be realized. These pillars are digital infrastructure, digital skills, digital entrepreneurship, digital platforms, and digital financial services. This analysis finds that Zambia has made significant strides on its path to digital transformation over the past few years. Progress is particularly evident in digital infrastructure, digital financial services, and digital platforms, while more significant gaps remain in digital skills and digital entrepreneurship. This report suggests that the digital transformation strategy include four strategic: (1) promoting greater use of digital technologies in the economy, (2) reducing government transaction costs and reducing the cost of doing business through digitally optimized government systems, (3) improving the adoption of innovative digital solutions by enabling entrepreneurship, and (4) leveraging data and digital systems to improve sector-specific outcomes in secondary towns and rural areas.
  • Publication
    Empowerment in Practice : From Analysis to Implementation
    (Washington, DC: World Bank, 2006) Alsop, Ruth; Bertelsen, Mette; Holland, Jeremy
    This book represents an effort to present an easily accessible framework to readers, especially those for whom empowerment remains a puzzling development concern, conceptually and in application. The book is divided into two parts. Part 1 explains how the empowerment framework can be used for understanding, measuring, monitoring, and operationalizing empowerment policy and practice. Part 2 presents summaries of each of the five country studies, using them to discuss how the empowerment framework can be applied in very different country and sector contexts and what lessons can be learned from these test cases. While this book can offer only a limited empirical basis for the positive association between empowerment and development outcomes, it does add to the body of work supporting the existence of such a relationship. Perhaps more importantly, it also provides a framework for future research to test the association and to prioritize practical interventions seeking to empower individuals and groups.