We take a fresh look at the aggregate and distributional effects of policies to liberalize international capital flows—financial globalization. Both country- and industry-level results suggest that such policies have led on average to limited output gains while contributing to significant increases in inequality—that is, they pose an equity–efficiency trade-off. Behind this average lies considerable heterogeneity in effects depending on country characteristics. Liberalization increases output in countries with high financial depth and those that avoid financial crises, while distributional effects are more pronounced in countries with low financial depth and inclusion and where liberalization is followed by a crisis. Difference-indifference estimates using sectoral data suggest that liberalization episodes reduce the share of labor income, particularly for industries with higher external financial dependence, those with a higher natural propensity to use layoffs to adjust to idiosyncratic shocks, and those with a higher elasticity of substitution between capital and labor. The sectoral results underpin a causal interpretation of the findings using macro data.

We take a fresh look at the aggregate and distributional effects of policies to liberalize international capital flows—financial globalization. Both country- and industry-level results suggest that such policies have led on average to limited output gains while contributing to significant increases in inequality—that is, they pose an equity–efficiency trade-off. Behind this average lies considerable heterogeneity in effects depending on country characteristics. Liberalization increases output in countries with high financial depth and those that avoid financial crises, while distributional effects are more pronounced in countries with low financial depth and inclusion and where liberalization is followed by a crisis. Difference-indifference estimates using sectoral data suggest that liberalization episodes reduce the share of labor income, particularly for industries with higher external financial dependence, those with a higher natural propensity to use layoffs to adjust to idiosyncratic shocks, and those with a higher elasticity of substitution between capital and labor. The sectoral results underpin a causal interpretation of the findings using macro data.

This paper examines the distributional impact of capital account liberalization. Using panel data for 149 countries from 1970 to 2010, we find that, on average, capital account liberalization reforms increase inequality and reduce the labor share of income in the short and medium term. We also find that the level of financial development and the occurrence of crises play a key role in shaping the response of inequality to capital account liberalization reforms.

This study provides a candid, systematic, and critical review of recent evidence on this complex subject. Based on a review of the literature and some new empirical evidence, it finds that (1) in spite of an apparently strong theoretical presumption, it is difficult to detect a strong and robust causal relationship between financial integration and economic growth; (2) contrary to theoretical predictions, financial integration appears to be associated with increases in consumption volatility (both in absolute terms and relative to income volatility) in many developing countries; and (3) there appear to be threshold effects in both of these relationships, which may be related to absorptive capacity. Some recent evidence suggests that sound macroeconomic frameworks and, in particular, good governance are both quantitatively and qualitatively important in affecting developing countries’ experiences with financial globalization.

We study economic globalization as a multidimensional process and investigate its effect on incomes. In a panel of 147 countries during 1970-2014, we apply a new instrumental variable, exploiting globalization’s geographically diffusive character, and find differential gains from globalization both across and within countries: Income gains are substantial for countries at early and medium stages of the globalization process, but the marginal returns diminish as globalization rises, eventually becoming insignificant. Within countries, these gains are concentrated at the top of national income distributions, resulting in rising inequality. We find that domestic policies can mitigate the adverse distributional effects of globalization.

This paper reviews the literature on financial crises focusing on three specific aspects. First, what are the main factors explaining financial crises? Since many theories on the sources of financial crises highlight the importance of sharp fluctuations in asset and credit markets, the paper briefly reviews theoretical and empirical studies on developments in these markets around financial crises. Second, what are the major types of financial crises? The paper focuses on the main theoretical and empirical explanations of four types of financial crises—currency crises, sudden stops, debt crises, and banking crises—and presents a survey of the literature that attempts to identify these episodes. Third, what are the real and financial sector implications of crises? The paper briefly reviews the short- and medium-run implications of crises for the real economy and financial sector. It concludes with a summary of the main lessons from the literature and future research directions.

We study the characteristics of credit booms in emerging and industrial economies. Macro data show a systematic relationship between credit booms and economic expansions, rising asset prices, real appreciations and widening external deficits. Micro data show a strong association between credit booms and leverage ratios, firm values, and banking fragility. We also find that credit booms are larger in emerging economies, particularly in the nontradables sector; most emerging markets crises are associated with credit booms; and credit booms in emerging economies are often preceded by large capital inflows but not by financial reforms or productivity gains.

We develop a new Measure of Aggregate Trade Restrictions (MATR) using data from the IMF’s Annual Report on Exchange Arrangements and Exchange Restrictions. MATR is an empirical measure of how restrictive official government policy is towards the international flow of goods and services. MATR is simple, ad hoc, plausible, quantitative, easily updated, based solely on policy-relevant measures of trade policy, and covers an unbalanced sample of up to 157 countries annually between 1949 and 2019. MATR is strongly correlated with, but more comprehensive than, existing measures of openness and trade policy existing measures. We use MATR to show that trade restrictions are harmful for the economy and lead to significant contractions in output.

Firms play an important role in shaping income inequality at the aggregated country level, given that wages represent a significant proportion of household income. We investigate the distributional consequences of capital account liberalization, relying on firm level data to explore the implications for betweenfirms earning inequality in ASEAN5 countries over the period 1995-2019. We find that between-firms wage dispersion alone, accounts for a nontrivial proportion of the variation in the market Gini. Our empirical findings show that capital account liberalization increases between-firms wage inequality, as wages grow faster at initially high-paying firms and slow-down at firms at the lower portion of the wage distribution. These results are robust to a battery of robustness checks. Further, the directions and categories of capital account liberalization matter as results are pronounced for inflow liberalization and equity capital flows. We also show that capital account liberalization induces an increase in Profit-to-Wage ratios. Furthermore, the impact depends on country characteristics (wage setting institutions, the level of financial development and the size of the informal sector) as well as industry characteristics (export orientation and external finance dependence).

We review the debate on the association of financial globalization with inequality. We show that the within-country distributional impact of capital account liberalization is context specific and that different types of flows have different distributional effects. Their overall impact depends on the composition of capital flows, their interaction, and on broader economic and institutional conditions. A comprehensive set of policies – macroeconomic, financial and labor- and product-market specific – is important for facilitating wider sharing of the benefits of financial globalization.