Does Capital Account Liberalization Raise Long-Run Economic Growth?

Abstract

This paper investigates the growth effects of the restrictions on capital account payments as a measure of financial openness. Estimation results show that restrictions on capital flows are weakly and negatively correlated with growth and more importantly, regression results for this measure are mainly distorted by the reverse causation. Our results indeed fail to provide any conclusive evidence on the issue of capital account liberalization. However, these results do not either support the further implementations of controls on capital flows, especially on long-term capital flows.