Does trade openness systematically imply bigger governments, as proposed by Rodrik (1998)? This paper presents a novel and more refined explanation for when and why international trade may enlarge the public sector. We propose that trade openness is associated with bigger governments if (i) the...

Using a dataset of 101 countries over the 1960–2011 period, we examine the relationship between the real effective exchange rate (REER), on the one hand, and trade openness, trade balance, the terms of trade, factor productivity, and exchange rate regime, on the other one. We use new...

In this study, we investigate the contribution of trade openness to the structural change process in ECOWAS countries. Our findings suggest that the production structural change process is significantly and positively affected by the extent of trade openness. Higher openness levels are...

Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to examine the causal link between trade openness and government size for the five largest economies in Africa taking into account the role of compensation hypothesis in an economy. Design/methodology/approach - Time series data for five countries covering...

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine the causal link between trade openness and government size for the five largest economies in Africa taking into account the role of compensation hypothesis in an economy.Design/methodology/approach – Time series data for five countries...

Does trade openness systematically imply bigger governments, as proposed by Rodrik (1998)? This paper presents a novel and more refined explanation for when and why international trade may enlarge the public sector. We propose that trade openness is associated with bigger governments if (i) the...

Government is often considered the safe sector of an open economy that provides households with insurance against external risk exposure. Among highly integrated economies, however, households should be able to exploit common financial markets to insure themselves. In this paper we examine the...