In this paper, we address in more detail the question raised in Wacker (2011b): why does foreign direct investment (FDI) generally have a positive impact on developing countries' terms of trade except in the case of South Asia? After arguing that such a negative relationship is generally...

Considering Bangladesh's successful industrialization, Bangladesh's sharply deteriorating terms of trade (ToT) are a puzzle for the original Prebisch-Singer hypothesis. The Prebisch-Singer hypothesis suggested that countries exporting primary products will experience deteriorating ToT, while...

This paper presents a critique of W. Arthur Lewis' economic explanation of the division of the world into industrial and agricultural countries. First, Lewis' claim that industrialization in the tropics was held back by small markets and adverse factoral terms of trade is flawed in its logic,...

This paper derives the balance of payments-constrained growth (BPCG) model as a special case of a three good framework that incorporates exportables, importables, and non-tradables. The conditions under which the canonical form of the BPCG rate can be derived are made explicit and the...

International trade is frequently thought of as a production technology in which the inputs are exports and the outputs are imports. Exports are transformed into imports at the rate of the price of exports relative to the price of imports: the reciprocal of the terms of trade. Cast this way, a...

Product and financial market integration determine the global implications of China's recent growth surge and its on-going transition from export led growth. These alter China's structural imbalance (its excess product supply and excess saving), which in turn shifts the international terms of...

This paper studies, within an OLG framework, the role of relative factor intensities in determining the relation between the terms of trade and the capital stock. It shows that a diversified production equilibrium can be characterized by a positive association between these two variables if the...

This paper investigates the role of “absorptive capacity” to manage unexpected shocks to their real economy, with a focus on small, open, natural resource-dependent economies. A quarterly panel data series for 45 countries is constructed, including 23 developing Asian countries for empirical...

This paper extends the 'expanding-varieties' growth model in a two-countries-two-goods setup, and describes the dynamics of growth rates and terms of trade when the industry-based economy is the innovation leader, while the tourism-based economy is the follower (i.e. increases the number of...

External exposure can be measured by the sensitivity of first and second moments of economic growth to openness and foreign shocks. This paper provides an empirical evaluation of external exposure using panel data methods for a worldwide sample of countries. Controlling for domestic conditions,...