The Impact of Trade Liberalization on Economic Growth in Latin America: A Comparative Analysis of Statistical Approaches

• Thesis title in Czech: The Impact of Trade Liberalization on Economic Growth in Latin America: A Comparative Analysis of Statistical Approaches
• Thesis title in English: The Impact of Trade Liberalization on Economic Growth in Latin America: A Comparative Analysis of Statistical Approaches
• Key words: trade liberalization, economic growth, Latin America, methodology, literature review, publication bias, developing economies
• English key words: trade liberalization, economic growth, Latin America, methodology, literature review, publication bias, developing economies
• Academic year of topic announcement: 2023/2024
• Thesis type: Bachelor's thesis
• Thesis language: angličtina
• Department: Institute of Economic Studies (23-IES)
• Supervisor: PhDr. Jaromír Baxa, Ph.D.
• Author: hidden - assigned by the advisor
• Date of registration: 30.11.2023
• Date of assignment: 30.11.2023

Guidelines

This research will involve a thorough examination of existing literature on economic growth in Latin America. The research will include the following steps:

1. **Identification of relevant studies:** I will conduct a comprehensive search to find scholarly articles, reports, and working papers that examine the relationship between trade and economic growth in Latin America.
2. **Data extraction:** I will collect relevant information from the selected studies, including the established relationship between trade volume, trade balance, and trade liberalization (time series only) and economic growth, chosen methodology, and the dataset used (including source, list of included countries, and time period).
3. **Comparative analysis:** I will analyze the collected data to identify the different methodologies and datasets used in the studies, and categorize them accordingly. I will compare the significance of trade in determining economic growth across studies using various methodologies and datasets.
4. **Synthesis and interpretation:** I will summarize and interpret the findings to understand the variations in results and the influence of methodology on the significance of trade in economic growth. I will partially replicate the most controversial studies using a unified dataset to determine the source of the differing findings.

References

- Sáez, S. (2005). Trade policy making in Latin America: a compared analysis. Comercio Internacional. https://ideas.repec.org/p/ecr/col025/4397.html
- Berg, A., Ostry, J. D., & Zettelmeyer, J. (2012). What makes growth sustained? *Journal of Development Economics*, *98*(2), 149–166. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jdeveco.2011.08.002
- Parikh, A., & Stirbu, C. (2004). Relationship between Trade Liberalisation, Economic Growth and Trade Balance: An Econometric Investigation. Social Science Research Network. https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.567065
- Doucouliagos, C. (2005). Publication Bias in the Economic Freedom and Economic Growth Literature. 10.1111/j.0950-0804.2005.00252.x
- Edwards, S. (1993). Trade policy, exchange rates and growth. https://doi.org/10.3386/w4511
- De Gregorio, J. (1992). Economic growth in Latin America. *Journal of Development Economics*, *39*(1), 59–84. [https://doi.org/10.1016/0304-3878(92)90057-g](https://doi.org/10.1016/0304-3878(92)90057-g)
- Rajapatirana, S., & Alam, A. (1993). Trade policy reform in Latin America and the Caribbean in the 1980s. World Bank Working Paper, WPS, 1104.Gwartney, J. et al. (1999). Economic freedom and the environment for economic growth
- Van Den Berg, H., & Schmidt, J. (1994). Foreign trade and economic growth: time series evidence from Latin America. *Journal of International Trade & Economic Development*, *3*(3), 249–268. https://doi.org/10.1080/09638199400000016
- Rodríguez, F., & Rodrik, D. (2000). Trade Policy and Economic Growth: A Skeptic’s Guide to the Cross-National Evidence. *Nber Macroeconomics Annual*, *15*, 261–325. https://doi.org/10.1086/654419

Preliminary scope of work

In recent decades, Latin American countries have made significant reforms to liberalize trade. These reforms have involved reducing trade barriers, signing free-trade agreements, and opening up markets, providing a unique opportunity to examine the impact of these reforms on the economic growth of developing countries. However, the existing literature does not reach a consensus on the significance of the relationship between trade and economic growth. My research aims to compare a corpus of literature on economic growth in Latin America to investigate how the choice of statistical approaches affects the significance of trade in determining economic growth in the region as revealed by selected studies. In conducting this research, I seek to contribute to a better understanding of the complex relationship between trade and economic growth in Latin America.