with Roman Horvath
May 2006
In this paper we construct objective measures of privatization, internal
and external liberalization reform efforts,
across countries over time, and investigate their determinants, reversals
and macroeconomic impacts.
We find that GDP growth determines external liberalization and privatization,
concentration of political
power drives internal liberalization, and democracy underpins all three.
We find that FDI inflows reduce
the probability of privatization reversals, labour strikes increase that
of internal liberalization reversals,
and OECD growth increase that of external liberalization reversals. We
replicate previous studies and
find that the macroeconomic effects of reform (when measured objectively)
tend to be larger and more
precisely estimated.
Download working paper version:
CEPR DP
IZA DP
Data set CH3 reform indexes is available here