THE POLITICAL ECONOMY OF FINANCIAL REFORM: HOW ROBUST ARE HUANG'S FINDINGS?

摘要

Using new data on financial liberalization taken from Abiad et al. (2008, IMF Working Papers, No. 08/266) for 62 countries over the period 1975-2005, we show that some of the main findings of Huang's (2009, Journal of Applied Econometrics 24: 1207-1213) replication study on the drivers of financial liberalization are not robust. Major changes concern the effect of democracy on financial reform and the supposed relationship between the desired level of financial liberalization and a country's per capita income.