Trade Openness and Investment Instability

Assaf Razin, Efraim Sadka, Tarek Coury

NBER Working Paper No. 8827
Issued in March 2002
NBER Program(s):   ITI

In the presence of lumpy investment cost of adjustment, globalization may have non-conventional effects on the level of investment and its cyclical behavior. Trade openness may lead to a discrete 'jump' in the level of investment, as it may trigger a discrete change in the terms of trade. Such a shift creates a sizeable boost in aggregate investment. But trade openness may also lead to boom-bust cycles of investment (namely, multiple equilibrium) supported by self-validating expectations. In this sense globalization destabilizes the economy. There can be substantial gains from globalization in the investment-boom equilibrium. However, gains could be small, or negative, in the investment-bust equilibrium.

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Published: Razin, Assaf, Efraim Sadka and Tarek Coury. “Trade openness, investment instability, and terms-oftrade volatility.” Journal of International Economics 59, 2 (2003).

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