Policy Contagion: What Do We Learn from Financial Reforms?
We use financial reforms as a case study to understand the temporal clustering of policy changes across countries, shedding light on the broader phenomenon of global policy contagion. We constructed a comprehensive database of domestic financial reforms spanning 90 countries from 1973 to 2014. Using this dataset, we estimate a semi-structural model that incorporates key factors identified in the literature. We find that (1) geopolitical influence and cross-country learning drove the global surge in reforms during the 1990s, and (2) reversals of financial reforms in developing countries after the global financial crisis reflected shifting beliefs about their growth effects.
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Copy CitationNan Li, Chris Papageorgiou, Tong Xu, and Tao Zha, "Policy Contagion: What Do We Learn from Financial Reforms?," NBER Working Paper 28994 (2021), https://doi.org/10.3386/w28994.Download Citation
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Published Versions
Nan Li & Chris Papageorgiou & Tong Xu & Tao Zha, 2026. "Policy Contagion: What Do We Learn From Financial Reforms?," International Economic Review, vol 67(1), pages 59-78.
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