貿易開放對經濟成長的影響──整合分析之應用

TRADE OPENNESS AND ECONOMIC GROWTH: A META-ANALYSIS

本文使用整合分析（meta-analysis）方法探討貿易開放對經濟成長之影響，以分析現有文獻對此議題的爭論。我們納入所有與主題相關文獻，整合分析後發現，一國貿易開放顯著地有助於經濟成長，但貿易開放效果會依資料類型、文章是否已發表、文章使用何種貿易開放指標、以及研究對象有所不同。以非洲國家為樣本的文獻指出，貿易開放對經濟成長的重要性遠高於其他國家樣本，亦即，窮困落後國家的貿易開放政策對其國家經濟成長扮演重要角色。此外，此議題之樣本文獻具有異質性與出版偏誤問題，經由整合迴歸分析後，我們發現文章使用的貿易開放指標、資料型態、國家數目、或樣本數不同皆可能是造成樣本文獻變異來源，而非洲國家或開發中國家的貿易開放效果可能被過度放大。

This paper uses a meta-analysis to investigate the relationship between trade openness and economic growth. Our results reveal that there is a significant genuine effect of openness on growth. This effect depends on the type of data, openness indicators, and countries of the articles used. For example, the impact of openness on growth is higher in the African countries, which implies that the trade policy is far more important in poor countries. We also find evidence of problems of heterogeneity and publication bias in the literature. The resulting meta-regression results show that the studies considered are different with respect to the openness indicator used, the type of data, the number of countries, and the sample of countries. The openness effects in African and other developing countries may be over magnified.