Financial Integration in Asia: A Macroeconomic Perspective

This study examines the effect of financial integration on growth, total factor productivity, and capital accumulation using a dynamic panel system-GMM for a dataset consisting of 43 Asian economies from 1995 to 2015. The impact of de jure financial openness on output, productivity, and capital stock growth is significant, while the effect of de facto financial integration is fuzzy. The disaggregate asset classes (namely, inflows of foreign direct investment and debt) are found to facilitate higher output while derivative inflows yield an undesirable effect. For developing countries, financial openness significantly boosts productivity and capital accumulation while for less developed countries it only enhances productivity. The negative impact of the currency crisis on growth and capital accumulation is found to be significant for more open economies. The currency crisis is more prominent for developed economies, partially effective for less developed countries, and partially ineffective for developing economies in Asia.