Trade patterns and institutional change in East Asia

Abstract

We investigate how trade patterns -institutionally intensive exports (IIX) -affect institutional quality in East Asia compared to the rest of the world, and whether the effect changed due to the Asian financial crisis. To examine this, we use panel data of 117 countries for the period 1988-2007. Our fixed effect model estimation reveals that the effect of IIX on institutional quality is negative and significant for East Asia, while the effect is insignificant