Results (
Thai) 2:
[Copy]Copied!
One of the most important developments over the past three decades has been the spread of liberal
economic ideas and policies throughout the world. These policies have affected the lives of millions
of people, yet our most sophisticated political economy models do not adequately capture
influences on these policy choices. Evidence suggests that the adoption of liberal economic practices
is highly clustered both temporally and spatially. We hypothesize that this clustering might be due to
processes of policy diffusion.We think of diffusion as resulting from one of two broad sets of forces: one
in which mounting adoptions of a policy alter the benefits of adopting for others and another in which
adoptions provide policy relevant information about the benefits of adopting. We develop arguments
within these broad classes of mechanisms, construct appropriate measures of the relevant concepts, and
test their effects on liberalization and restriction of the current account, the capital account, and the
exchange rate regime. Our findings suggest that domestic models of foreign economic policy making
are insufficient. The evidence shows that policy transitions are influenced by international economic
competition as well as the policies of a country’s sociocultural peers.We interpret the latter influence as a
form of channeled learning reflecting governments’ search for appropriate models for economic policy
Being translated, please wait..
