FIN30013 International Trade: Globalization and Financial Crisis

Introduction

Globalization provides opportunities to countries to grow and compete in an international platform. It creates a broader opportunity for less developed and emerging countries to grab the benefits of a wider market and stimulated world demand. Developing countries often suffer from a lack of capital flows in several industries and this prevents them from fully explored their capacities. With globalization industries operating in developing economies get an increased capital flows. Globalization opens new sources of capital inflow, which earlier restricted to global boundary only. Developing countries due to their low knowledge base and lack of investment cannot have access to advanced technology and compel to use their traditional production methods, which hamper both quantity and quality. In a globalized world, countries come in contact to developed countries and their advanced technology (Asongu & De Moor, 2017). The emerging countries suffer from lack of access to some strategic inputs. In the phase of globalization, countries can import these inputs from other nations having abandon stock of these materials. The cheaper import and an expanded export market improves trade balances.  In the process of globalization countries from less developed or developing world becomes a part of global production network. Global supply chain has now become more integrated leading to a trade expansion. Developing countries adapt advanced production techniques, improves quality of their product and sell their products at a high international price that can otherwise be. Global production is allocated in countries those can produce them efficiently and in a cost-effective way so that goods in the world market are available at a reasonable price. Countries are specialized in different goods depending on their capabilities. Developed countries for example specialize in various services because of their ability to invest in Research and Development.

Globalization though have befitted countries in different ways but has made countries vulnerable to crisis in other countries. Economic crisis in one countries transmitted to other countries as well. The world economy has gone through different phases of financial crisis. Origin of such crisis are housing price and oil price bubbles, adaption of a low interest rate policy, surplus in trade balance in some countries while deficit balance in some others, discrepancies in saving rate in different parts of world (Pieterse, 2015). All these cumulate to result in a liquidity and financial crisis that spread to at global macroeconomic level and has considerable effect on different countries affecting their economic growth with increasing incidence of unemployment, increase in public debt and persistent deflation. The crisis though originated in the developed world of Europe and Latin America it has made some serious implications in other countries related or dependent on these nations. The effect is particularly severe in developing countries (Stiglitz, 2017). In fact, the impact of crisis on developed nation is different from that in a developing country. Significant diversity in effect exist in the developing world.

In a world of increased globalization, developing countries have now become more dependent on global trade and financial system in the last of few decades. The impact of crisis is not limited to reducing credit supply but extended far beyond. Countries face demand side difficulties due to a reduced global demand for their products. The financial crisis did not have immediate impact on developing and transition economies, as the crisis was not originated in their own financial system. It takes time for transmitting the effect to the other nations. There is even expectation that these countries could escape from recessionary impact of crisis through their high growth rate (Lane, 2013). However, as demand from developed nations started falling with the spread of crisis and countries heavily dependent on export become affected from contraction of export demand. The impact of crisis first realized in export oriented sectors and affected output and employment. Gradually the impact spread from export industries from other subsidiary industries and had an economy wide impact in these countries.

The impact of financial crisis on developing countries depend on extent of their dependency on global trade. The paper discusses experiences of globalization and financial crisis of developing countries.

Data source and methodology 

The paper aims at analyzing globalization impact on developing countries and corresponding impact of financial crisis. To do so, first the process of globalization and relevant impact in the developing countries are analyzed. The paper relies on secondary data for collecting evidences from developing world. The effect of globalization in various economic sphere of these countries are found from scholarly articles, official websites of IMF, World Bank and different journal article are collected and reviewed. After gathering evidences of globalization and its impact on developing countries analysis is made to find the impact of financial crisis. Information are collected on loss of output, reduction in capital inflow, loss of aid and remittances, growing incidence of poverty and unemployment in the phase of financial crisis. For this, earlier studies conducted in this field are reviewed and information collected from these papers are used in this paper.

Findings: Globalization and developing nations

The process of economic, cultural and political integration globally is known as globalization. Since its beginning, globalization has played a crucial role in developing world. Globalization provides advantages to these countries in terms improvement in economic process, access to a better technology, improvement in social, environment and political factors. Globalization has offered significant opportunities to the emerging economies. Transfer of technology from advanced countries to developing countries improves their production capabilities. These countries now have a wider market to display their goods and enjoy a higher profit from increased sales volume. This results in an increased income and improved standard of living in these countries. This is unfair to say that globalization has only positive effect in these nations. The positive impact of globalization comes along with challenges of environmental degradation, instability in financial and commercial markets and lead to increasing inequality of both within and across nations.

Economic impact of globalization

Globalization makes developing countries compatible in the international market. The increased income help nations to deal with poverty problems. Earlier, developing countries could were unable to cope with in the world economy because of the existing trade barriers then. The developing nations cannot experience economic growth equivalent to that of developed nations. However, globalization accelerates the process of economic growth. The developing countries previously cannot take needed market reforms due to lack of funds. In times of globalization different financial institutions come that encourages emerging countries to take the necessary reform with supply of large loans. To reap the benefits of global trade countries, eliminate trade barriers. Not only trade barriers but these countries also eliminate all the barriers to free flow of funds. Developed countries can now enter in these markets and invest in different areas. Based upon foreign capital, many industries develop creating new job openings and reduce unemployment and poverty. Rapid growth in developing countries like India and China has reduced global poverty. Globalization strengthens the relation between developed and developing countries. In this process, countries become dependent on each other. There is a two-way dependency between these two groups of countries. Developed nation depend on developing ones for primary products like food, oil and raw materials used in major industries of these nations. Developing countries despite having huge stocks of natural resources cannot utilize them because limited technical knowledge. Developing countries depend on advanced countries for their technological knowledge. One principal advantage of globalization is that people and goods can be transported by a faster and easier way because of free trade openings between countries (Hamdi, 2013). The integration between countries and communication fuels up trade and brings economic growth for the nation. Globalization comes with various trade and economic advantages for developing and transitional economies.

The dark side of globalization is that it increases inequalities both across and within countries. The advantages derived from globalization is not distributed uniformly. Those who are in a relatively advantageous position reap more benefits while those who are in a disadvantageous position do not benefitted much. In this way rich become richer leaving poor becomes poorer. The growing gap between rich and poor results in growing inequality. In the same way, while some of the developing countries able to make rapid progress some other lag. India and China for example have accounted an economic growth equal to already developed nation. On the other side, there are countries in Africa that still records highest poverty rates. The rural regions of China unable to make their place in global market and suffer from high poverty rates. Advanced countries construct their factories in developing nations to take advantage of low cost labor. Because of weak regulatory system, the developed nations set their pollution generating plants in emerging nations.

Impact health and education

In addition to a prosperous economy, globalization has significant contribution in the development of education and health in the backward nations. Globalization though opens new job opportunities, most of these jobs require a high skill. To match employers’ requirement these countries, need to have highly skilled labor force. This in turn encourages education and training programs. Health and education are the two primary aspects of a developed nations. In a globalized world there are different avenues to increase income. When income increases then people can afford a better quality of health services that improves standard heath condition. Healthy labors are more productive as compared to one with poor health condition. The standard of living and life expectancy in the developing world increases with globalization and integration. The average life expectancy of more than 85 percent of global population is 60 percent as suggested in a report published by world bank in 2004. The average years of living is twice than that in 100 years ago. Doctors and scientists worldwide now able to discover life-saving drugs and had discovered range of new drugs for various diseases. With globalization, there are now international organizations like World Health Organization (WHO), various Non-Governmental Organization (NGO) and UNESCO conducting campaign to fight against illiteracy and deadly diseases. Besides the positive effects there are some adverse impact of globalization on health and education. New diseases spread in the country through increased travel and trade. Diseases such as Bird flu, Swine flu, diseases of plants spread across borders and transmitted from advanced nations to the emerging ones (Lin, 2012).. Globalization also facilitates drain out of high skilled and educated workers from less developed countries to the developed ones in search of suitable job opportunities.

Cultural impact of globalization

Globalization has both positive and detrimental effect on developing countries culture. These countries started to imitate cultures of advanced economies like Europe and Latin America. With globalization these countries come in touch of advanced economies culture and vice versa. Countries know each other better than before. Besides, transaction of goods and services, there are interaction of cultures among countries. The tradition and cultures of developing nations get a new identity in the global platform. However, often countries forget their own cultures and imitate the developed nations blindly.

Therefore, globalization has a mixed impact on the developing nations. Besides many of its positive impact countries often suffer from adverse impact of globalization and integration.

Financial crisis and developing world 

The discussion above shows the economy wide impact of globalization on developing nations. The extent to which global financial crisis affects developing world is subject to dependency of these nation on export and foreign capital investment. The effect is different depending on varying level of dependency. The export share as a percentage of GDP is different for different countries. For example, in South Asian Countries the share is 22 percent, consequent share of Sub-Saharan countries is 35 percent, in Latin America and Caribbean export share is 26 percent of GDP, East Asia alone has 50 percent share while that in eastern and central Asia is 50 percent. Countries relying on primary commodities except oil had been hit hurt because of rapid decline in price of exported commodities in the world market. Before the crisis, Sub Saharan countries were growing at a faster pace resulted from a high price of their exported goods (Griffith-Jones & Ocampo, 2014). The recessionary shock of financial crisis let these countries back to their earlier phase of a stagnant growth.

The growing integration of world finance implies a severe impact of global financial crisis on developing countries. There are both direct and indirect channels of this impact. When financial crisis hit nations, foreign investors started withdrawing their investment. Apart from a reduction in foreign direct investment, in the phase of crisis the international financial institutions pull up their funds from the developing world. The investors during this time instead of reinvesting returns received from their investment completely repatriate the returns resulting in large scale devaluation and decline in stock prices. Countries to stimulate their export went for currency devaluation which makes import expensive. This is turn hurt domestic industries relying heavily on imported inputs.

Output loss from financial crisis

The advent of global financial crisis results in a steep decline in the output growth of developing and emerging countries. The growth in real GDP in these nations in 2007 was recorded as high as 8.3 percent. The crisis hit after 2008, growth rate declined to 6.1 percent and reached to a low level of 2.4 percent in 2009.  Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), Western Hemisphere and in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) contracted significantly during 2009. The developing world including Sub-Saharan Africa, Middle East and North America (MENA) and Asia accounted well below to its average level during pre-crisis period.

Figure 1: Real GDP growth in different developing and emerging economies

(Source: Dolphin & Chappell, 2017)

The easiest way to trace the impact of financial crisis on targeted countries is to make a comparative analysis of GDP growth rate between pre-crisis and post crisis period. For analysis purpose 4 years prior to crisis that is from 2003 to 2007, the crisis year of 2008 and two years ahead of that 2009 and 2010 are taken into consideration. From the recorded data, a shortfall in growth rate of 1.3% in 2008 is found to exist. The differences increased to become 5% in 2009 and a 1.1 % in the next consecutive year. This together resulted in a cumulative loss in GDP of nearly 7.5% in 2010.  

An alternative approach to analyze the impact of crisis is to gauge the difference between actual and forecasted output. For example, International Monetary Fund (IMF) made their growth projections based on evidences available then. In 2007, global growth rate was considerably high and hence only a little to moderate growth slowdown was forecasted. This predicted growth rate can be compared with latest forecasted growth rate. The growth largely fell short of expected growth rate in 2009. The forecast made after realization of crisis deviates only slightly from actual in the post crisis period (2010-2012).

Figure 2: Shortfall in growth of GDP relative to 2007

(Source: Imf.org, 2010)

The actual growth rate of these nations on an average 1.3 percent below than the expectation made in 2008 and that of a 4.9 percent less in 2009. For the next consecutive years, the gap between actual and forecasted growth rates narrows with a recorded shirt fall of 1 percent, 0.8 percent and 0.7 percent in 2010, 2011 and 2012 respectively. These results are also consistent with the estimate given by World Bank.

The nominal GDP of the developing countries in 2010 is projected to be USD 1.3 trill more than that recorded in October 2007. The aggregate loss in output is expected to be USD 2.6 trillion for the period 2008 to 2010. There are two further implications that needs to be emphasized (Dolphin & Chappell, 2017). First, output that had lost during crisis period and beyond that had lost forever. No compensating period of growth recovery was found during this time. This is shown in figure 3.

Figure 3: Real GDP trend in developing economies

(Source: Dolphin & Chappell, 2017)

Second, the growth trend happens to be declined by between 0.5 percent and 1 percent. IMF projected a permanent decline in growth rate in the advanced countries because of financial crisis and this continued to hamper growth in developing world by reducing available supply of funds.

Loss in volume of export

Trade is the primary channel via which financial crisis influenced developing countries. The financial crisis initially originated in United States affected related nations and hampers their economic growth. With a declining income these nations reduce their domestic and export demand as well. Developing countries heavily relying on their export demand severely affected in this phase. The cumulative reduction in global demand results in collapse of world trade with a substantial reduction in volume of export.

The latest estimate made by IMF shows an export growth of only 4 percent during 2008 and it declined by more than 8 percent in 2009. On an average, export in all developing and emerging world economies in 2010 are projected to be 20 percent below than that forecasted in 2007. The trend continued indicating a significant loss in output.

Figure 4: Trend in export growth in developing economies

(Source: Dolphin & Chappell, 2017)

Nearly all the developing countries were severely affected. The biggest fall in export was suffered by developing nations in Asia, Commonwealth of Independent States and eastern and central Europe in 2009. The Sub-Saharan Africa despite having less integration in the global market experienced a 7 percent fall in export during 2009.

Effect on capital inflow

 Inflow of foreign capital is another key channel with which financial crisis hit developing world. The impact is realized both in terms of volumes and cost associated with such inflows. With regards to volume of capital inflow FDI continued to expand through 2008. Flow of private capital reached peak during middle of 2006 and 2007. The capital inflow dropped significantly during the third quarter of 2008.

The financial crisis occurred in 2008 a significant reduction in flow of private capital to the developing and emerging world. Prior to financial crisis, there were various activities lead to artificial boom in the financial markets. It is difficult to judge what might be happened if such boom and bust in the financial market had not occurred. The inflow of capital though below its level in 2004 to 2008 but it is still well above the level seen in 2000-02.

Figure 5: inflow of capital to the developing nations

(Source: Dolphin & Chappell, 2017)

The impact of crisis on foreign capital inflow differs from one region to other. CIS countries were experienced largest immediate effect with huge inflow of capital in 2007 was replaced with large capital outflow in the crisis year and thereafter. In developing Asia capital inflows had slumped largely but remain positive. The effect was slightly delayed for eastern and central European countries with the effect realized in 2009.

The portfolio investment and other forms of capital flow have gone through a huge increase and consequent decline in the phase of crisis. The direct investment was stimulated during 2007 and 2008 resulting from a rapid increase in some of the commodity price. After 2008, the flow though declined but was higher than that in 2006.

Figure 6: Direct investment flow developing economies

(Source: Imf.org, 2017)

Lost remittances and aid

Developing countries receives aid and remittances from the developed nations. When crisis hurt developed nation then flow of aid and remittances to developing nations fell considerably. The effect of remittances lost varies across regions. Regions of Caribbean and Latin America are severely affected. The CIS countries were affected when aids from Russia ceased to come in these countries. The affect is less severe for countries in South and East Asia. The impact of this trend is varied across the regions of Africa (Whalley et al., 2016). Countries in North America affected more as compared to those in Sub-Saharan regions.

The extent to which remittances reduced depend on how severely affected the destination nation and more specifically the sector in which funds are flowed. In his connection, industries in Europe and North America were hit worst in the aftermath of crisis. It has observed that remittances to Bangladesh received from Gulf Corporation reduced much less than those received from United States. This is show in the following figure

Figure 7: Remittances to Bangladesh from different region

(Source: Dolphin & Chappell, 2017)

The estimation of World Bank shows that remittance to the developing nations fell by around 6 percent in 2009. This marked a break in the growth trend of remittances accounting a double-digit growth rate in the pre-crisis period.

Figure 8: Growth of remittances to the developing world

(Source: imf.org, 2017)

Increasing incidence of poverty

The financial crisis had a macroeconomic effect on developing countries. The economic growth of these countries declined, and aggregate output contracted. The contraction of different economic sectors results in an increase in unemployment and consequently raises the incidence of poverty in these countries. The rising poverty in low-income countries resulted in a high mortality rate in different regions. In the sub-Saharan countries, the recorded infant mortality lied between 30,000 and 50,000 in the post crisis period.

Evidences from some specific developing countries

Sub-Saharan Africa

The impact of crisis on the Sub-Saharan countries were less intense than that was expected initially. This is due to relatively limited integration of this region with the global world. This also indicates a comparatively strong financial position of these nations during 2008 as compared to the state of the region during crisis occurred earlier to the 2008 crisis.

The influence of financial crisis on Sub-Saharan Africa varied widely. Countries highly integrated to the global financial and economic system had severely affected through trade, financial system or other channels. The reduced employment opportunities raised unemployment affecting millions of households in the concerned region. IMF report showed that more than 900,000 jobs were lapsed in South Africa during 2009.  The in turn raised poverty in this region. Countries like Morocco and Tunisia that highly heavily dependent on remittances experienced a 2 percent loss of GDP because of reduced flow of aid and remittances. Private capital flows in this region also recorded a decline during this period.

Evidences from Asian countries

Among the Asian countries Japan, India, China and South Korea are the four major countries. Except Japan, the three rest countries are representatives of developing countries. South Korea being one of the largest economy is one of the four members of Asian Tigers. With the onset of crisis, world demand had reduced to such an extent that export growth of China declined. China’s export further contracted by 20 percent in 2009 in comparison to similar period in 2008. Therefore, economic growth of China affected mainly through the channel of trade. Based on this evidence, a trend decline of China’s growth rate is forecasted. To overcome crisis, China not only adapted an expansionary monetary policy but also relied on its fiscal policy.

Another instance is from India. During 2006-2007, growth rate in India exceeded over 8.5%. As crisis hit world economy, growth rate in India declined to a level of 7.3% during 2008. The decline in growth rate was due to a decline in export demand and reduction is trade surplus. For economic recovery, India undertook policy of fiscal expansion in combination with a lower interest rate.

South Korea is one of the rapidly growing countries in Asia. South Korea experienced fluctuation in import prices of raw material. The main export market of goods produced in South Korea are Europe and America. The diminishing demand in major export markets affected the speed of economic growth.  In this phase, South Korea took an expansionary monetary policy with lowering the base rate to a significantly low level.

Policy responses to crisis

The policy design in response to crisis in developing nations depend on the framework of fiscal and monetary policy and status of balance of their balance of payment. Developing countries like China has a large reserve of foreign exchange and hence can undertake expansionary fiscal policy. India in contrast though has large foreign exchange reserves but due to heavy fiscal deficit, the country has relied more on the monetary policy. Countries like Russia and oil-exporting countries suffering from a revenue loss from oil export is in weak fiscal position. For African countries, low stock of reserves prevents these nations to undertake stimulatory fiscal policy. The government in these nations need support from international institution like IMF and World Bank to undertake such policy.

Conclusion

The paper discusses process of globalization and consequences of financial crisis in developing countries. Globalization is a mechanism that integrate the whole world. This provides a wide platform to the developing countries. Developing countries like China, India, Iraq, Jordan, and Syria have taken advantages of globalization. There are both positive and adverse impact of globalization. The economy of most of the developing countries account significant improvement with globalization. With globalization, the developing countries not get a wider access to investible funds. Apart from investment made by the developed nations, additional financial support is received from international financial institution built in the phase of globalization. Advanced countries not only provided monetary support to developing nations but also provide a wide export market for the final goods produced by these nations. Developed countries depend on developing countries for industrial raw materials. Therefore, both group of countries are benefitted from globalization. With elimination of all the trade and financial barriers, there are free flow of goods and services and funds. Size of foreign direct has increased significantly. Several bad habits and traditions have erased and replaced by the new cultures and traditions. Besides these positive effects, countries are also vulnerable to adverse impact comes along with globalization. Uneven spread of the benefits derived from globalization lead to inequality across the world. Riche gets richer whereas poor becomes poorer.

In a globalized world, countries are highly integrated with each other. Economic shocks in one nations affects the related nations. After globalization, developing countries become highly dependent for funds and give a ready market for their commodities. The downturn of global economy affected the economic performances of developing nations in the post crisis period. The crisis originated in United States and European Union with breakdown of financial system. The crisis began in United States with burst of housing bubbles. The effect of financial crisis to the developing countries transmitted in the form of a slow growth rate, incidence of high unemployment, poverty and rising inequality. The crisis had occurred in a time when the developing nations just started to perform well in the world market. This is the time when countries were enjoying a considerably high growth rate. The impact of financial crisis become more robust in an integrated macroeconomic management.

There is deep impact of financial crisis on low-income countries. These countries suffered from an output loss. An output lost equal to US $2.6 trillion was realized by the end of 2010. The loss in output accompanied with a loss in share of export with export declined by more than 20 percent in these nations. Significant differences were recorded between forecasted and that realized in different economic indicators. Most of the forecast has been made during times when countries are performing well. It is obvious to project a high growth rate for the upcoming years. However, the crisis hit made all the projections wrong. The inflow foreign capital plays an important role in developing countries. Under the stretch of financial crisis, investors withdraw their funds from these countries affecting stock prices. The reduced capital inflow hampers economic growth of the emerging markets. The financial crisis damaged the economy of developed nations. As the economy of developed countries contracted the flow of aid and remittances to the developing and emerging world reduces significantly. The amount of remittances that accounted was approximately US $ 100 billion short of what was projected. The official aid flow in 2010 declined by US $ 20 billion as compared to the targeted level in 2005. All these cumulate together to increase the incidence of unemployment and poverty in these countries.

The paper also draws evidences from some developing countries. The emerging economies of Sub-Saharan region was expected to be hit worst by the financial crisis. However, the impact on these nations was much less severe than that expected. It is argued that the reason these countries escape from financial crisis is their relatively less involvement in the globalization process. That means these countries have less contact with the global market. As their financial sector is less dependent on that of the advanced nations the crisis hit less. There is other side of this argument. The driving factor for less impact of financial crisis can be a relatively improved and strong financial sector as compared to its position in times of prior crisis or global shocks. There are several Asian countries that take huge advantages of globalization and growing at a rapid rate. These countries include China, India, South Korea and others. The Asian countries affected from the financial crisis mainly through the channel of global trade and their export dependence. During this time, all these countries experienced a sharp decline in their export demand.

Different countries have taken different policy framework depending on their economic state. Countries with a relatively strong fiscal position adapted an expansionary fiscal policy. Countries running with a deficit budget preferred to rely on monetary policy in combination with a lower interest rate.

References 

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