MARIO ARTURO RUIZ ESTRADA
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REVISTA ACADÉMICA ECO (15) : 31-52, JULIO / DICIEMBRE 2016
The last 40 years, many economists have tried to
build alternative indicators to measure openness
or trade orientation. It is important to mention
that these different indicators have significantly
contributed to the study of openness up to the
present time. Usually, a major part of this type of
work applies cross-country comparative studies
to explain the link between openness and growth,
productivity or income distribution. These indicators
are trade dependency ratios and rate of growth
exports (Balassa, 1985); the heritage foundation
index (Edwards, 1998a); Sachs and Warner Openness
Index (1995); Leamer’s Openness Index (Barro,
1991); Trade Liberalization Index (Lopez, 1990);
Average Coverage of NTB –QR- (Edwards, 1998b);
black market premium (Harrison, 1996); Index of real
exchange rate variability and index of real exchange
rate distortion (Dollar, 1992).
Edwards (1997) presented an interesting paper
entitled “Trade Policy, Growth and Income
Distribution.” This paper applied different trade
policy indices (e.g. Deviation from Actual Trade
Shares; Trade Liberalization Index; Sachs and Warner
Openness Index; QR; Deviation of the black market
rate; black market exchange rate premium and
real exchange distortions and variation) and the
coefficient of Gini to prove the link between openness
and income distribution. Edwards concluded that
there is no evidence linking openness or trade
liberalization to increases in inequality.
5. Background Research and Analysis
of Different Fields of Research in the
Study of Regional Integration
Regional Integration can be studied and researched
based on different focuses and approaches. This
paper applies four traditional fields of research in
the study of regional integration: economic, political,
social and technological fields of research. In the
first part of the research pertaining to this study,
an effort was made to identify the inclination of the
fields of research in the study of regional integration.
300 papers (100%) on regional integration from
75 journals published between the 2001 and the
2016 were selected for this purpose from JSTOR
(JSTOR, 2016) and ELSEVIER (Elsevier, 2016). Next,
the percentage of participation by fields of research
(economic, political, social and technological) in the
study of regional integration was calculated.
The following trend in terms of fields of research in
the study of regional integration was observed: 65%
from the economic field of research, 25% from the
political field of research, 10% from the social field
of research and 1% from the technological field of
research. It was also observed that, compared to
the 2001 and 2016, the topic of regional integration
was more frequently researched and discussed in
journals in the 1980’s (15%) and 1990’s (45%).
Economics Field of Research in the Study of
Regional Integration
In the economic field of research (i.e. the largest
field of research) in the study of regional integration,
attention was placed on three specific areas:
economic theory, political economy and applied
economics. Economic theory is divided into two
parts, namely microeconomics and macroeconomics,
each of which has a different focus. Some of these
focuses are: partial or general (type of equilibrium),
ex-post or ex-antes (method analysis), static or
dynamic (behavior), short term or long term (time
frame). Method analysis is either quantitative
(econometrics, statistics and mathematics) or
qualitative (in the form of comparative studies
based on theories or historical data). It is observed