| The Belt and Road Initiative has been echoed by many countries in the international community.Its main goals are policy coordination,infrastructure connectivity,unimpeded trade,financial integration and people-to-people ties.Trade is the most important form of cooperation among countries,and financial integration will provide important support for the development of the five links.At present,we have made some remarkable achievements in various fields,but the belt and Road initiative has reached a bottleneck,and financing is facing increasing challenges.The 14 th FiveYear Plan calls for high-quality belt and Road cooperation.Therefore,how to improve the depth and quality of financial opening has become an urgent problem to be solved.From the perspective of trade opening,this paper will study its promoting effect on a country’s financial opening.Based on the literature of domestic and foreign scholars,this paper first summarizes the basic connotation and measurement methods of financial opening and trade opening.It also qualitatively analyzes the main mechanism of trade opening to financial opening.The direct channels are trade financing and international direct investment,and the indirect channels are scale effect and technological innovation.Then,using the capital flow method proposed by Lane & Milesi-Ferretti to measure the financial openness of countries along the "Belt and Road",and using the Gini coefficient decomposition method to analyze the differences of financial openness in the four regions,and using Moran index to measure the spatial correlation of financial openness.The results show that the overall financial opening difference decreases first and then expands.The contribution rate of inter-subgroup development difference is the highest,followed by intra-subgroup development difference.Using Moran index and Getis-ord index to measure the spatial correlation of financial openness,the results show that the overall financial openness presents a positive spatial correlation.Then trade dependence method is used to measure another core variable trade openness.The calculation of Moran index shows that the spatial autocorrelation of moran index is significant throughout the study period,and the positive spatial autocorrelation is increasing.Secondly,56 countries and regions along the Belt and Road are selected as samples,and the data from 2008 to 2020 are selected to establish a panel model.Based on the introduction of other control variables,the spatial Dubin model in spatial econometrics is used to explore the role of trade opening in belt and Road countries on financial opening.The results show that both trade openness and service trade have a significant promoting effect on financial openness.Among other control variables,the level of economic development and industrial added value play a positive role in trade openness,while the level of inflation plays a restraining role.Moreover,financial opening has a positive spatial spillover effect,and the improvement of financial opening level of neighboring countries will also promote the financial opening of their own countries.Middle-and low-income countries are more exposed to neighboring countries than high-income ones.When trade openness is decomposed into import dependence and export dependence as core explanatory variables,we find that import trade plays a more significant role in financial openness than export trade.Finally,the research conclusion is drawn based on the above results,and relevant policy suggestions are provided for the construction of "The Belt and Road". |
