This study investigates the influences of trade and financial openness on financial development over the period 2003-2017 from a sample of 64 developing countries, employing a Bayesian model averaging approach to take into account model uncertainty. The results demonstrate that the contribution of trade openness to financial development is important in developing economies with better institutions. However, financial openness has an insignificant positive effect on financial development. There is no evidence to support the Rajan and Zingales hypothesis that the simultaneous openness to both trade and capital flows promotes financial development. Our findings also indicate that a better institutions environment allows a developing economy to exploit the benefits of openness to financial development.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.