The Role of Economic Integration in Trade Openness: The Black Sea Economic Cooperation Organization Case

Abstract

Trade liberalization is one of the greatest economic arguments of the economics and it is claimed that trade openness is a crucial phenomenon for the well-being of nations since Adam Smith. Although various practices have been seen in different parts of the world in the history, from 1980s trade liberalization movements have been the dominant trend. However liberalization of trade in developing countries brought debates in economic literature and it is argued that open trade can have catastrophic effects instead of providing growth and welfare to the practitioner countries. In this study if The Black Sea Economic Cooperation Organization had contributed the member states to liberalize their trade has been investigated. The changes in the rates of inward and outward investment, import, export, population and labour force of the member countries during the establishment period of the Organization has been evaluated. The data is collected from Worldbank National Accounts Database, IMF World Economic Outlook and Balance of Payments Database and UNCTAD. The results of the study has shown that although the establishment of the organization had positive effect on investment and trade flows of the countries, it had no effect on labour flows of the member states.