Financial Liberalization, Economic Growth and Investment Strategy: Lessons from Taiwan for New Industrial Countries

Abstract

To examine the impact of foreign capital inflows on Taiwan’s economy after internet bubbles of 2000, this study adopts data from the first quarter of 2001 to the second quarter 2015 to test if foreign capital inflows have positive impacts on Taiwan’s economic growth. This study also uses program trading and aims to prove that with financial liberalizations, the investment efficiency of foreign institutional investors is better than domestic institutional investors.

The results from the error correction model shows that capital formation, domestic savings and foreign direct investment all have positive relationships with the real economic growth. However, the rate of financing and foreign debt and depreciation all have negative relationships with the real economic growth. The results are all statistically significant. Hence, they do not completely support the hypothesis that foreign capital inflows are beneficial for economic growth.

Moreover, this study proves that the futures market in Taiwan is not strong-form market efficient. This result provides support for the hypothesis that the investment efficiency of foreign institutional investors is higher than that of domestic institutional investors. Investors can therefore raise their investment performance by following the investment strategies of foreign institutional investors.