An important consideration in these regressions is the possible endogeneity of
financial liberalisation and capital flows. As noted by Kraay (1998) there are two
main sources of endogeneity. The first is that capital flows themselves may be
influenced by economic performance. If a country relaxes controls in ‘good’ times and imposes them in ‘bad’ times, we would find a spuriously large positive effect
of liberalisation on growth. Another source of endogeneity is that the extent of
capital mobility may be correlated with other fundamental determinants of growth
and investment. For example, Grilli and Milesi-Ferretti (1995) observe that
countries with small public sectors and relatively independent central banks are
less likely to impose capital controls. If having a small public sector and an
independent central bank were good for growth, then the benefits of capital
account liberalisation would be overstated. In principle, this problem can be
addressed by using instrumental variables that are correlated with financial
openness, but uncorrelated with the disturbance term. Finding good instruments,
however, is difficult