In June of 1987, South Korea liberalized its stock market, meaning that it began allowing foreign individuals and businesses to invest money in South Korean companies. This was part of a wave of stock market liberalization from the mid-1980s through the mid-1990s—Brazil in 1988, Venezuela in 1990, and so on. In an analysis of economic data from 1976 to 1993, Ross Levine and Sara Zervos found that liberalization did not lead to enduring increases in investment in companies based in countries that liberalized. Peter Blair Henry, however, found that, on average, investment in companies in liberalized countries increased significantly in the three years following liberalization. Taken together, these results suggest that
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Verbal·Information and Ideas·Inferences
mediumWhich choice most logically completes the text?
A
investment growth is likely to be more consistent in countries that liberalize than in countries that do not.
B
it typically takes at least three years for companies to benefit from government policies allowing foreign investment, but governments rarely maintain such policies for that long.
C
economists’ expectations about the effect of liberalization on investment were largely correct.
D
companies based in countries that begin allowing foreign investment will probably see short-term increases in investment, but that their gains are unlikely to last.