DERIVING THE IMPOSSIBLE TRINITY OF DEVELOPING COUNTRIES AND ITS CONNECTION WITH THE OTHER TWO IMPOSSIBLE TRINITIES

Abstract

The experience of Eastern European countries indicates that a country cannot simultaneously give up autonomy of monetary and fiscal policy and control of labour mobility without all three causing a reduction in potential GDP at the same time. Namely, if a country opts to peg its currency to the currency of a larger (more developed) country and pursues a restrictive fiscal policy, it will probably 2 lead the workforce to emigrate. This universal rule applies to both developing and developed countries. Nevertheless, the specificity of the developing countries' position is that once the labour force leaves the country, it will almost certainly never return. Therefore, labour mobility should be regarded as entirely different when it takes place between countries at distinct levels of development and when it serves as a mechanism for achieving an external balance between countries at similar income levels. As far as we understand, the just described experience of Eastern European developing countries has not yet been formalized anywhere as economic legality, i.e. trilemma. Thus, this paper can be an introduction to the theory of the impossible trinity of developing countries, explaining the basic concepts, connections between them and open questions.