Commentary on "Equity Market Liberalization in Emerging Markets"

Bekaert, Harvey, and Lundblad are to be congratulated for producing another paper on equity market liberalizations in emerging markets, and it isa pleasure to discuss their work. Yet, there are three reasons why I may not be an impartial discussant: (i) Having devoted most of my fledling career to the study of capital account liberalization in emerging markets, I am favorably disposed to the research topic; (ii) my published work contains extensive citations to the authors' paper; and (iii) I am in broad agreement with the lion's share of the authors' conclusions about the effects of equity market liberalization on the cost of capital.