Akademik Veri Yönetim Sistemi
MALIYE DERGISI, sa.165, ss.189-214, 2013 (ESCI)
The notion that countries' balance of payments accounts are subject to natural laws and follow a regular path goes back to the 19 th century. According to this theory, namely the balance of payments stages hypothesis, there is a causal and linear connection between the balance of payments stages and economic growth. This paper evaluates the validation of the said hypothesis by applying multiple comparison tests to three different samples. The increasing level of income for the first four stages in the 175- and the 62-country samples supports the stages hypothesis. The contrary situation observed after the fourth stage could be interpreted in favor of the non-linear structure of the variables related to the hypothesis. This interpretation should be done cautiously as the level of income increases at the last stage for G-7 countries.