This paper aims at building a critical revision of the conventional literature on the subject of financial opening, focusing on developing countries. Departing from classical theoretical benefits to more recent approaches which try to rethink globalization, the effort is to describe and analyze the evolution inside the conventional wisdom. The empirical debate on these issues; the dissidents inside the maistream and the new elements present in the "balance sheet approach" (like "debt intolerance", "currency mismatch" and "orginal sin") are also examined. The results of this evolution, despite the distance from the original arguments that have guided the opening process in developing countries in the 1980's and 1990's, compose a picture of partials and isolated changes, which are not enough to identify a real theoretical revision.
financial opening; developing countries; conventional wisdom