Causality Between Exports and Economic Growth: What do the Econometric Studies Tell Us?

This paper contains an assessment of major econometric studies that have estimated the causality between exports and economic growth. These studies have used a variety of methodological approaches, such as Granger causality, cointegration with multivariate error correction models, exogeneity and structural invariance, VAR models with variance decomposition, and impulse response functions. The assessment in this paper refers both to the methodologies employed as well as to the empirical findings. A major conclusion is that empirical support for the export‐led growth in both the developed and the developing countries is considerably weaker than was estimated on the basis of earlier correlation and production function studies.