Foreign Trade Review

Publisher:: Sage Publications, Inc.
Publication date:: 2021-08-12

ISBN:: 0015-7325

Issue Number

No. 59-2, May 2024

Latest documents

Impact of Exchange Rate on Trade Balance of India: Evidence from Threshold Cointegration with Asymmetric Error Correction Approach
In this research, we investigate the dynamic relationship between the trade balance and exchange rate in the case of India using threshold cointegration and an asymmetric error-correction model. Empirical results validate that the long-run dynamic relationship between the trade balance and exchange rates is asymmetric. In the short run, the trade balance responds only due to positive deviations in the exchange rate. In contrast, in the exchange rate model, the exchange rate reacts only due to negative deviations in the trade balance. In addition, the results exhibit that the adjustment following variation in the exchange rate seems higher than the adjustment in the trade balance in the short run. Besides, the results indicate that the speed of adjustment due to the positive and negative shocks differs in the trade balance and the exchange rate models. Further, the uni- directional Granger causality result suggests that the trade balance substantially affects the exchange rate. However, the Granger causality effect of the exchange rate on the trade balance seems minimal. Finally, our results validate the impact of momentum equilibrium adjustment path asymmetric effects between the trade balance and exchange rate, indicating that the adjustment path is asymmetric in the long run. Therefore, policy planners in India should consider the asymmetric adjustment between these two drivers to overcome trade balance discrepancies in the short and long run. JEL Codes: F40, F41, C22, C32, C12
Dynamics of Price Transmission: Evidence from India’s Import Basket
This article uses granular information on trade flows between India and its trading-partners to estimate the impact of price changes on the import basket in general. We first investigate whether a change in world prices at the commodity level triggers a reorganisation of trading partners. Second, we examine the degree of transmission of world prices to Indian import prices. Lastly, we look at whether India imports less from countries that charge a higher markup on a product. Our results indicate that a change in world prices does not significantly change the set of importing countries. Using the country–product level price changes, we find a higher degree of transmission as compared to the world prices. This provides an important policy implication. In order to determine how the transmission of world prices to import prices works, we need to pay attention to the product price changes in the partner countries rather than focusing on the world prices. Lastly, we find that India imports less of a particular product on average from a country that charges a higher markup for that product relative to the average export prices charged by that country. JEL Codes: F14, F60, F02, Q27
Inflation Adjustment, Endogenous Risk Premium and Exchange Rate: A Theoretical Analysis
This article develops a full employment monetary framework that deals with the interaction between exchange rate and inflation rate dynamics, emphasising the existence of risk premium. The economy consists of internal and foreign bonds. These are close substitutes since there exists a risk premium that depends on inflation rate, budget deficit and net exports. According to the monetary policy rule, both inflation rate and exchange rate negatively influence money supply. Overtime, changes in inflation rate are proportional to the excess supply in the money market. The dynamic adjustment of exchange rate arises due to discrepancy between home interest rate and world rate of interest and risk premium. Based on this framework, we investigate the implications of increase in exports, technological innovation and policy mix for the interaction between exchange rate and inflation rate. JEL Codes: E31, E63, F32, F41
Intensive and Extensive Margins of Export Diversification as Strategies for Sustainable Economic Growth: Evidence from the Nigerian Economy
Two opposite strands of literature analysing export diversification’s role in promoting sustainable growth have evolved in international economics and development, namely, the intensive and extensive margins of exports. This study empirically investigates which of the margin is more useful towards promoting sustainable growth using annual time series data of Nigeria for the period 1960–2021. Autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) and innovative accounting procedure were employed. The ARDL results reveal that both margins significantly enhance growth in short and long run. However, importance of the extensive margin, in aggregate, dominates that of the intensive margin. Likewise, the results from innovative accounting procedures reveal that although both margins contribute positively to growth, the contribution to growth of extensive margin dominates over that of the intensive margin. These results, thus, lend credence to the extensive-margin exposition, which postulates that the export of extant commodities to new market destinations or export of new commodities to new and/or old market destinations plays a relatively more important role in export growth/diversification and, ultimately, sustainable growth. The study recommends that governments should develop and implement economic policies aimed at enhancing exports of value-added commodities—due to their relatively high income and price elasticities over primary commodities—to maximise the benefits in the extensive margin. JEL Codes: F10, F14, O10, O12, O50, O55
Determinants of Foreign Direct Investment: A Systematic Review of the Empirical Studies
A growing body of literature is concerned with the factors that determine the inflows of foreign direct investment (FDI) into a host country. However, hardly any literature has been carried out to provide a systematic literature review (SLR) of the FDI determinants. An SLR methodology underlies this conceptual paper to evaluate and categorise a literature survey of 112 empirical studies published from 2000 to 2018. The result indicates that the size of the host market is the most robust determinant, followed by trade openness, infrastructure quality, labour cost, macroeconomic stability, human capital, and the growth prospect of the host country. Market size is highly significant in virtually all studies. This partly reflects the fact that most of the world’s FDI are market-seeking. This study provides a clear understanding of the scope of the research in the field of FDI determinants as the practical implication for future research. JEL Code: F14
Impact of SADC Free Trade Area on Southern Africa’s Intra-Trade Performance: Implications for the African Continental Free Trade Area
The main raison d’être of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) Free Trade Area (FTA) implemented in 2012 was to inter alia boost intra-regional trade and promote regional trade integration. The low levels of growth and mixed trade performance of countries, eight years after, raises questions about the success of the FTA. The success of the recently launched African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) partly hinges on the performance of the regional FTAs like the SADC FTA. This is because it is unlikely that the African Union through the AfCFTA will achieve continentally what regional economic communities failed to achieve at the regional level. We use a gravity model as well as the difference in difference estimator to evaluate, ex-post, the impact of the SADC FTA on total and sectoral intra-exports. Using data from 2001 to 2019, results show that the full implementation of the SADC FTA did not significantly affect export performance with the export difference between countries that joined the FTA and those that did not being insignificant. These results do not change even when using sectoral exports. JEL Codes: F1, F13, F14, F15
Comparative Performance of Trade Openness and Sovereign Debt Accumulation in Fostering Economic Growth of Sub-Saharan African Countries
In the last four decades, sub-Saharan African countries have witnessed a substantial increase in trade openness and sovereign debt (foreign public debt and domestic public debt). The direct and interactive effects of these factors on economic growth are investigated in this study. The investigation covers the period 1980–2020 and employs the generalised method of moment methodology. The estimation results reveal that the direct effect of trade openness and domestic public debt is significantly favourable. The direct effect of foreign public debt is, however, found to be unfavourable. The results also reveal that the interactive effect of trade openness and domestic public debt is significantly favourable, whereas the interactive effect of trade openness and foreign public debt is fairly favourable. The estimation results thus imply that trade openness and sovereign debt are complementary drivers of economic growth in sub-Saharan African countries. In spite of the favourable role of trade openness and sovereign debt, economic growth has yet to achieve the desired level, which does not augur well for employment and welfare. The prospects of growth could be enhanced by strengthening the impact of trade openness and sovereign debt. However, policy makers should be aware of the direct negative impact of foreign public debt on economic growth, and the need to put measures in place to manage it. JEL Codes: F23, H63, F43, O55
Globalisation and Inclusive Growth in Africa: The Role of Institutional Quality
This study examines the relationship between globalisation and inclusive growth by considering the modulating role of institutional quality. To achieve our broad objective, we use data from 45 African economies over 1996–2018 to determine the panel cointegration and cointegrating regression association between inclusive growth, globalisation and institutional quality. To determine a suitable estimation technique for the empirical analysis, several pre-estimation tests were conducted. After confirming the existence of cointegration and slope heterogeneity, we adapted the long-run panel cointegrating methods—the fully modified ordinary least squares and dynamic ordinary least squares estimations. The results from both show that aggregate globalisation and its various dimensions have positive and significant effects on inclusive growth. Besides the direct positive impact on inclusive growth, globalisation has indirect positive and significant impact on inclusive growth through institutional quality. Finally, some policy implications are highlighted. JEL Codes: E02, F62, F63, O15, O43
Future Prospects of the Gravity Model of Trade: A Bibliometric Review (1993–2021)
The gravity model of trade (GMoT) has become popular among practitioners and academics lately, essentially because of its power to provide a comprehensive explanation of real-world trade data. Complementing this are Viner’s concepts of trade creation (TC) and trade diversion (TD), which have been crucial in the development of a conceptual framework for evaluating the trade implications of a trade agreement. This article attempts to conduct a bibliometric analysis for estimating TC and TD using the GoMT. It has been observed that the TC and TD estimations following the use of the GoMT are few. Additionally, TC and TD estimations for free trade agreements (FTA) have been conducted, but not so much for regional trade agreements (RTA). As a result, a broad range of research can be conducted, especially given the recent dynamic environment for new RTAs. A bibliometric analysis was undertaken to evaluate the current level of research on GMoT. The search was conducted through Scopus where 648 documents were retrieved and examined. The article indicates key findings and discusses future research prospects. JEL: F10, F13, F14
Trade–Finance Nexus: The Centrality of the Quality of Institutions in Sub-Saharan African Leading Economies
The study examines the interaction effect of trade and institutional quality on financial sector development in 20 leading economies in sub-Saharan Africa selected based on 2018 GDP per capita ranking (top 20 richest economies by GDP per capita released by the IMF) over the period 2005–2020. Using system-generalised method of moments estimation, the results indicate that the effect of the interaction term of trade and regulatory quality on financial development is positive and significant. Further findings show unidirectional causality running from the interaction term to financial development, implying that the likelihood of trade enhancing financial development depends on the soundness of the regulatory framework. It is confirmed that the magnitude and direction of the effect of trade on financial development are sensitive to the quality of institutions. Therefore, the poor quality of regulations on business activities and financial services could undermine the salutary impact of trade on financial development. It is suggested that creating a conducive regulatory environment to improve the level of financial development is crucial for mitigating the potential impact of the weak institutional quality risks. This remains a significant prerequisite for having a competitive business environment, thereby stimulating the role of trade in the process of financial development.