Exports and growth: a causality analysis for the pulp and paper industries based on international panel data

Abstract

This study examines the causal relations between exports and domestic production in the pulp and paper industries. The issue is whether exports are the engine of growth, or whether exports follow growth. The data were time-series of the 15 main exporting countries between 1961 and 1995. The method was Granger-causality analysis with error correction, based on models estimated in three ways: ordinary least squares by country, least squares with dummy variables (LSDV), and seemingly unrelated regression. Regardless of method, the strongest relation was an instantaneous (within a year) feedback between exports and production. The LSDV results implied average multipliers across countries of 1.2 to 1.4 from exports to production, and 0.20 to 0.25 from production to exports, in both industries. Experiments with monthly data on the pulp industries of Canada and the USA showed that temporal aggregation could affect the Granger-causality test results.