EXPORTS,EXPORT COMPOSITION AND GROWTH: A SIMULTANEOUS ERROR-CORRECTION MODEL FOR TUNISIA

The export-economic growth relationship has been dealt with in several empirical studies concerning cross-section and time series data. Although this research has contributed to measure the impact of exports on economic growth, it still has three main drawbacks. First, the studies on cross-section data suppose homogeneous production techniques for the countries involved. Second, most of the research introduces a bias in the estimation of the export impact on economic growth since it neglects all effects of simultaneity between these two variables. Finally, most of the estimated regressions in these studies may constitute ‘spurious‘ regressions since the analysis of the stationarity of the variables is missing. This paper considers the Tunisian case and tries to study the dynamics between growth and exports through a simultaneous error correction model. The study shows the presence of a positive and significant relationship between exports and economic growth driven by manufactured exports rather than food-processing exports and international tourism. The measurement of such a relationship is understated if the simultaneity between export expansion and G.D.P growth is ignored. C 32, C 51, C 52, F 43]