Trade, growth and growth volatility: New panel evidence

This paper examines the relationships of trade with economic growth and growth volatility using the Chudik and Pesaran (2013) cross-sectionally augmented autoregressive distributed lag (CS-ARDL) panel data approach to account for the potential dynamic heterogeneity and cross-section dependency in the effects of trade. Some important results emerge. First, greater international trade, on average, promotes economic growth and amplifies growth volatility in the long run, and hence induces a positive long-run association between growth and growth volatility. Second, greater international trade stimulates economic activities and mitigates economic fluctuations, on average, in the short run, and therefore causes a negative short-run correlation between growth and growth volatility. And third, there is large heterogeneity in the effects of trade, depending upon a country's development level, financial system, macroeconomic policies, human capital, corruption, and labor regulation.