VIETNAMESE- DUTCH PROJECT FOR M. PROGRAMME IN DEVELOPMENT ECONOMICS EXPORT INSTABILITY AND ECONOMIC GROWTH IN ASIAN DEVELOPING COUNTRIES TONG MINH TUAN September 2003 CERTIFICATE I certify that the substance of this dissertation has not already been submitted for any degree and is not being currently submitted for any other degree. I certify that to the best of my knowledge, any help received in preparing this dissertation, and all sources used, have been acknowledged in this dissertation. Tong Minh Tuan Date: September 91h, 2003 ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENT This thesis IS done under the Vietnamese-Dutch Project for Development Economics.
The author would like to thank the Netherlands for her Aid and Scholarship. A lot of praise goes to Dr Gabrielle Berman and Dr. Youdi Schipper for their comments for my thesis. I also would like to thank Dr.
Haroon Akram-Lodhi and Dr. Karel Jansen for their worthy academic teaching and methodology in doing thesis. Many thanks are also given to all project teachers and staff in HoChiMinh city, especially Mr. Tran Vo Hung Son, Michael Palmer, Ms.
Chi and Ms Dieu for their helping during the time I studied at the project. I am deeply indebted to my supervisor, Dr. Nguyen Khac Minh, who gave me instructions and comments during the writing of this thesis. I also thank to Dr.
Vu Thieu for his help in providing me a good source of references from Vietnamese- Dutch Project library in Hanoi. I have benefited from the discussions with many people and friends, especially my best friends Mr. Nguyen Xuan Nam, Dang Tai An Trang, who gave me many supports in doing the thesis. I also would like to thank to World Bank's staffs, who helped me in searching and collecting necessary documents in WB library in Hanoi.
Finally, I wish to express my gratitude and my love to my dad and mum for their spiritual encouragement and material support, they encourage me very much whenever I have difficulties in doing thesis. iii a ABSTRACT EXPORT INSTABILITY AND ECONOMIC GROWTH IN ASIAN DEVELOPING COUNTRIES TONG MINH TUAN HCM Economic University · September 2002 In this study, we look at the relationship between export stability and economic growth in Asian developing countries using panel data analysis. The database includes annual data for seventeen Asian developing countries over the 1986- 2000 period. In theory, this effect is ambiguous, and it is thought that there are no unique and systematic relationships in the causes or effects of export instability.
Our result found in the case of Asian developing countries is that there is a negative effect of real export instability on the growth. Specifically studying in composition of export commodity give us the conclusion that the biggest negative impact falls on countries which export manufacturing products and are relatively heavily concentrated in capital- intensive sectors, rather than on countries which mainly export primary products. The impact of export instability on Investment is also examined, and found negative but ambiguous. This result will bring some supports for the hypothesis that the negative effect of instability mainly works through reducing the export productivity of capital stock, rather than the level of investment.
iv TABLE OF CONTENTS CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION .2 SCOPE OF THE THESIS AND LIMITATION .3 OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY .4 METHODOLOGY AND DATA COLLECTION .5 THE STRUCTURE OF THE THESIS. 6 CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW .1 THEORETICAL BACKGROUND OF EXPORT INSTABILITY .1 EFFECTS OF EXPORT ON ECONOMIC GROWTH .1 Export is one of the sources of economic growth .2 Effects of Primary and manufactured export in Developing countries .2 THE ECONOMIC CONSEQUENCES OF EXPORT INSTABILITY IN DEVELOPING COUNTRIES .1 Macroeconomic consequences ofExport earnings instability .2 Micro consequences of Export earnings instability. 25 CHAPTER 3: MODEL SPECIFICATION AND DATA BASE .1 SOME SELECTED MODELS .3 JAME LOVE AND SINHA'S MEASUREMENT OF INSTABILITY .1 INDEX OF EXPORT INSTABILITY. 39 CHAPTER 4: THE EMPIRICAL RESULTS .2 THE ESTIMATED RESULTS OF THE MODEL .1 EXPORT INSTABILITY AND GDP GROWTH.
EXPORT INSTABILITY AND INVESTMENT. 54 vi LIST OF TABLES TABLE 1. SUMMARY OF THE EFFECTS OF VARIABLES IN THE MODELS. SUMMARY STATISTICS OF REGRESSION VARIABLES.
CORRELATION COEFFICIENTS OF REGRESSION VARIABLES, 249 OBSERVATION. REGRESSION RESULTS: THE IMPACT OF EXPORT INSTABILITY ON GROWTH - SPECIFICATION 1. REGRESSION RESULTS: THE IMPACT OF EXPORT INSTABILITY ON GROWTH - SPECIFICATION 2. REGRESSION RESULTS: THE IMPACT OF EXPORT INSTABILITY ON INVESTMENT- SPECIFICATION 1.
REGRESSION RESULTS: THE IMPACT OF EXPORT INSTABILITY ON INVESTMENT- SPECIFICATION 2. LIST OF FIGURE FIGURE 1. PLOTS OF SOME PAIRS OF VARIABLES APPEAR IN A SCATTERPLOT MATRIX. 46 vii Chapter 1: INTRODUCTION 1.1 Problem statement The issue of export instability m developing countries and less-developed countries has· always been a great field for theoretical and empirical studies.
Recent events have put the problem of export instability in an important concern. Some economists even consider instability as a major item affecting growth in several countries. In the past two decades, many development economists have been concerned about the negative effect that instability in export may have on the growth of developing countries (Koomsup, 1978). The sudden change of oil prices by the OPEC countries in 1973-74 causing balance of payments difficulties in most non-oil producing countries was an example.
Hence the issue of export instability has increased its important in international forums such as UNCT AD IV and the Conference of International Economic Cooperation (Koomsup, 1978:5). A major concern of developing countries is the problem of instability in their export of products (Begg, 1991 ). Many countries in Asia are developing countries, in which Vietnam is one. It is often said that export instability in developing countries is more severe than in developed countries, because many developing countries are usually exporters of primary products which are traded in a very volatile and unpredictable world market (Massell, 1964).
Primary products also have a tendency to decline in term of international price with increasing fluctuation in price over time (Begg, 1991 :636). Whether export instability has a negative effect on development in these developing countries? In addition, some countries have achieved high average ratio of export over GDP (Malaysia( 57%), Thailand(25%), HongKong(111 %), Korea(30%) in 1970-1994) (Ba,1996). So instability in export may lead to instability in GDP, and thus, in GDP growth in these countries. James Love(1992) undertook his study on export instability in developing countries and his conclusion was that Export instability increased between two periods of 1960-1971 and 1972-1984.
Whether such mcrease m Export instability deteriorates GDP growth in these countries? Because Vietnam is one of Asian developing countries which export lots of primary products, then what would be drawn for these countries in studying of export instability could also be useful for Vietnam. Furthermore, the adverse effects of export instability may be worse than for Vietnam than a developed economy since like a developing country, Vietnam lacks necessary tools and ability to deal the problem effectively. If the damage of instability could be easily recognized in Asian developing countries as well as in Vietnam, governments can reduce or eliminate the problem by doing something such as diversifying their export commodities, or reducing their dependence on a few markets. Some developing countries can also reduce the adverse effects of export instability on key economic variables by separating domestic price from fluctuations in world prices.
Recently Vietnamese government has followed a strategy of export-oriented in order to achieve the high economic growth rate like some successful NICs,(Ba, 1996), so this makes export play a more important role in developing the economy. Hence there is a need to know what the relationship between export instability and economic growth is. Export instability creates the uncertainty about the export eaming, and according to Keynes (1938), it has a negative impact on investment decisions and technological improvements. On the contrary, Friedman (1954) say that Export instability may lead to a decline in consumption and then, an increase in savings, thus economic growth may be higher.
Previous empirical studies so far also give different results: some studies find a positive relationship between export instability and economic growth, some other studies find a negative relationship between export instability and economic growth while some other studies find no relationship between export instability and economic growth (Sinha, 1999). While there is no consensus in generally finding of export instability effects on economic growth, it is therefore interesting to study this issue in Asian developing countries. The result obtained for Asian developing 2 countries will help us to know (i) first: what is the relationship between export instability and economic growth in countries which export lots of primary commodities like Asian developing countries, (ii) if is found that export instability does have a negative impact on economic growth, so we will know the significance of export, and the government has to follow a policy whereby such fluctuations can be smoothed out, (iii) which theoretical school is appropriate for the case of Asian developing countries. Therefore beside all of empirical studies listed above we need more research to know exactly the relationship in Vietnam and Asian developing countries.2 Scope of the thesis and limitation Empirical studies have also checked the existence of a negative relationship between export instability and economic growth, and some have provided support for a positive relationship.
Almost all previous studies have used a cross-countries approach alone, though in some studies researchers have relied on time-series approach. In this study we use an instability index that varies over time as well as across countries. We then investigate the impact of export instability on GDP growth by employing annual data for seventeen Asian developing countries over the period 1986- 2000. This research will focus on Asian developing countries and estimate over period of 1986-2000 to conclude that there is a negative effect which is sufficiently large for export instability to be a serious problem for developing countries.
Our study will then rely on panel data of 17 developing countries over the most recent period of 1986-2000. The study uses mostly secondary data collected from Word Bank or IMF statistics. On general problem with cross-country appro11ch is that it estimates average relationship and does not provide much information on th~ specific countries. The result of the study, therefore, will give only the general and common relationship which can be apply for Asian developing countries instead of a specific relationship in a given country like Vietnam.
It may be a limitation of this study. However, it is reason to believe that the conclusions drawn in our study may provide general guidelines of 3 some use in development planning by generating a better understanding of certain fundamental economic relationship. Furthermore it is still necessary to study because export performance of Vietnam is rather similar to those of some Asian developing countries in the early period (Ba,1996).3 Objectives of the study It is the relationship between export instability and economic growth in Asian developing countries that this study seeks to examine. The purpose for this is to know and compare the result from the case of Asian developing countries to that of other countries.
The research on Asian developing countries is particularly interesting because there have been considerable primary products in export of these countries The results from previous studies on export instability and economic growth are so far conflicting. They are different from study to study. Glezakos (1973) conclude that instabilities in export earnings are harmful to growth and income when studying in LDC's, but MacBean (1966), Coppock (1977) and Knudsen & Pams (1975) do not find any empirical evidence that there is a significant relation between export instability and such economic variables as investment, national income, and economic growth rate. Moran (1983) uses cross-section data for 30 countries (18 of them in Lantin America) to study the relationship between export fluctuation and economic growth.