Productivity and Export Performance of Emerging Asian Economies

Abstract

This study estimates the effect of productivity on export performance of selected sectors and countries. Specifically, this study analyzes both theoretically and empirically, the nexus between productivity and export performance of selected emerging Asian economies including China, India, Indonesia, South Korea, and Japan. Total Factor Productivity (TFP) is used as a proxy for productivity and measured using two different techniques, growth accounting framework and data envelopment analysis. The study uses Auto Regressive Distributed Lag technique to estimate the effect of productivity on export performance of agricultural and manufacturing sectors of emerging Asian economies over the period of 1990 to 2016. Results show that TFP significantly and positively affect the agricultural and manufacturing sectors’ export performance of selected emerging Asian economies both in long and short run. Hence, policies and economic strategies promoting adoption of advanced production technologies will increase exports of the emerging Asian economies in the long run.