Do Bangladesh and Sri Lanka Enjoy Export-Led Growth? A Comparison of Two Small South Asian Economies

Abstract

The export-led growth (ELG) hypothesis suggests that there is a strong positive linear relationship between a country’s exports and economic growth. For many years, theoretical and empirical studies have examined the causal relationship between exports and economic growth and found that this relationship is one of interdependence rather than of unilateral causation. The purpose of this article is to empirically re-examine the ELG hypothesis in the context of two small South Asian countries: Bangladesh for the period of 1980–2011 and Sri Lanka for the period of 1984–2011. Using a model that controls for a host of domestic and international factors, this article tests the ELG hypothesis by employing the Auto Regressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) bounds test for cointegration and the Granger causality tests. The empirical results confirm the validity of the ELG hypothesis for both Bangladesh and Sri Lanka.