Does trade drive global output growth?

Conventional econometric analysis suggests that there has been a longer-term relationship between nominal world output and nominal world exports. The analysis says something about the rules governing adjustments in world output and exports. It appears that GDP plays the first fiddle. Rising world output seems to have pushed up world exports. But rising world exports do not seem to have resulted in positive changes in global GDP. The global growth slowdown, observed since the early 1970s, may have been linked to the steady expansion of global trade.