Trade Openness and Economic Growth Can We Estimate the Precise Effect?

While various theoretical models predict that openness to international trade accelerates productivity and promotes economic growth, the empirical evidence has been mixed or imprecise. This paper investigates the issue using two panel data sets: one of 56 countries covering the period 1951-1998, and another of 105 countries over 1960-1997. The results show that the effect of trade openness on economic growth is positive, permanent, statistically significant, and economically sizable. This effect is robust across the two data sets used and a number of different estimation methods and lag lengths. Specifically, it is shown that increasing trade (exports plus imports) as a fraction of GDP by 10 percentage points, permanently increases the real growth rate of GDP per capita by 0.25 to 0.3 percent