Empirical Studies on Exports and Development

There are a number of empirical studies on the relationship between exports and growth. These studies are conducted at two levels. One is at the macro level using aggregate country-level data (Michaely, 1977; Balassa, 1978, 1985;Krueger, 1978;Feder, 1983;Kavoussi, 1984;Jung and Marshall, 1985;Salvatore and Hatcher, 1991;Greenaway and Sapsford, 1994a, 1994b;Shan and Sun, 1998). Another group includes research at the micro level using firm-level data (Marin, 1992; Henriques and Sadorsky, 1996;Bernard and Jensen, 1997, 1999; Yamada, 1998; Liu, Tsou and Hammitt, 1999;and Aw, Chuang and Roberts, 2000). Despite the enormous amount of literature, the empirical results are controversial and inconclusive. Here we review this literature and identify issues for study in the context of China.