the export-productivity relation-ship: a time series representation for austria

summary (introduction): the causes of the wide variation in growth rates between countries have been debated by theorists of economic growth. different studies have shown these disparities between growth rates to be only in part explainable by different rates of increase in the employment of the basic factors of production, capital and labour (solow 1957, denison 1967). the main conclusion to be drawn from these studies is that the diversity in growth rates between countries was largely caused by different rates of increase in productivity per unit of factor input. the observed positive association between productivity growth and export growth led to two contrasting causal hypotheses. the first assumes technical change and productivity to be largely induced by demand prospects via export growth, which is initially autonomous. the second considers technical change and productivity to be mainly autonomous in the sense of being relatively independent of export demand and it is then the rate of growth of exports which is determined by supply factors like technical innovation. the direction of causation between exports and technical change has important implications for the way economic policy can stimulate growth. while the export-productivity link given by the export-led growth model suggests a demand policy to push exports up, e.g. by a depreciation of the exchange rate, the link described by the technology based international trade models considers supply measures like encouragement of r&d expenditures, subsidies for investments in innovation etc. as more effective to stimulate growth. this paper explores with austrian data which of the above hypotheses are compatible with the observed movements between exports, productivity and the terms of trade. for that purpose, the causal ordering between exports, productivity, and the terms of trade will be identified on the basis of granger's concept of causality and the dynamic characteristics of the series will be shown by simulations with exogenous shocks. a considerable number of time series studies in recent years has concentrated on the investigation of the causal relationship between money and income (pioneered by sims 1972, on the one hand and the causation between employment and the real wage on the other (sargent 1978, neftci l978, geary/kennan 1982, ashenfelter and card 1982). in these fields of application, causality tests were also performed with austrian data (handler 1985, neusser 1986, winckler/kunst