The Effects of Terms of Trade on Economic Growth - Focusing on China and Asian Developing Countries -
This paper estimates the impact of terms of trade(TOT) on economic growth and inflation for seven Asian countries. We find that for China, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Pakistan, Philippines, the deterioration of TOT can promote economic growth. In the case of the improvement of TOT, the domestic price tends to decrease in Philippines and Turkey. In contrast, CPI in countries such as China, India, Indonesia, Malaysia and Pakistan rises because of the improvement of TOT. According to the results which are based on the VEC model, we can conclude when the TOT of China, Indonesia, Pakistan and Philippines is not so appropriate from the long-run equilibrium, the economy can also turn back to the equilibrium by error correction process. And there are statistically nonsignificant trends toward the influence of long-terms economic balance to real GDP per capita of India and Malaysia. As for the situation of CPI in India and Pakistan, when TOT is impacted, the economy can still turn back to the equilibrium by error correction process. But the adjustment coefficient of China, Philippines and Turkey is not so significant in statistics.