Empirical analysis of import demand behavior of least developed countries

This paper examines the long-run stability of import demand function in Least Developed Countries (LDC) using recently developed panel cointegration techniques. We test for cointegration using two data sets: a) annual data for 15 countries between 1965 and 2004 and b) annual data for 22 countries between 1984 and 2004. We find that cointegration is present and that, indeed, there is a stable import demand function in these economies. The income elasticity ranges from 1.26 to 1.69 and price elasticity ranges from -0.72 to -0.75.