Openness and growth in Fiji: some time series evidence

Compared to many cross-country studies on the determinants of growth rate, time series works are relatively few and limited in scope. However, time series studies are useful for country-specific policies. But in many recent works ad hoc specifications have been used to analyse the contribution of various factors to growth. This article uses an improved specification to estimate the effects of openness on growth in a small open economy namely Fiji. In addition to trade openness, we include, as additional variables, the basic conditioning variables namely factor inputs into our specification. The need for the inclusion of some basic conditioning variables has been emphasized by Boswoth and Collins (2003) in their cross country studies. Our results show that trade openness and output are cointegrated. Neglecting the conditioning variables seems to lead to some overestimation of the effects of openness and at times a cointegrating vector may not exist.