Export   Performance   on   Landlocked  Developing   Countries:   A   Discussion   on  Ramesh  Paudel’s  Paper    

By  Manoj  K.  Pandey  

About  the  Paper  

Objec&ve   is   to   examine   the   determinants   of  export  performance  in  landlocked  developing  countries   and   compare   these   performances  with  other  developing  countries    

Approach  

1.  Augumented   Gravity   Model   Specifica&on:  Ln(Xij,t)=F(Ln(GDPi,t),   Ln(GDPj,t),   Ln(Disij),   RERi,t,  Ln(PCGDPi,t),   Ln(PCGDPj,t),   D_LANij,t,   D_BORij,t   ,  Rela&ve   Factor   Endowmenti,t,   D_Openi,t,  AFLLOCKj,t)  

2.  Focus  only  on  Non-­‐oil  exports  for  Landlocked  and  other  developing  countries  

Approach  

3.  Empirical  Evidences:  Cross-­‐country  data   from  developing   countries   over   the   period  1995-­‐2010  (15  year  panel)  

4.  Econometric  methods:  POLS,  RE,  FE,  Hausman  and  Taylor  IV  (HT),  Poisson  Pseudo  Maximum  Likelihood  (PPML)  

Key  Results  

1.  LLDCs’   export   performance   seems   poor   as  compared  to  ODCs.    

2.  Among   LLDCs’,   export   performance   ma`er  more  to  the  poorer  countries  

3.  Distance  deter  the  exports  4.  African  LLDCs  are  at  par  with  other  LLDCs  

Grey  Areas  A.    Use  of  Proper  model  specificaIon  

1.  Mo&va&on  behind  choice  of  only  non-­‐oil  exports  is  not  very  clear?  

2.  Popula&on  of  export  countries  and  their  partner  countries  are  not  included  (supply  and  demand  side)??  

3.  Why    Log  of  GDP  and  Log  of  PCGDP  are  used  together  in  the  same  model?  Mathema&cally,  log(GDP)  and  log(GDP/Popula&on)  is  connected  as  b1  log(GDP)  +b2  log(GDP/Popula&on)  =(b1+b2)log(GDP)  -­‐b2log(Pop)  

4.  Table  7,  8:  why  interac&on  of  landlocked  dummy  and  GDP  of  own  country  and  GDP  of  partner  country  are  not  used  together  in  the  model?  

Grey  Areas  

B.  Econometric  Results  

1.  RFE   =|Import   Country   GDP-­‐Export   Country  GDP|??   In   Table   7,   I   am   not   sure   how   to  explain  –ve  sign  of  RFE?  

2.  Table  8,  signs  of  percapita  GDP   is  not  same   in  HT  (+ve)  AND  PPML  (-­‐ve).  Why  it  is  so?  

3.  Table   9,   what   is   the   actual   (aier   adjus&ng  interac&on   term)   coefficient   of   Landlocked  dummy  in  4th  PPML  model?  

4.  Table   10,   sign   of   partner’s   per   capita   GDP   is  not  consistent  in  different  models’  

Final  Comment  The   paper   contributes   to   the   empirical  

literature   by   using   Gravity   model  framework   to   examine   determinants   of  Non-­‐oil  exports  and  compare  performances  of   LLDC’s   with   the   ODCs   based   on   panel  data  econometric  methods.  However,  most  of   the   determinants   look   obvious,   some   of  results  are  not  robust  and  overall  the  paper  lacks  in-­‐depth  analysis  on  the  policy  front.    

Thank  You