Linkage between international trade and economic growth in GCC countries: Empirical evidence from PMG estimation approach

This paper explores the empirical evidence of the links between economic growth and openness to international trade by controlling for auxiliary variables in the model for the six Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries over the annual sample period 1980-2010. After testing for cointegration based on a recent bootstrap panel test, we employ the Pooled Mean Group (PMG) estimation technique of M.H. Pesaran, Y. Shin, and R. Smith (1999. "Pooled Mean Group Estimation of Dynamic Heterogeneous Panels". Journal of the American Statistical Association 94: 621-634) that is appropriate for drawing sharper conclusions in dynamic heterogeneous panels by considering long-run equilibrium relations. The results show evidence of cointegration relationship between the variables of interest, and reveal that economic growth responds positively to trade openness over both the short run and long run. The evidence is robust to using various trade openness measures and to alternative model specifications, suggesting thus the non-fragility of the linkage between economic growth and openness to international trade for the GCC region. Our findings are then promising and support the view that economic growth is directly and robustly linked to trade openness for the GCC countries.