Estimating Import Demand Function for the United States

This paper aims to empirically examine the short-run and long-run aggregate demand for the US imports using quarterly economic data for the period 2000-2018 including aggregate imports, final expenditure components, gross fixed capital formation and relative price of imports. According to the results of both multivariate co-integration analysis and error correction model, the above variables are all cointegrated and significant differences are found to exist among the long-run partial elasticities of imports as regards different macro components of final expenditure. Partial elasticities with respect to government expenditure, gross fixed capital formation, exports and relative price of import are found to be positive while imports seems to respond negatively to changes in private consumption, implying that an increase in private consumption could result in a significant reduction in demand for imports in the long run. With regard to the relative import prices, the results appear to indicate a relatively insignificant influence on the aggregate imports in the US in the long run. However, an error correction model designed for predicting the short-term variability shows that only exports have an impact on the imports in the short run.