Relationship between Exports, Economic Growth and Other Economic Activities in India: Evidence from VAR Model

In recent years, a significant number of empirical studies have examined the relationship between export and economic growth in India. However, this study analyses the relationship between exports and economic growth through the time series model. The main aim of this study is to investigate the causal relationship between exports and economic growth in India. The VAR model was used for the period 1961 to 2015 after verifying the stationarity of the variables through using Augmented Dickey-Fuller and Phillip-Perron tests. The Indian export sector has been found to have a significant and positive impact on economic growth and other long-term economic activities. The study also employed the Granger causality test to check the direction of causality and found that RXGS, RGDP, RPFC, and RGFC had a unidirectional relationship and RXGS and RMGS had a bidirectional relationship in long run. Also, the findings of this study suggest that a steady-state between exports and economic growth can be achieved in India over a long period. The overall outcome of this study provides a testimony of the fact that the export sector plays a vital role in economic growth in India and also leads to the long-term growth of other economic activities.