Do exports and domestic prices influence aquaculture shrimp production: Evidence from the key South and Southeast Asian countries

Abstract

In recent years, shrimp aquaculture has become one of the most promising and fastest-growing aquaculture industries in providing aquatic food globally. In comparison with other aquatic products, shrimp plays an important role because of its high export value and self-employment opportunities provided for farmers and stakeholders along its value chain in developing countries. This study attempts to provide some insights into the export-agricultural growth nexus by considering the aquaculture shrimp industry. The objective of this paper is to analyze the effects of shrimp exports on aquaculture shrimp production over the period 1998–2022 for the major South Asia and Southeast Asian shrimp-producing countries. By using the cointegration approach and panel autoregressive (PVAR) model, empirical findings indicated that there is no causal relationship between the volume of shrimp aquaculture production, its exports, imports, and the domestic prices in the long run and the short run. In addition, the results of the PVAR approach did not show enough evidence to support the assumption that growth in shrimp exports can enhance growth in the production of aquaculture shrimp perhaps because of the small sample size or other plausible reasons. However, our findings evidence that exports rather than imports explain much of the variation in aquaculture shrimp production across time. Despite the limitations of evidence, hence suggesting the need of more data, these findings have some policy implications in providing insights to the governments in countries where aquaculture (shrimp industry) have considerable importance. Exploring all possible ways to increase or promote aquaculture shrimp production can help shrimp producers in South Asia and Southeast Asia countries and, by extension, all shrimp production countries globally. Evaluating the shrimp exports-production growth nexus or similar work to this current study could be carried out by incorporating more countries and variables over a much longer period.