Trade Liberalization and Economic Growth: The Scenario of the MINT Economies

This study investigated the impact of trade liberalization on economic growth for Mexico, Indonesia, Nigeria and Turkey from 1986 to 2020. The Autoregressive Distributed Lag Bounds approach to cointegration and Toda and Yamamoto causality test were utilized for this study. The long-run results revealed that there is no relationship between trade liberalization and real gross domestic product per capita except for Mexico and in this situation, the significance level was at 10%. The results of the causality test showed that no causality was detected between real gross domestic product per capita and trade liberalization for Mexico and Indonesia. A bidirectional causality between real gross domestic product per capita and trade liberalization was found for Nigeria whereas a unidirectional causality from trade liberalization to real gross domestic product per capita was revealed for Turkey. The no causality results for Mexico and Indonesia means that the policy objectives of trade liberalization and economic growth can be pursued independently in both economies. In addition, the bidirectional causality detected for Nigeria suggests that the policy objectives of trade liberalization and economic growth can be pursued together in Nigeria. Furthermore, the unidirectional causality from trade liberalization to real gross domestic product per capita found for Turkey implies that she employs trade liberalization policies effectively for objectives of economic growth, thus trade liberalization causes economic growth.