This study surveys the literature on the relationship between international trade and economic growth, and succinctly reviews the role of GATT/WTO in fostering free trade. Most studies support the gains of trade and recognise the substantive contributions of GATT/WTO in fostering free trade; the evidence is, however, not ubiquitously unambiguous. The macroeconomic evidence provides a dominant support for the positive and significant effects of trade on output and growth, while the microeconomic evidence lends larger support to the exogenous effects of productivity on trade, as compared to the effects of trade on productivity. The GATT/WTO remains surrounded by barriers to trade and avowed preferences for preferential trade agreements. The strength of the argument for the gains of trade needs to be evaluated in juxtaposition with several methodological and measurement issues that surround the trade-growth empirics. Most studies focus on partial equilibrium analysis of trade policy and ignore the general equilibrium aspects of macroeconomic policy. It is difficult to disentangle the effects of trade policies from those of other macroeconomic policies and unequivocally interpret the observed correlations between trade policies and economic growth. Trade is one of the several catalysts of productivity and growth and hence its contribution is contingent on its weight in economic activity.

This study examines the relationship between financial development and economic growth in India for the period 1951-52 to 1995-96. The long-run equilibrium and short-run dynamic models are estimated using financial interrelations ratio and new issue ratio as the measures of financial development, a la Goldsmith (1969). The Johansen (1991) estimator rejects the null of zero cointegrating vector and shows the presence of long-run equilibrium relationship between financial development and economic growth. The error correction model, impulse response and variance decomposition analyses (Sims, 1980), and the Toda and Yamamoto (1995) estimator show the presence of bidirectional Granger-causality between financial development and economic growth. The presence of bidirectional Granger-causality suggested by these estimators points towards the possible problem of endogeneity and simultaneity bias in the growth models that examine the contemporaneous effect of financial development on economic growth. The economic reforms that started since July 1991 emphasized on the liberalization and development of financial sector to supplement the efforts aimed at achieving high economic growth in India.

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This study estimates the balance of trade model similar to Rose (1991) to test the J-curve hypothesis and analyse the effect of conditional exchange rate volatility on the balance of trade in India. The model is estimated on quarterly data from 1975:02 to 1996:03 and the exchange rate is measured alternatively in terms of the trade and export weighted real effective exchange rate. The model variables are tied together in a long run equilibrium relationship. The study does not find any evidence for the presence of the J-curve effect in the balance of trade. The study finds the presence of weak ARCH but strong GARCH effects in the exchange rate series. But this exchange rate volatility does not play any significant role in affecting the balance of trade in India. Copyright Springer-Verlag 2004J-curve hypothesis, exchange rate volatility, balance of trade, error correction model,