Does inward remittance lead to export performance in South Asian countries?

Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to empirically investigate whether inward remittance leads to export performance in selected South Asian economies over the time period of 1993–2017. Design/methodology/approach - The stationarity of the variables is checked by Levin, Lin and Chut, Breitungt-stat., Im, Pesaran and ShinW-stat., ADF–Fisher and Philips–Perron–Fisher panel unit root tests. Panel Granger Causality is used to verify the short-run causality. Pedroni’s, Kao’s and Johansen–Fisher panel cointegration approaches are employed to examine the long-run relationship among the variables. Panel VECM is used to confirm the existence of a long-run relationship among the variables. Findings - Panels FMOLS and DOLS show that remittance inflows have negatively impacted the export performance of the selected South Asian countries during the study period. Granger Causality and VECM test confirm the existence of short-run and long-run relationship among the variables. The authors conclude that inward remittance is affecting export performance negatively during the study period. Furthermore, inward remittances occupy a major source of development finance for selected South Asian countries. Originality/value - The study uses a dynamic macroeconomic modeling framework to assess the inward remittance on export performance in South Asian countries. Taking into account the diversity of the level of growth experienced by the five countries in the Asian region, the study uses an appropriate regression technique, i.e. panel dynamic OLS whose results are robust. As exports are a proven way to further economic growth, this study fills a vital gap in the literature by ascertaining the degree of impact of remittances in influencing outbound exports from the South Asian region.