Estimation Of The Marshall-Lerner Condition For Namibia

Abstract

According to the Marshall-Lerner condition, the sum of trade elasticities should be greater than one for a change in exchange rate to have an impact on the country’s balance of payments. This paper applies cointegrated vector autoregression to empirically estimate the Marshall-Lerner condition in Namibia. The main purpose is to test the impact of change in exchange rate on the trade balance. The paper investigates if trade elasticities are high enough in order to justify a change in exchange rate as an appropriate policy to improve the trade balance of the balance payments. The results indicate that world income has a positive effect on exports, while real exchange rate appreciation discourages exports. Imports respond positively to both domestic income and real exchange rate appreciation. The results indicate that imports and exports respond significantly to a change in the exchange rate and suggest that Marshall-Lerner condition holds for Namibia.