An econometric analysis of Zimbabwe's export competitiveness

الملخص EN

The purpose of this article is to analyze the impact of real effective exchange rate (REER), terms of trade (ToT), labour productivity, and cost to export, quality of infrastructure and state of innovation and technology on value of exports for Zimbabwe for the period 2005 - 2015.

The study applies the gravity model in general and the Poisson Pseudo Maximum Likelihood (PPML) estimation in particular to determine the impact of the above mentioned variables on the performance of Zimbabwean exports.

The above variables are incorporated into the standard gravity that has explanatory variables namely gross domestic product, per capita gross domestic product, distance and two dummy variables.

Results from the regression confirm that REER, GDP, per capita GDP, regional trading arrangement, infrastructure and innovation and technology have a positive significance in boosting Zimbabwe’s export competitiveness while cost to export, labour productivity, common official language, ToT and distance have a negative effect.

The results imply that Zimbabwe has to improve on the variables that negatively affect the value of exports and ultimately their competitiveness.