Modeling Trade–Employment Elasticity Nexus: Evidence from India

Abstract

The effect of trade on employment growth in India is a less-discussed issue in the international economics literature. Trade has increased the employment growth in India or not is still a debatable issue for many researchers. This study explores the impact of trade on India’s employment elasticity of growth using World development Indicator data of the World Bank and KLEMS database of India from 1982 to 2016. For this purpose, it has used the autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) model of cointegration. The result indicates that although the share of trade in the national gross domestic product (GDP) has grown, it has failed to increase employment elasticity in the country. It may occur primarily because of the high volume of Indian imports. The share of the service sector in GDP, inflation, and foreign direct investment (FDI) are other vital factors influencing the employment intensity. Therefore, based on the empirical findings, it is suggested that policymakers should focus more on export, specifically on labor-intensive export. It will undoubtedly help to improve the employment level in the country.