Modelling Small Economy Exports: The Case of Singapore

This paper sheds further light on the debate spearheaded by Riedel (1988) on the specification of a small country export function. The theoretical and empirical analysis in the paper shows that while the price-taker assumption cannot be rejected, the export function for Singapore should not be construed as a standard export supply equation. As argued by Kapur (1983) instead, it is an export function with both demand and supply factors playing a role. We arrived at the final model specification by taking into consideration changes in the import content of exports over time. The paper also provides a new methodology for deriving a quarterly series of manu7facturing net capital stock.