Trade-led growth hypothesis in Cuban commercial regimes since 19601,2

This study examines the impact of trade on Cuban growth during different commercial policy regimes spanning the period from 1960 up to 2004, encompassing two essential economic structural transformations: the Cuban revolution and the fall of the Berlin Wall. For this purpose, the Granger causality is used by means of the modified Wald test for augmented-level vector autoregressive model with integrated and cointegrated processes introduced by Toda and Yamamoto (1995) and Dolado and Lutekepohl (1996). We show an import-led growth hypothesis during the Soviet-oriented pattern that is rejected after 1990, when exports are not only responsive to growth expansion but also to imports’ behaviour.