Determinants of India's groundnut export performance: an empirical analysis

Purpose The growing importance of India's groundnut export in the world market stimulates research into this product. This article aims to econometrically investigate the impact of critical determinants on India's groundnut export performance over the long run and the short run. Design/methodology/approach This study employed an autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) model among the considered variables using annual time series data spanning over 3 decades from 1990 to 2020. Findings The results confirm that yield, production cost and trade openness have positive significant impact, while the export price has negative significant impact on groundnut export performance in the long run. In the short-run, market size, last year's yield, last year's trade openness and the current year's export price have significant negative impacts on India's groundnut exports. However, the findings of the study revealed that the current year's trade openness and last year's export price have a significant positive impact on India's groundnut export performance in the short run. Research limitations/implications The findings of this study offer some important policy implications for farmers, exporters and the government by indicating the key factors that can help improve the export performance of groundnut in the global market. Originality/value To the best of the author's knowledge, this research is the first of its kind that deploys the ARDL modelling approach to identify the factors that influence groundnut exports. Empirically, the study contributes to the existing literature by providing new insights on India's groundnut export performance. This research will also serve as a benchmark for assessing the product-level export performance of other agri-products.