Sectoral Co-Integration and the Role of Agriculture in Bangladesh

This study estimates a Vector Error Correction Model (VECM) that incorporates the linkages among the agriculture, industry, construction, transport, storage and communication and service sectors for Bangladesh by using historical data from 1979 to 2009. Two cointegrating vectors confirm that all the different sectors moved together over the sample period, and therefore that their growth rates are interdependent. The long-run relationships of the industrial, construction, transport, storage and communication and service sectors to the agricultural sector were established, and the results show that the industrial and construction sectors contribute positively to the agricultural sector, the growing service sector contributes negatively and the transport, storage and communication sector shows mixed results. In addition, weak exogeneity for the agricultural sector is rejected and this underlines the fact that the agricultural sector should be considered by policymakers in any analysis of inter sector growth.