Abstract
Current study quantifies the Unexplored Export Potential (UEP) of Medical,
Surgical and Veterinary Instruments of Pakistan, to selected countries. It
confronts and resolves the issue of missing values, which is common at
disaggregate level research. To serve the purpose of quantification, this
study comparatively employs the Out-of-Sample projection approach, the In-
Sample projection approach and the Empirical Bayes (EB) method. Results
obtained through the Out-of-Sample projection approach indicate the
respective presence of more than US$1 million UEP to 10 importing partners
including Singapore, Netherlands, Saudi Arabia, Spain, Sweden, Poland,
Austria, Denmark, Kuwait, and Finland. The results obtained through In-
Sample projection approach indicate the respective presence of more than
US$1 million UEP to 4 importing countries i.e. Germany, Mexico, USA, and
Singapore. Similarly, the results obtained from EB method indicate the
respective presence of more than US$1 million UEP to Singapore,
Netherlands, Saudi Arabia, Spain, Sweden, Poland, Austria, Denmark,
Kuwait, and Finland. The Out-of-Sample and In-Sample projection
approaches are based upon OLS method. These estimates are not in line with
economic theory, in most of the selected countries’ cases. On the other hand,EB estimates are consistent with economic theory for all selected countries’
cases. Thus, UEPs that have been quantified through EB method are more
valuable to be trusted. This study is expected to assist the policy makers and
especially the Pakistani exporters in identifying the top important
destinations for export of selected instruments.
