Documento de trabajo
Export diversification and growth in emerging economies
Fecha
2007Registro en:
Series Documentos de Trabajo, No. 233 Marzo, 2007
Autor
Agosín Trumper, Manuel
Institución
Resumen
This paper develops and tests a model of growth in that emphasizes the introduction of new
export as the main source of growth in countries that are far within the world technological
frontier and that depend for growth on adapting existing products to their economic
environment. It seeks to capture the stylized facts behind growth in countries as different as
Korea, Taiwan, Mauritius, Finland, China, and Chile, all of which have depended on export
diversification for their growth. Thus the widening of comparative advantage is seen as the main
force behind economic growth. The hypothesis of export diversification is tested with an
empirical growth model. Controlling for other variables that affect growth, export
diversification, alone and interacted with per capital export volume growth, is found to be
highly significant in explaining per capita GDP growth over the 1980-2003 period.