Product diversification, relative specialisation and economic development: Import–export analysis

Abstract

Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen:Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden.Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen.Sofern die Verfasser die Dokumente unter Open-Content-Lizenzen (insbesondere CC-Lizenzen) zur Verfügung gestellt haben sollten, gelten abweichend von diesen Nutzungsbedingungen die in der dort genannten Lizenz gewährten Nutzungsrechte. Terms of use: Documents in AbstractThis paper contributes to trade diversification literature by comparing changes in relative (i.e. assessed in comparison with world patterns) heterogeneity of import and export structures in the process of economic development. In particular, by focusing on the diversification of imports, we add a missing piece to already analysed export trends. We use highly disaggregated trade statistics (4963 product lines) for 163 countries and find that, despite differences in levels (imports being typically more diversified than exports, particularly at lower stages of economic development), they follow a similar path of evolution in the development process. Progressing relative diversification (despecialisation) of both import and export structures accompanies economic growth, while re-specialisation is plausible only in case of few specific countries (very rich, small ones, abundant in oil/petrol). We also show that even though while diversifying countries increase the degree of importexport similarity in terms of product categories, imported and exported goods differ in terms of within-product characteristics.

Adjustment mechanisms of Greek regions in export activity during the economic crisis of 2008–2012

“…In the case of exports, the structure of a region (in the sense of the composition of its export basket) is determined by the variety (range) and the kind (level of quality, value incorporated) of the export products. These features are defined mainly from the specialization and sophistication pattern of each economy (Hallak & Schott, 2011;Parteka & Tamberi, 2013) and their changes signify shifts at the extensive margin of exports. 1 Their structure define the growth of exports in regions (Cheptea et al, 2014), while greater contribution is pointed out by several studies from the change at either the extensive margin (Hummels & Klenow, 2005;Pham & Martin, 2007) or the intensive margin (Brenton & Newfarmer, 2009), a fact that is probably resulted from the usage of different methodological approaches (levels of disaggregation or types of regression models, Hesse, 2009).…”

Export diversification and economic development: A dynamic spatial data analysis

“…Export data are drawn from the United Nations Commodity Trade Statistics Database (UN Comtrade database, retrieved through the WITS database) at the highest level of disaggregation available for international comparisons (5,016 product lines) in the Harmonized System of goods classification . In line with Cadot et al () and Parteka and Tamberi (), we use mirrored exports.…”

“…Given that we are interested in the links between countries and dependence between their trade structures, we choose to assess each country's export composition with respect to the overall trend (referring each country's degree of export diversity to other countries). Hence, following the empirical literature on the topic (De Benedictis et al, ; Parteka & Tamberi, ; Mau, ), we employ relative measures of diversification. Specifically, the Relative Theil entropy index ( RelTheil ) is our preferred measure and is computed for each time period as: where are the shares of the exports ( x ) of product j ( j = 1,2,…, m ) in the total exports of country i ( i = 1,2,…., n ) and is the average share of product j in total world exports…”

“…Diversification paths during the process of economic development is a topic that has attracted the attention of many economists (Imbs & Wacziarg, ; Koren & Tenreyro, ; Klinger & Lederman, ; Cadot, Carrère, & Strauss‐Kahn, ; Minondo, ; Parteka & Tamberi, ; Mau, ). Diversifying exports is one of the main strategies that a country may follow to reduce uncertainty (Di Giovanni & Levchenko, ; Koren & Tenreyro, ).…”

“…Some authors (Imbs & Wacziarg, ; Koren & Tenreyro, ; Klinger & Lederman, ; Cadot et al, ) argued that in the first stage, at low levels of income, growth goes in line with an increase in the level of diversification; however, once countries reach a certain level of income, further growth is accompanied by re‐concentration . Several scholars (De Benedictis, Gallegati, & Tamberi, ; Parteka, ; Parteka & Tamberi, ), however, show skepticism about the robustness of these patterns, correcting conventional, absolute measures of product diversity and find a nonlinear but monotonically decreasing trend reflecting progressive relative de‐specialization along the path of economic growth. More recently, Mau () has stressed that the above‐cited nonmonotonic hump‐shaped pattern is mainly due to an omitted log‐transformation of the income variable, as well as sample selection bias and lack of control variables.…”