Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/86503 
Authors: 
Year of Publication: 
2004
Series/Report no.: 
Tinbergen Institute Discussion Paper No. 04-059/2
Publisher: 
Tinbergen Institute, Amsterdam and Rotterdam
Abstract: 
This paper explores the link between trade structure, trade specialization and per capita incomegrowth. It is argued that industrial upgrading in export specialization patterns has a positive long-rungrowth effect, while the effect of structural change in industrial import patterns is in principleambiguous. A standard empirical growth model is augmented by various measures of structuralchange. The hypothesis that not trade per se matters, but that various types of trading activitiesimpact differently on economic growth is tested on a sample of 45 countries (OECD members andselected Asian and Latin American countries) over the period 1981-1997. The data set comprisesexports and imports for 35 manufacturing industries at the 3-digit level of the ISIC classificationwhich are grouped according to skill intensity. The results of the dynamic panel estimation pointtowards a positive long-run growth effect arising from trade specialization in medium-high-skill-intensive industries. Further, important distinctions between the skill intensity of export and importpatterns and their respective influence on economic development, as well as between the group ofdeveloping countries and OECD members are observed in this relationship.
Subjects: 
trade structure
Balassa specialization index
economic growth
spillovers
JEL: 
C23
F43
O19
O41
O57
Document Type: 
Working Paper

Files in This Item:
File
Size
184.24 kB





Items in EconStor are protected by copyright, with all rights reserved, unless otherwise indicated.