Export Sophistication

This paper contributes to the recent research on "export sophistication", or the composition of a country's export portfolio. The central question of the current study is what determines a country's level of export sophistication. I argue that a synergetic relationship between state and society positively contributes to the level of export sophistication. The logic behind the argument is that the socially optimal level of investment in new products can only be realized if both the firm and the government find it individually profitable to carry out the investment. In cases whereby either or both lacks private incentive to invest, higher synergy between public and private sectors makes such joint investments more likely to occur. This logic is formally illustrated using a simultaneous game with incomplete information. The central hypothesis is tested using time series cross-sectional data. The key empirical novelty of this paper is the construction of a "synergy index" based on Peter Evans' conceptualization of the term. Overall, the data give good support to the hypothesis. This relationship is particularly robust for the subsample of countries with intermediate levels of synergy. Furthermore, there is evidence suggesting that state-society synergy is subject to diminishing returns as its values get higher.

Export sophistication, which means producing and exporting goods that are more sophisticated and have more value-added, along with economic freedom can influence economic growth in different countries through technological improvement, increasing expertise and encouraging innovation. This study examines the effects of export sophistication and economic freedom as factors that influence economic growth in a selection of oil-exporting countries. To meet this end, the export sophistication index is calculated based on Hausman et al. (2007) for period 1998 to 2017. The results indicate that, due to high share of oil and gas in the export basket, the sophistication of exported goods in the select countries is relatively low. However, this index has a positive significant effect on economic growth of select countries with a coefficient of 0.41. The economic freedom index in select countries is close to the global averages and its effect on economic growth is significant and positive with a coefficient of 0.06. Other control variables such as human capital, financial development and gross capital formation are also found statistically significant. Our findings confirm the need for planning to increase sophistication of exports. To achieve this end, apart from producing and exporting goods that are more sophisticated, the development of oil and gas downstream industries, which are capable of producing complex and high value-added goods, should be on the agenda.

This paper investigates whether inflows of FDI and innovative activities act as a channel of knowledge spillovers in improving quality of countries' output. In measuring export quality, sophistication of a country's export basket is utilized. Utilizing panel data of countries for the period 2002-2015 and applying GMM methodology, the results indicate that the level of financial development, the quality of human capital and globalization of a country have a determinant role on the relation between knowledge spillover channels and the quality of exports. Patent applications generally positively affect sophistication of exports. FDI serves as a channel for knowledge spillovers to benefit the sophistication level of exports only for developed, more educated, financially developed and globalized countries.