Export quality and economic growth in the 2000s: new empirical evidence

This paper examines the relationship between composition of exports and economic growth for a large set of countries, between 2000 and 2013, following the assumption that the technological structure of exports has important implications for economic development. The paper builds an index of exports quality, based on the classification by technological intensity: primary products, resource-based manufactures, low-tech, medium-tech and high-tech manufactures. Then, we estimate the relationship between quality of exports and economic growth by using panel data analysis. The results suggest that the export quality index is highly significant to explain economic growth. Between 2000 and 2008, booming demand for commodities benefited exporters of primary products and resource-based manufactures, and lower export quality is associated with higher rates of economic growth. For 2009-2013, in turn, results confirm what is expected by theory and suggest that export structures with higher technological content have brought about positive effects on economic performance.