Similarity and Income Content at the International Trade: The Case of BRICs during the Period 2000/09

This study aimed to calculate the patterns of similarity and income content of Brazilian, Russian, Chinese and Indian exports by means of indexes, and compare those patterns with those of OECD countries, covering a period between 2000 and 2009. The results indicate that Brazilian, Russian, Chinese and Indian exports became more similar between 2000 and 2006, but that similarity has declined ever since. Exports from China and India, in turn, are increasingly similar to each other and less different from the exports of OECD countries. Export sophistication has increased over the years, with higher growth rates in China and India. India and Russia's sophistication indexes surpassed that of Brazil in 2007, which signal that those countries currently export products with higher content of income. The study also indicated that Brazil has been losing market share for China and India as an exporter of sophisticated products.