High-tech exports from developing countries: A symptom of technology spurts or statistical illusion?

Martin Srholec

No 20051215, Working Papers on Innovation Studies from Centre for Technology, Innovation and Culture, University of Oslo

Abstract: Specialization in high-tech products is frequently used to capture technology intensity of exports. The literature suggests that developing countries are increasingly becoming exporters of high-tech products, and some may even be among the most deeply specialized countries in the field of high-tech exports. The paper scrutinizes the relevance of the taxonomies that classify exports by technological intensity in this context. It is shown that specialization in high-tech exports typically does not appear in tandem with indigenous technological capabilities in developing countries. The analysis of intra-product imports suggests that the bulk of high-tech exports can actually be attributed to the effect of increasingly international fragmentation of production systems in electronics on trade statistics. It is confirmed in an econometric framework that while domestic technological capabilities have some influence on export performance in electronics, it is the propensity to import electronics components that accounts for by far the largest proportion of cross-country differences in specialization in electronics exports. The paper concludes with some implications for policy and future research.

JEL-codes: F10 O10 O30 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 39 pages
Date: 2005-12
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-dev, nep-ino and nep-int
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (13)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.tik.uio.no/InnoWP/0512_TIKwpINNOV_Srholec.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: High-Tech Exports from Developing Countries: A Symptom of Technology Spurts or Statistical Illusion? (2007)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:tik:inowpp:20051215

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Working Papers on Innovation Studies from Centre for Technology, Innovation and Culture, University of Oslo Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by H&kon Normann ().