Export transitions

Roberto Alvarez

The Journal of International Trade & Economic Development, 2011, vol. 20, issue 2, 221-250

Abstract: This paper uses a broad multi-country dataset to describe the main stylized facts about export performance in the last four decades. First, transition probability matrices are computed to look at changes in the position of countries at the world distribution of the export to GDP ratio. It finds that transitions toward high export ratios have been mainly experienced by Asian countries, but also that some reformers, like Mexico and Chile, have been able to improve their position relative to other studied economies. African countries mainly sunk to the bottom part of the world distribution, although they constitute only half of the economies with relatively bad export performance. In the consideration of the structural factors that may play an important role for long-run transitions, the results suggest that more open economies and those with better institutions are more likely to move to high export ratios in the long-run. Second, the within-country experiences are analyzed for identifying episodes of export transitions. Using an event study methodology, a very weak association is found between export transitions and investment rate. In contrast, the results suggest that transitions are potentially driven by improvements in financial development. Finally, favorable terms of trade, increments in productivity, and reductions in exchange rate distortions are not found to be a catalyst for export transitions.

Keywords: export performance; transition; institutions; trade policy (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2011
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/09638199.2011.538229 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
Working Paper: Export Transitions (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:taf:jitecd:v:20:y:2011:i:2:p:221-250

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.tandfonline.com/pricing/journal/RJTE20

DOI: 10.1080/09638199.2011.538229

Access Statistics for this article

The Journal of International Trade & Economic Development is currently edited by Pasquale Sgro, David E.A. Giles and Charles van Marrewijk

More articles in The Journal of International Trade & Economic Development from Taylor & Francis Journals
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Longhurst ().