Technological Convergence and Trade Patterns

Robert Stehrer and Julia Wörz
Authors registered in the RePEc Author Service: Julia Maria Woerz ()

No 19, wiiw Working Papers from The Vienna Institute for International Economic Studies, wiiw

Abstract: Casual evidence suggests that emerging and developing countries are often gaining market shares in world exports in technology-intensive sectors in the course of development. On the other hand textbook trade theory would suggest that these countries specialize in lower-tech industries. The reason for this is the assumption that the technology gap in these industries is lower and thus under the further assumption of equal wage rates across industries the developing countries have a comparative advantage in the lower-tech industries. In this paper we take a dynamic view on development and trade integration and distinguish three types of catching-up processes (the 'continuous convergence approach', the 'climbing up the ladder approach' and the 'jumping-up approach'). Using data for 25 countries and 32 industries we empirically analyse the different patterns of catching up over the period from 1981 to 1997. Further we discuss linkages between technological convergence, dynamics of comparative advantage and trade patterns.

Keywords: catching up; dynamics of comparative advantage; trade and technology (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: F14 L6 O10 O14 O30 O41 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2001-10
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Published as wiiw Working Paper

Downloads: (external link)
https://wiiw.ac.at/technological-convergence-and-trade-patterns-dlp-518.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: Technological convergence and trade patterns (2003)
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:wii:wpaper:19

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
https://wiiw.ac.at

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in wiiw Working Papers from The Vienna Institute for International Economic Studies, wiiw Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Customer service ().