SDT 233 EXPORT DIVERSIFICATION AND GROWTH IN EMERGING ECONOMIES Autor:

Resumen This paper develops and tests a model of growth in that emphasizes the introduction of new export as the main source of growth in countries that are far within the world technological frontier and that depend for growth on adapting existing products to their economic environment. It seeks to capture the stylized facts behind growth in countries as different as Korea, Taiwan, Mauritius, Finland, China, and Chile, all of which have depended on export diversification for their growth. Thus the widening of comparative advantage is seen as the main force behind economic growth. The hypothesis of export diversification is tested with an empirical growth model. Controlling for other variables that affect growth, export diversification, alone and interacted with per capital export volume growth, is found to be highly significant in explaining per capita GDP growth over the 1980-2003 period. 1 I am grateful for the able research assistance of Alfie Ulloa and Alejandro Támola. I acknowledge the useful comments made by Robert Devlin and Roberto Bouzas. Ricardo Ffrench-Davis read the manuscript thoroughly and made suggestions that improved it significantly. Summary: This paper develops and tests a model of growth in that emphasizes the introduction of new export as the main source of growth in countries that are far within the world technological frontier and that depend for growth on adapting existing products to their economic environment. It seeks to capture the stylized facts behind growth in countries as different as Korea, Taiwan, Mauritius, Finland, China, and Chile, all of which have depended on export diversification for their growth. Thus the widening of comparative advantage is seen as the main force behind economic growth. The hypothesis of export diversification is tested with an empirical growth model. Controlling for other variables that affect growth, export diversification, alone and interacted with per capital export volume growth, is found to be highly significant in explaining per capita GDP growth over the 1980-2003 period.Davis read the manuscript thoroughly and made suggestions that improved it significantly. I am also thankful to my colleagues in the Department of Economics, who made good suggestions for improvement during a presentation to the Department's weekly seminar series.